Upping stakes - Things to consider?

[ruthlessimon]

P.S. ur part of the 9%, not 91%

here's a link to a fascinating article which you may wanna read. the guy has a 60% winrate, 2:1 risk reward, but is still a losing trader: https://shawnfx.wordpress.com/

[Trader_Tom]

65%+ strike rate, winners bigger than losers (good risk/reward) - sounds like you've got nothing to worry about mate. you're part of the 91% congratz!

however, there definitely becomes a point when raising stakes quickly will cause an effect on your psyche. this is where you need absolute faith in your methods/trade plan (having stacks of previous market data will massively help with this). the moment you take a loss/a few losses on big stakes you mustn't drop the stakes too vigorously, or it will really damage your p&l. risking only 1% of your bank per market is a good rule of thumb - as you lose your stakes will gradually decrease (but your bank is protected) & as you win more, your stakes gradually rise.

as the others have said - good money management (bank protection) is the no. 1! at the end of the day the best traders, are the ones who are the best risk managers.

"if you want to be here for the good days, you need to be here for all days!"

It may just be one of those "suck it and see" kind of things for me. I'm pretty aware of the psychological side of staking and why people over/under stake so all being well it won't be something I struggle with. I'm pretty sure I can stay emotionally unattached at £100 stakes. More than that, who knows? If I have to cross that bridge I think i'll just be happy I'm able to work with those sized stakes.

[Trader_Tom]

P.S. ur part of the 9%, not 91%

here's a link to a fascinating article which you may wanna read. the guy has a 60% winrate, 2:1 risk reward, but is still a losing trader: https://shawnfx.wordpress.com/

Oooooh, 9%! My mum always said I was special. I think that's why she put me in a "special" school

That article is great. All the stuff outlined there is the reason I was strict on myself to use £2 stakes, and only £2 for a while, even if my bank allowed more. I wanted to be able to look back over a few weeks and have a clear picture on my decision making. After all, how can I be confident in my trading enough to raise stakes if I'm looking at it going "Well, I used bigger stakes there and I got lucky" or "If I hadn't used bigger stakes there I wouldn't have this big loss".

I've made pretty much all the same mistakes new traders make but I've sorted them out fast after becoming aware of them. I think it's more a matter of pride than a money thing. I've won really badly executed trades and been annoyed at myself just as I've had very controlled losses that I was proud of. I always remember watching Mugs game making £100 and saying how much of a mess it was and how he was embarrassed by it. That is exactly how I tend to be haha.

The way I tend to try and progress is by taking advice and information from successful traders while also looking at unsuccessful ones and looking at why they don't make money. The problem sometimes is that the line is blurred sometimes. There's plenty of people who I've seen advice dished out from who I assumed were successful only to find out their trading was flawed in many many ways. One thing that sticks out like a sore thumb with any losing trader is the inability or unwillingness to fix their own problems. Some flat out convince themselves they are winning traders when their P&L say's otherwise. There is one particular thread on here that spanned several months where a trader kept making the same mistakes over and over again only to swear he would never do it again (which of course, they did). This has actually just prompted me to check my 3 month P&L. It's sat at £127.44 which I'm actually really happy about. I've not made a loss and I've learned plenty and not blown a single bank. It might be naive of me to say but I can't see myself ever blowing a bank unless something drastic happened.

Anyway, it appears I've gone on a bit of a ramble (again) haha.

Keep those replies coming people. I'd love to hear from some of the seasoned traders out there.

[Trader_Tom]

Thanks for that really comprehensive answer Tom it's much appreciated, I have been thinking about doing some recording of both races I do and do not trade, sounds like although it's boring it is a really good learning experience. I shall sort it out in the next day or two.

Decided to do a guide after reading your post. Check it out...

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13065

[dt888]

When I first started I played around for a few weeks getting used to the ladders etc then picked a day to start on £2 stakes

If I made a profit I raised my stakes by £1 the next day

If I made a loss I stayed on the same stake the next day.. and so on..

This progress was very slow but a great way to ensure you are comfortable with your stake size

In those early days the thought of clicking away with £200+ stakes scared the life out of me but 5 years on those sort of stakes are normal for me now.

Like has been said by many people, if you cant make consistant money with small stakes you sure wont with large ones.

And on a seperate note thinking about recent threads by people starting out and wondering the best way to go about it, for me its all about feel

There are many ways to approach it but for me I didnt start going through years worth of data looking for a set of rules where if exactly x happens then do exactly y and exactly z. I think those sort of approaches to find an edge often come to an end and if you only have one set of rules then you are back to square one. But I am not saying by any means that is the wrong thing to do, just thats not the approach I took.

I just watched thousands of markets over the months/years and started to get a feel of what was going to happen. Just loading up my screen full of numbers each day and watching those numbers move up and down the ladders, looking for patterns and seeing how one price influenced another etc..

