Why not trade your own money?

I see some benefits on trading others peoples money.
But at that same time there are somethings that don't appeal to me.

For example... Loosing somebody else money.
or
Making money for somebody else.

I think most traders think that they need big accounts to make more money and the reality is that instead of making more money traders end up loosing more money.

I mean if you only have $100 and you consistantly make 20% to 40% a month. This money at the end of 10 years or 20 years will be a lot of cash. Yeah you might not make a good living out of it but if you save and reinvest you could retire with a nice sum of cash. So if your system works for you why not use it with your own money.

I see some return of investments from fellow traders here that you really don't need a lot of capital to make some descent cash. Unless you are greedy or just loose most of the time.

Is there any other trader in here that feels that trading your own money is the best way to go?

or Do you feel that you have to trade others peoples money to get ahead.

Maybe is a mixed of both... I would love to hear from you.

Having traded other people's money ( and a reasonable sum as well ), I can say that it does increase the stress of trading. I certainly would not recommend it unless you have ice water in your veins!

That said if you can master the psychological aspect or it or just couldn't care less if you lose other people's money then it's a good way to get more funds for your own trading account.

Making 20-40% of $100 isn't going to pay the bills and for a lot of people trading is a full time profession and so has to pay the bills.

Steve all those $100's add up.

I been playing with the O money manager and just on 30k stuffing around I already made my car payment in fees.

And I been wondering for a very long time, how many $100 accounts are lying around at O unused because the trading failed? 1000 ? That be $100 000 one can attach to an MM and trade as a single account. If an API is handling it well worth it!!

Sir Williams,

I feel it's better to trade your own money if you're successful. Every new client is a new boss. And we're in this game to be free from normal work constraints? I am anyway. So my view is to keep it light, but there will always be accounts that you have to manage, like for friends and family...

The idea is not to make as much as possible, but I have a suspicion it's no fun to be rich alone. Got to take some people with so you have friends on the same level as you...otherwise you party alone.

I think Sir Williams was referring to trading your own $100. Not everybody elses $100.

Totally true about the new boss. I traded a friends capital once and he actually sat in work and loaded up some charts and was emailing me all day about the trades that had come up and comparing them to how I was doing. How crazy is that?

Also true about not wanting to party alone, but you also need to consider the fact that wealth needs to be earned or it will never be appreciated. People who get rich quick with little effort on their part generally end up blowing it.

Well, 20% a month compounded is 1000% a year.

So....

100
1000
10 000
100 000
1 000 000

5 years.

With only 100 I'd take clients. Bigger you get that initial base the better, but here after year 5 it's going to be a pain. Starting cap of 10k I wouldn't bother with clients unless it's a really big account.

Yep, I can see the benefit of compounding and of taking on clients and that having enough clients with $100 would actually generate a good enough income.

Sir Williams was talking about trading your own $100 and in the first month $20 sure isn't going to pay my bills. It's a nice thought to think 'I only need to risk $100 and I can make a decent return'. The point I'm making is that to get that 20% return you probably have to make trading your full time profession.

$20 not going to pay your bills? Scale down big spender!! Move to India.

Of course your right. If he can do 20% to 40% consistently have to risk a bit more to get going.

Steve, I know it's only been running less than a month and it's too soon to see the long-term profitability, but a decent Expert Advisor (My EA, haha), seems to be able to give you those 20% return a month (so far mine's at 30%), all while you sleep. Under these circumstances I have no problem waiting for that 'full-time' income.

On the other hand, trading other peoples money, would suit me fine, I think it's a question of making it very, very clear to investors, that the possibility they could loose their whole investment is present. It may get you less customers, but they won't (at least I think so) come after you afterwards. In my case, with the 6% a month target, I'd have to say that I won't expect net profits until after the 1st year, because I want to have room for a constant DD of 50%, due to the nature of my strategy. Therefore I need long-term investors that are aware of this. And that's also why I'm reluctant to take on any investors until i have at least that 12 months traderecord.
If net profits is reached earlier, well, that's just a bonus, both for investors and myself 😄.

I have set up a PAMM at Instaforex, with minimum 1$ deposit, and if any investors sign up I'll tell them the above situation before accepting their investment. Because my EA is not older, I've also started with a 10% fee of profits for managing, where most others charge 30-50%.
If my EA is still profitable after 6 months, maybe I'll sign up for an Alpari PAMM, under the same circumstances, knowing that I might never get any customers.
Once I have the funds and the programming skills to move to Dukascopy, that's where my future PAMM will be...

