Simple's Green Room

[kermit42]

Happy New Year to everyone!

I’m going to try something this year, similar to a $100,000 challenge Pennies tried a couple years ago, but on a smaller scale. It involves using consistent gains and the power of compounding to turn a small account into a large one in a surprisingly short period of time.

My biggest trading barriers are the psychological walls I hit at certain dollar amounts. I can’t trade $1,000 the same way I trade $100. My purpose with this exercise is to try to improve my discipline and overcome those barriers by paying attention to percentages and habits instead of dollar amounts and the self-destructive greed that can be triggered as the numbers get larger.

I have an account with $30 in it and my goal for 2016 is to average 10% gains each week. So at the end of week 1, I’ll have $33.00, at the end of week 2, I’ll have $36.30, and so on. It will take over 3 months to hit $100, but after one year, a $30 account that grows 10% each week will have $3,873.90. And it will cross the $10,000 mark just 10 weeks later (March 2017, in this case).

I’ve always tried to keep my trading style as simple as possible. Candle charts, EMA’s 12, 169 and 196. I draw in pattern lines (flags, wedges, etc.) when I notice them. I have the standard RSI on there as well, but hardly use it. I use the daily chart for the trend and the hourly chart for entries and exits. I stay with one pair for weeks or months and make, usually, one or two trades a week that I let ride for days.

For this exercise, I will close my trades every Friday (I’ve found you can almost always get back in at the same price or better between Sunday night and Monday morning, Eastern Standard Time) and report my progress every Sunday. I won't just stop posting if it all turns to crap. If I fall so far behind that it makes no sense to pretend I'm still in the experiment, I'll say so and try to analyze what went wrong.

Week 1:
Account: $30
Pair: NZD:USD, long
Goal: $33.00