Now each day I switch on I just do what I need to do in amongst those numbers to make money. That sounds very obvious but I am open minded to what is in front of me as each day can throw up so many different situations. After thousands of hours watching these numbers move you start to recognise things and learn to execute at exactly the right moments

Of course nobody gets it right every time but you dont need to be right every time

[Trader_Tom]

When I first started I played around for a few weeks getting used to the ladders etc then picked a day to start on £2 stakes

If I made a profit I raised my stakes by £1 the next day

If I made a loss I stayed on the same stake the next day.. and so on..

This progress was very slow but a great way to ensure you are comfortable with your stake size

In those early days the thought of clicking away with £200+ stakes scared the life out of me but 5 years on those sort of stakes are normal for me now.

Like has been said by many people, if you cant make consistant money with small stakes you sure wont with large ones.

And on a seperate note thinking about recent threads by people starting out and wondering the best way to go about it, for me its all about feel

There are many ways to approach it but for me I didnt start going through years worth of data looking for a set of rules where if exactly x happens then do exactly y and exactly z. I think those sort of approaches to find an edge often come to an end and if you only have one set of rules then you are back to square one. But I am not saying by any means that is the wrong thing to do, just thats not the approach I took.

I just watched thousands of markets over the months/years and started to get a feel of what was going to happen. Just loading up my screen full of numbers each day and watching those numbers move up and down the ladders, looking for patterns and seeing how one price influenced another etc..

Now each day I switch on I just do what I need to do in amongst those numbers to make money. That sounds very obvious but I am open minded to what is in front of me as each day can throw up so many different situations. After thousands of hours watching these numbers move you start to recognise things and learn to execute at exactly the right moments

Of course nobody gets it right every time but you dont need to be right every time

Sound advice right there =] Sounds like a slow and steady way to increase stakes. I may switch it up a little bit and make the increases a bit more relative to the amount though. I have buttons on my mouse which I use to change stakes so if I was to change my staking box to the right amounts then it should still feel natural too. I think I'll also decrease my stakes if I have 2 losing days in a row too. That way it will give me a visual representation of my progress.

I don't study tonnes of data simply because I don't really know how to. I'm trying to concentrate on one thing at a time for now and that is reading the markets. I've heard a lot of traders talk about "feeling" the market which I understand only really comes from time in front of a screen. This is why I started to record the days trades when I couldn't physically trade the markets in front of me.

I've had a decent amount of sleep this past 24hrs. Got up, had some breakfast and a shower and I'm sat at my computer now feeling 100% refreshed and alert which is very much unlike me considering my job as a greengrocer. I may be jumping the gun a little (well, a lot!) but I'd love to be able to make a living from trading and feel like this every day. I know that realistically, I never will and it was never my intention to go full time but a guy can dream right?

This is starting to look like less of a thread about scaling up stakes and more like just another "my trading journey" thread

[SeaHorseRacing]

When I first started I played around for a few weeks getting used to the ladders etc then picked a day to start on £2 stakes

If I made a profit I raised my stakes by £1 the next day

If I made a loss I stayed on the same stake the next day.. and so on..

This progress was very slow but a great way to ensure you are comfortable with your stake size

In those early days the thought of clicking away with £200+ stakes scared the life out of me but 5 years on those sort of stakes are normal for me now.

Like has been said by many people, if you cant make consistant money with small stakes you sure wont with large ones.

And on a seperate note thinking about recent threads by people starting out and wondering the best way to go about it, for me its all about feel

There are many ways to approach it but for me I didnt start going through years worth of data looking for a set of rules where if exactly x happens then do exactly y and exactly z. I think those sort of approaches to find an edge often come to an end and if you only have one set of rules then you are back to square one. But I am not saying by any means that is the wrong thing to do, just thats not the approach I took.

I just watched thousands of markets over the months/years and started to get a feel of what was going to happen. Just loading up my screen full of numbers each day and watching those numbers move up and down the ladders, looking for patterns and seeing how one price influenced another etc..

Now each day I switch on I just do what I need to do in amongst those numbers to make money. That sounds very obvious but I am open minded to what is in front of me as each day can throw up so many different situations. After thousands of hours watching these numbers move you start to recognise things and learn to execute at exactly the right moments

Of course nobody gets it right every time but you dont need to be right every time

Sound advice right there =] Sounds like a slow and steady way to increase stakes. I may switch it up a little bit and make the increases a bit more relative to the amount though. I have buttons on my mouse which I use to change stakes so if I was to change my staking box to the right amounts then it should still feel natural too. I think I'll also decrease my stakes if I have 2 losing days in a row too. That way it will give me a visual representation of my progress.

I don't study tonnes of data simply because I don't really know how to. I'm trying to concentrate on one thing at a time for now and that is reading the markets. I've heard a lot of traders talk about "feeling" the market which I understand only really comes from time in front of a screen. This is why I started to record the days trades when I couldn't physically trade the markets in front of me.

