How Much Have / Had You Lost To Get Started?

[lamode]

Hi people, i was thinking about how people get started forex and this question comes across my mind.

Many of you started with demo accounts for weeks or even months, then you made little profit and you decided to go live and imagine how wealthy will your life be after a period of time.

But unfortuanly, you relize that your trading is not going well like you did in your demo accounts, so you go to look for signal sites or adding more funds til you burn your account.

At this point, some people will back to demo accounts and start to find out why they are not making money, but some will add more funds and think they have learned the lessons and ready to go now.

This might not apply to you, but i believe this has happened to many traders.

So, my question is that how much time and money have or had you lost when you going the through whole process before you really call youself a curreny trade and start to make constantly profit.

[adamkhang]

i lost 1 k in 2 weeks , and stop trading until now (1 years to trade in demo a.c )

[candymr2]

The turning point for me was when I lost ~$3500 in about 20mins. I didn't go back to a demo account; instead I stopped trading. I then watched the market for 2 months straight and developed a system. Since then, I have gained back what I lost and showing a slight profit.(Knock on wood)

Unfortunately, the only way you can learn is by losing your shirt. Remember to keep your ego in check too.

[Cordy]

I started trading with 10k in my account. During the first month of live trading I lost half of it. After that I made commitment to myself that I was going to do whatever it takes to figure out what went wrong, what was my mistakes and so on. One month later I had completely new trading strategy which has been profitable ever since.
By the way, at the begining (when I had 10k) I was trading with full-sized lots (100k). And now I can tell you, that with the amount of money that I had then it was insane. Now I have more than my starting depo, but I never trade with full-sized lots. Only mini lots. And I think that this change has a lot to do with the fact that now I'm able to make money consistently in Forex.

[Trevman]

$900 to refco (if anyone knows wtf theyre doin pm me cheers) also lost £100 in a minute

[lamode]

Originally Posted by Cordy

I started trading with 10k in my account. During the first month of live trading I lost half of it. After that I made commitment to myself that I was going to do whatever it takes to figure out what went wrong, what was my mistakes and so on. One month later I had completely new trading strategy which has been profitable ever since.
By the way, at the begining (when I had 10k) I was trading with full-sized lots (100k). And now I can tell you, that with the amount of money that I had then it was insane. Now I have more than my starting depo, but I never trade with full-sized lots. Only mini lots. And I think that this change has a lot to do with the fact that now I'm able to make money consistently in Forex.

i dont know how long did you trade on demo account before open the 10k account, but i have been trading for about 1 year now and live trading for about 3 months.

So far, including all the demo and live trading, i have some winning months and some loser months, generally its about 20% either way each month, i dont think i can say i am making constantly profit yet. I am really admire the fact that you can developed a profitable system in a month time.

Also, i am kinda surprise that <6 months has the higestest vote, people believe they can or had picked up forex in less than 6 months time.

[Chrisvshk]

I put in excess of about £5k over the last 2 and a half years and I've made plenty and then lost the lot and then some. I'd say, with profits lost added in I was down around 6K at worst.

3 years later and after a lot of time studying 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, I've now made it all back and now trade at =£50 pip without a care in the world.

Took a long time to learn and change my train of thought and now I have performing and non-performing trades. I limit my losses, use careful money management and have a methodology I KNOW will make me more than I lose by the end of each week.

Perserverance and determination is paramount... that and knowing this is not a get rich quick scheme and there are no easy routes.

Just my 2 cents!

[WmWaster]

There's no option for me to choose.
Anyway here's my answer:

Money lost when started:
- none! (I gained when I first started)

Time to get out of losing:
- in no time!

When I first traded, I traded stocks only. What's more I traded only blue-chips. Lucky enough, I succeeded in earning my first sum of money (I couldn't imagine I could make such a sum of moeny with just a few clicks)! At that time, I only purchase a stock based on my fundatamental analysis. The market was short-term bearish at that time.

Later I started to play Index futures. I lost on a just a few trades. Then I saw an opportunity and placed heavy long positons (because I felt these areas are very supportive). Due to calculation mistakes, I placed twice as much as I desired - I overtraded! :O
I didn't mean to do so. I phoned my broker and he said there's nothing we could do. Just relax since you couldn't change the fact anyway. And my positions were built on Friday. That meant I had to wait for 3 deadly days to know the result.

However I surprisingly calmed. I just asked where I should place my stop-loss orders in order to avoid "margin calls". Then I hung up and lived it up as usual!

On Monday, the result released. It was a huge gap! Oh my god! Few hundred ticks down! Some people were pushing the prices down before the market opens. Am I doomed now? Shxxxxxxxxxxt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But a few minutes later, loss became gain. What's up? The pirce are biding up and down so volatilely. I phoned my broker and he told me to ignore all these activities. They were meaningless. Just focus on the last few minutes before the market opens.
Finally an opening 1XX-tick gap was made. I couldn't believe my eyes! It was an upward gap. When the market opened, it got down a bit and then it rose like crazy. I closed when the momentum was off. I won glaringly in this first important battle. I told my mum after the trades, and she became crazy too!

At that time, I was just a complete newbie to Futures markets. How the heck is it easy to make such a huge gain? However, facing on this huge gain, I'm not too excited. I just smiled for a while and return to normal.

That's the story when I get started. Not a model for people to follow since if things have gone worse, I would lose huge (say 20-30% capital loss)!

Don't fancy my story. The outcome was sort of a bad ending. Luck wasn't always on my side. I didn't do well afterward, and I gave back most of my profits to the futures market. This forced me to leave here temporarily and relearn futures market. Anyway it turned out to be the market paid me some tuition fees for learning! An exceptional deal to a newbie, Mr. Market!