Turning $300 Into $1M

It's been over a year since I last wrote anything.  I've been working and testing and winning and losing...

I made a New Year's resolution late last year, in December. By the end of 2014, I want to be a millionaire. Don't have to be a multi-millionaire. One million is enough for me. Let's leave some goals for 2015.

So, I checked my real money account and it is down to $335.80. How can I become a millionaire in 12 months with such a small starting capital? There has to be a way. If George Soros made $1B in one day, there has to be a way of making a miserly $1M in 365 days. Fire up the spreadsheet and...

It is not that difficult! All I have to do is double my money every month. This should see me hitting the $1.3M mark sometime at the end of December 2014. Now, to break this down into individual targets.

To double my money every month, I need to do about 17.06% per week. To hit this target, I must profit 3.2% daily and compound my winnings.

Hmm, this puts things in a different perspective. I must make daily more profit than what your bank gives you in interest in a whole year. Doable, but harder than initially envisioned.

With this in mind, I started my road to $1M last week, on Wednesday, January 1.  My goal is to end the month with $671.48. This means I must end this week with an account balance of $418.64. That's a profit of 24.67% in seven working days.

I may have bitten more than I can chew...

Week 6: Thank God it is Over!

Week 6 was the roller coaster ride from Hell.  On the good side, I didn't have a heart attack so my arteries must have cleared up a bit. 

So week 5 ends with my account up 80.39%.  By Monday afternoon, the account is up 101%.  By Monday evening I'm visiting different internet sites to see which power boat I'll be buying next year.  Then came Election Day...  Obama won...  reality hit the markets...  The account that was up 101% on Monday was barely up 64% Wednesday evening/Thursday morning.  I did say in my last report that I was expecting the market to triple play me, but knowing beforehand does not make it any easier to swallow.  In the end, the account recovered most of its losses and ended down 2.08%.  Since I was way ahead of schedule last week, this week's loss puts me behind schedule by very little...  0.52% or $5.41.

I was very impressed by the way most of my strategies managed to recover their losses, except for one.  The strategy I trade off the daily chart gave me the biggest losses this week, after 5 weeks of picture perfect trades.  I think the price action created by the volatility of Election Day week was just too much for my inexperience.  I should have followed the lead of more veteran traders and just held off from trading at all last week.  Now I know for 2016.


Starting Capital:        $1,040.73
Current Balance:       $1,838.31

Performance:        76.64%

Week    Performance
  1                13.14%
  2                17.71%
  3              - 10.54%
  4                18.62%
  5                27.63%
  6              -   2.08% 

CAS

CORRECTION!! Week 5: Unholy Profits

The actual percentage for the week was 27.63%, NOT 39.05%.

Guess I'll have to keep waiting for that 30%+ winning week.  :)

Week 5: Unholy Profits

This was our fourth double digit winning week.  To the tune of 39.05% for the week, I'd say our week was immorally good.  A couple of changes made mid-week contributed to our success, I think.  I got rid of a strategy that had lost me about $153 by Wednesday.  This is about 15% of our starting capital so it is not acceptable.  Although for the 5 weeks the strategy still netted us a few percentage points, I'd rather get rid of it and put more money in the strategies that are currently netting us higher percentages.  I also incorporated a new strategy that proved surprisingly profitable in the 2.5 days that I traded it.  Although I do not expect any more 30%+ weeks in the rest of my life, I hope that this week's changes will make the goal of 10% profits per week easier to achieve.

Last week, I was 5.07% behind schedule.  I should've been up 46.41% and was up 41.34%.  This week's performance  now puts us ahead of schedule by 19.34%.  Target profit for Week 5 was $1,676.11 or 61.05%.  At the close of trading today, our balance was $1,877.37 or 80.39%.  Target for Week 6 is $1,843.72 or 77.16%.  As long as I don't have a big losing week, I should be able to stay on target.  However, home run weeks like this one are usually followed by market triple plays, where the market just shuts down my strategies and hands me significant losses.  Next week should be an interesting one.

Starting Capital:        $1,040.73
Current Balance:       $1,877.37

Performance:        80.39%

Week    Performance
  1                13.14%
  2                17.71%
  3              - 10.54%
  4                18.62%
  5                39.05%

CAS

Week 4: Join me as we find out how quickly can I lose $1,040.73!

This week was another double digit week.  I needed this shot in the arm as last week's similar losses had me doubting my new investing system.  Still, this week's gains were not enough to put me back on target.  Had I achieved my goal of 10% weekly growth, with compounding I'd be up 46.41% right now.  As it is, I am up only 41.34%.  I am hoping that with the lessons learned from Week 3, I'll be able to limit my losses and get back on track.

Another thing that is getting kind of tricky is how much should I increase the size of my trades as my account keeps growing.  I obviously have to increase the trade size in order to keep the same percentage growth on a growing account.  However, if I increase it too much or too soon, I run the risk of sucking up all my margin and wiping my holdings.  This actually happened in Week 3.  So far, I have settled on increasing 1 mini lot on one of my strategies every time the account goes up $500.  Next mini lot increase is when the account reaches $2,000.  Hopefully, in 3 weeks.

Starting Capital:     $1,040.73
Current Balance:    $1,470.97

Performance:    41.34%

Week    Performance
  1                13.14%
  2                17.71%
  3              - 10.54%
  4                18.62%

CAS

Week 3: Join me as we find out how quickly can I lose $1,040.73!

Last week was our first losing week.  Even though we did recover a good part of the initial loss, we still closed the week down 10.54% from when the week started.  A lot of the people that post on the forex forums I read also had similar losses so I will chuck it down to the market and not my strategy.  I hope this week proves to be a bit more sane.  The whipsaws and fakeouts of last week were just crazy.  Funny enough, I run a second account that had about $680 when the week started.  I tried some short term conservative strategies in that one with no aggressive strats.  That account actually went up 5% for the week.  Maybe I should keep track of both accounts to see how the strategies compare.

Our current performance is not bad.  I certainly won't complain if after 12 months of trading I end up averaging 6% per week.  However, I am shooting for 10%.

Starting Capital:     $1,040.73
Current Balance:    $1,240.02

Performance:    19.15%

Week    Performance
  1                13.14%
  2                17.71%
  3              - 10.54%

CAS

Join me as we find out how quickly can I lose $1,040.73!

Ok, I funded my forex account this year with $3k.  Following the advise of "experts", it went down to $1,040.73 in one and a half week.  I decided to diversify currencies and mix long term with short term strategies from different books and online seminars, instead of following gurus.  I started this experiment on Oct. 1, 2012.  It is going so unbelievably well that I decided to share it publicly.  Of course, appearing too good to be true, I'm sure it'll blow up in my face sooner or later.  Until that time, I'll post weekly updates so you can join me in this train-wreck-about-to-happen.  Below are the results of my two weeks of trading.  I'll send you an update next week. 

Starting Capital:     $1,040.73
Current Balance:    $1,386.05

Performance:    33.18%

Week    Performance
  1                13.14%
  2                17.71%

Gotta luv the power of compounding!!

CAS