I've had a decent amount of sleep this past 24hrs. Got up, had some breakfast and a shower and I'm sat at my computer now feeling 100% refreshed and alert which is very much unlike me considering my job as a greengrocer. I may be jumping the gun a little (well, a lot!) but I'd love to be able to make a living from trading and feel like this every day. I know that realistically, I never will and it was never my intention to go full time but a guy can dream right?

This is starting to look like less of a thread about scaling up stakes and more like just another "my trading journey" thread

Negativitey will never get you anyway. I for one am telling you. If this is what you want to do. Go out there and do it.
What the eye can see the mind can achieve. Believe in yourself and work hard.
Just keep going buddy.
If I can offer any advice is keeping at it. Some poeple are delusioned to think they can make a living out of it in a few months. Unles you are a born gift thats unlikely but at the same time dont let people put you down.
Keep moving forward and I hope you succeed.
Even the greatest traders have come from a blank position like me and you. Its possible.

Best of luck buddy.

[Trader_Tom]

When I first started I played around for a few weeks getting used to the ladders etc then picked a day to start on £2 stakes

If I made a profit I raised my stakes by £1 the next day

If I made a loss I stayed on the same stake the next day.. and so on..

This progress was very slow but a great way to ensure you are comfortable with your stake size

In those early days the thought of clicking away with £200+ stakes scared the life out of me but 5 years on those sort of stakes are normal for me now.

Like has been said by many people, if you cant make consistant money with small stakes you sure wont with large ones.

And on a seperate note thinking about recent threads by people starting out and wondering the best way to go about it, for me its all about feel

There are many ways to approach it but for me I didnt start going through years worth of data looking for a set of rules where if exactly x happens then do exactly y and exactly z. I think those sort of approaches to find an edge often come to an end and if you only have one set of rules then you are back to square one. But I am not saying by any means that is the wrong thing to do, just thats not the approach I took.

I just watched thousands of markets over the months/years and started to get a feel of what was going to happen. Just loading up my screen full of numbers each day and watching those numbers move up and down the ladders, looking for patterns and seeing how one price influenced another etc..

Now each day I switch on I just do what I need to do in amongst those numbers to make money. That sounds very obvious but I am open minded to what is in front of me as each day can throw up so many different situations. After thousands of hours watching these numbers move you start to recognise things and learn to execute at exactly the right moments

Of course nobody gets it right every time but you dont need to be right every time

Sound advice right there =] Sounds like a slow and steady way to increase stakes. I may switch it up a little bit and make the increases a bit more relative to the amount though. I have buttons on my mouse which I use to change stakes so if I was to change my staking box to the right amounts then it should still feel natural too. I think I'll also decrease my stakes if I have 2 losing days in a row too. That way it will give me a visual representation of my progress.

I don't study tonnes of data simply because I don't really know how to. I'm trying to concentrate on one thing at a time for now and that is reading the markets. I've heard a lot of traders talk about "feeling" the market which I understand only really comes from time in front of a screen. This is why I started to record the days trades when I couldn't physically trade the markets in front of me.

I've had a decent amount of sleep this past 24hrs. Got up, had some breakfast and a shower and I'm sat at my computer now feeling 100% refreshed and alert which is very much unlike me considering my job as a greengrocer. I may be jumping the gun a little (well, a lot!) but I'd love to be able to make a living from trading and feel like this every day. I know that realistically, I never will and it was never my intention to go full time but a guy can dream right?

This is starting to look like less of a thread about scaling up stakes and more like just another "my trading journey" thread

Negativitey will never get you anyway. I for one am telling you. If this is what you want to do. Go out there and do it.
What the eye can see the mind can achieve. Believe in yourself and work hard.
Just keep going buddy.
If I can offer any advice is keeping at it. Some poeple are delusioned to think they can make a living out of it in a few months. Unles you are a born gift thats unlikely but at the same time dont let people put you down.
Keep moving forward and I hope you succeed.
Even the greatest traders have come from a blank position like me and you. Its possible.

Best of luck buddy.

Cheers mate.

I've never been a negative person but always found cautious optimism has served me well. I'm also realistic. If I didn't think I could make money though I wouldn't be doing it. The thing is, I wouldn't go full time unless I was earning a lot out of it. I wouldn't feel comfortable scraping a normal years wages out of it because it would put too much pressure on me to perform. I'd want to be earning plenty of money to be able to put some away and feel secure enough to trade without worry.

I've had nothing but support from people really. I take a lot of inspiration from the average joe who has made it work. It's all well and good looking at the top guys making fortunes but it's hard to relate to them. I prefer to look at the guys making a good living and treating themselves every now and then. If I could be one of those guys I'd be over the moon.

[Trader_Tom]

Ended up deciding to stick with the tried and tested method of staking no more than 5% of your bank. I've got £200 to play with so I'm going to stick to a strict 5% rule to help protect that bank and allow me to monitor my progress properly.

Thanks for all the replies people =]