My point is, fulltime trading might not be necessary to get those 20%, and then a 100$ seems to be the perfect investment if you can wait for the steady income.

Cheers, and good luck with your own Expert Advisors.

Soeren

Thanks Soeren, are you regulated? You need to be to be a money manager with Dukascopy I believe as well as some of the other regulated brokers.

Your strategy seems to be working well but I personally wouldn't be happy with the drawdown. I get twitchy when I see equity drawdown. My own EA, which similar to yours has only been running it's current configuration for less than a month is also around the 20% return mark with an equity risk of 1% per trade.

I plan to put it on a live account this week and see how it performs before, like you, offering it out to other investors.

No, I'm not regulated (yet 😉). I just checked Dukas' site, and in the money manager application form you're asked if you're regulated or not. Maybe they'll help get a license if not?

I've actually been asked to sell my EA, but I had to decline due to two reasons: the short testing time and especially to protect my work.
Besides, if I should sell it, I'd have to charge 1000$ a piece to make up for all those hours, and I have a feeling very few people would pay that kind of money for an unverified EA haha.

Behemoth sure looks great so far, and I hope it works just as great on a live account..

Cheers

Soeren

If you have something that works, you can make that into big money over time. Enough to pay bills,
make you rich and give you financial freedom.

When it comes to MM i think in ratios. Whatever you do with 100, 1,000 or 1 Million will be the same. If You can make a small account grow. You will do the same with a bigger account. If you blow up an smaller account than you will do the same to a bigger account too.

For the ego of course is better to have a bigger accounts... but does it make you a better trader?

If I was to manage a trading account for somebody... what I would do is make sure I get some kind of fee up front and a promise to get a percentages of profits at the end of the month. I can't be liable for losses because Forex by nature is too risky. If an investor thinks this is asking too much. He would be better off trading his own money.

Or get a trader who really loves stressing out and has big appetite for risk.

Forex is too risky and no matter how right you think you are because of technical analysis, fundamentals or other. Forex always has a way to surprise you some how or is there any trader out-here who is always right?

Ahoy!

First of all I would like to say that Foreign Exchange is quite an exclusive 'business'.
20% income, is perfect. 20% out of a hundred bucks? not really? If you can afford an account of only USD 100, go find a job. Or demo trade until you are 6 months on the + side - time in which you put 100usd every month aside.

20% of USD 100 in the first month is not much, i myself can't even afford the cigarettes i'm smoking. However, think quantity, think money management and get some time on your side.

After 2nd year maybe you can start thinking at going full time, but not before. And this is if you are lucky to still get constant pips.

Happy pipping!

Is just the principal. You obviously not going to live out of it. But if you can manage to multiply that then there is a good chance you will multiply a 100k. But what is important is how you trade it. Because how you loose on small accounts will say a lot on how you will loose on big accounts.

The other thing is that you can make 1 cent a pip with about 100 units and you can make .10 cents a pip with 1,000 units and about $1 a pip with 10,000 units and if you would to buy 100,000 units you make about $10 a pip and if you buy or sell 1,000,0000 units you would make a bout $100 a pip.

What seems interesting is that across the different values, a pip remains the same. So how many pips you loose and how many pips you win is important and you don't need big lots to find that out.

By the way guys I just did an ebook of a strategy that I love and developing. Is work in progress so feel free to give me any feedback. Go download the book here. https://ewilfredo.com/forex.html

I think if trader has skills but has no funds, it is better to manage OPM. Nothing wrong to make money for someone and earn good living from this. this is my goal. I am not lying to myself what is possible and I know that to make some bucks over time much bigger starting capital is necessary which I do not have.
I do not believe in 20-40% monthly consistently over long term with low risk but I believe that anyone who is aiming so high consistently will burn himself and burn his account. I myself pushed for higher returns and lost all earnings within one month, so, i am quite sure other traders not different. It's better t to take it slowly and not to push things.

Managing OPM does have a benefit that is not yet covered here.

If I as a trader manage my money and get returns of let's say 35% p.a. with associated drawdowns of 20%. My MAR on my own funds would be 1.75.

If I now get a client who matches my money in my account, i.e. doubles the capital I have to trade, I can effectively cut my risk in half by trading at half the size. I will now be reducing my returns to 17.5% and drawdowns to 10%. While this may seem to be a bad deal, at this point, the math is before any performance or management fees. Once these fees get taken into consideration (on the manager's account and not the client), the manager's MAR would increase to more than 1.75, while the clients will decrease to less than 1.75.

By doing the above, the risk of blow-up has been significantly reduced, I have increase my MAR on my account, plus I earn fees on a monthly / quarterly or annual basis. I consider this to be a major advantage.

However, the above does not take into account the headaches associated with annoying regulators and even more annoying clients that aren't really comfortable with your approach, but hope you will make them rich.

trixifx posted:
    Managing OPM does have a benefit that is not yet covered here.

If I as a trader manage my money and get returns of let's say 35% p.a. with associated drawdowns of 20%. My MAR on my own funds would be 1.75.

If I now get a client who matches my money in my account, i.e. doubles the capital I have to trade, I can effectively cut my risk in half by trading at half the size. I will now be reducing my returns to 17.5% and drawdowns to 10%. While this may seem to be a bad deal, at this point, the math is before any performance or management fees. Once these fees get taken into consideration (on the manager's account and not the client), the manager's MAR would increase to more than 1.75, while the clients will decrease to less than 1.75.

By doing the above, the risk of blow-up has been significantly reduced, I have increase my MAR on my account, plus I earn fees on a monthly / quarterly or annual basis. I consider this to be a major advantage.

However, the above does not take into account the headaches associated with annoying regulators and even more annoying clients that aren't really comfortable with your approach, but hope you will make them rich.

Hi trixifx,

The topic is about why not trade own money. Without an extra fund from client and if you still want to decrease the DD from 20% to 10% and reduce the profit from 35% to 17.5%, then by trading your own money you are still manage to get the same result. You only have to trade half of your normal lot size.

Regarding MAR, actually your MAR increase because you earn money from management other people fund, is not from your trading result. Therefore in my opinion, your MAR increase and you earn monthly fee are same, it is not a 'plus' as you mentioned above.

Just my 2cents.

Regards,
SIM

 

Unless I have at least $100 000 of my own to risk, it makes no sense. I would put more to my account, but it is onoy to show clients, not that trading $500 or $3000 make s any difference. With goal of 30-50% annual return trading $500-3000 account makes no sense. But it is a good show of my skills.

pip2cash posted:
    

trixifx posted:
    Managing OPM does have a benefit that is not yet covered here.

Hi trixifx,

The topic is about why not trade own money. Without an extra fund from client and if you still want to decrease the DD from 20% to 10% and reduce the profit from 35% to 17.5%, then by trading your own money you are still manage to get the same result. You only have to trade half of your normal lot size.

Regarding MAR, actually your MAR increase because you earn money from management other people fund, is not from your trading result. Therefore in my opinion, your MAR increase and you earn monthly fee are same, it is not a 'plus' as you mentioned above.

Just my 2cents.

Regards,
SIM

Hi Sim,

Agreed the topic is about trading own money, I was merely pointing out a benefit to managing OPM that you do not have on your own account. For larger accounts, managing OPM can very desirable. Bruce Knover compares it to a call option and I tend to agree with his conclusion.

Regarding MAR - If you look at it purely at the trading stats, you are correct. However, I was referring to the total return received (profits + fees) and this is probably one of the reasons people manage OPM. If you include these fees in your return calculations (not technically correct, but this would still be the manager's money for a period), you will find that you have more cash (profits + fees) than you would have without these fees. Thus, the manager increases his own MAR, and not that of his managed accounts or funds.

That being said, I am still content to manage my own money, which is mostly growing through my own capital contributions and some occasional profits. Looked into managing OPM once, but found that potential clients would not trust my trading methods. I guess they might have trusted me more, if I had already made $1 million in the markets.

Attached a spreadsheet to better express what I meant.

First column is a purely independent trader with no external funds. Second column is a trader managing OPM in a 50:50 relationship with his risk cut in half. Third column is the client's account.

The second and third columns show the effect fees have on both manager and client level returns. While the return for the year is still 17.5%, the manager gets 21% and the client 14%. Unfortunately in this example, I can't quantify the effect on the drawdowns, but the manager's drawdown will decrease slightly and the client's drawdown will increase slightly.

This is intended to show that managing OPM can have the benefit of actually reducing risk for the manager and this is one of the cons of only trading your own money.