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For a long time Oanda has offered CFD's to traders. I know they aren't available to in the US, but here in Canada they are available to us. I don't recommend it as the ideal instrument to trade, but in the instance of the original poster needing some live trading experience, then this is a low risk way to get it.
I'd rather see someone first try a $2000 account size, before they tried a $25,000 account. Get profitable with the little account, then try out the $25,000 account.
I think if you're just starting out after being on a demo, only trade 1 contract and build from there when profitable, in which case 25K is more than enough.
It's quite a jump mentally to go from a demo to live so start small and build.
I have not read the entire thread but my first thought on OPs post is how much money you are comfortable losing? no one is comfortable losing money obviously, but how much can you take and not go mental?
Demo and live are two different things. when that P&L field starts going red in live mind starts fluttering. Demo probably does very little of that.
the info that you would actually have to wait to get to 40 or 50 grand tells me that those 25k probably are all excess capital that you currently can afford.
That given PLEASE be smarter than so many of us and don't invest all of it in one shot. Too many people end up ripping their whole account. Be it 10k, 50k or 100k - once your sanity runs down the road your wholel account will be at risk.
I dont say that you HAVE to blow up. I only kindly ask you to consider the realistic possibility that you MIGHT blow up and act upon it in advance.
If I had 25k I'd go for it the following:
Open an account with 8-9k. This should be about enough for pretty much any daytrading strategy that uses 1 or 2 contracts on ES or CL (unless you work with 100 tick stoplosses that is^^ in that case consider another strategy :P )
The rest of the money should be far far away from the account - so far that you couldnt deposit it within one weeks time even if you wanted. That gives you time to think about adding / refunding - to really THINK about it, not deciding and doing it.
IF you kill the account, you have two more rounds @8k each. After three accounts you might consider taking a year or two off
If (hopefully) your account does well, add another 8k after 6 month.
The last 8k I would only add after 12 month further down the road, after you have 1 1/2 years of live experience behind you. And who knows, maybe you won't need to invest these 8k at all after 18 month trading due to high enough profits to grow your account solely through what market gives you...
If you think 18 month is a long time? Jep, your right. But rome wasnt built in a day & another 25k in excess money are most certainly not earned in a day either. So be patient and use what you have as wisely as possible.
if you have been profitable in your demo trading (because i have seen people lose in their demo accounts
and then open a live one...) then starting with a 25K is enough.If this capital is something that you can afford to lose
then this would be perfect.It will take some tension off.PLEASE be very careful with the account,NEVER forget your
stop loss and trade 1 contract at a time for starters.
GOOD LUCK.
There are variables (such as experience, your success, goals, etc) that you have not listed so this will be merely a generic response. I trade the ES and starting out I traded a single contract until I was green every day for two weeks. I then did the same at 3 contracts, and worked up from there. Your account size would be way more than adequate assuming you have prudent entries (I don't know how successful you are day in and day out - if you are new then I would definitely trade SIM until you were comfortable trading 1 contract real and progressing from there.
If you trade well on a regular basis you can do very well even with a relatively low number of ES contracts, but trading size is where it is at (again, assuming you are a successful trader - if not I would trade SIM until you became successful, otherwise you are just giving money away). My assumption would be you trade well and the size of your account is so you can trade a larger number of contracts per trade. If your reason for that size account is due to you needing a larger cushion to protect against significant losses then again I would trade SIM until that was resolved. I hope this helps!
I've known a lot of people open with 100K account, thinking it's the way to do it, guess what they ALL literally all, lost there 100K accounts generally pretty quickly, 3 - 6 months, your 25K will go the same way be warned, demo is different to live.
I'd put 10% max of your account in and keep using the reserve to reload it, while you learn, hopefully you'll get it in 2 - 3 account blowing so allowing for margin think 4.5K down, which is better than 25K down then you can add more of the 25K ( not all ) and start upping your lot sizes and hopefully start making $$$'s.
Or give me the 25K and I'll give you 50% back immediately if you promise to walk away, better deal than the markets will give you.
Harsh reality of it sadly!!
They want you to sink 25K in, lose it and walk away, they don't want you to lose a little bit at first, learn then become profitable and take there money, they only profit off retail loses remember that.
Saw the poll and thought I'd kick things off seeing as last related post was from 2014.
To chip in my 2c to the original Q and post; I initially started with something like $2.5k and traded primarily the ES/FESX and spent all my time watching order flow on the DOM/Ladder. My objective was to learn as much as I could and take as many notes as possible whilst trying to make that money last as long as possible before it ran out and I no longer had the margin to trade 1 lot.
Quite a few years have passed since and my current job doesn't allow me to run a PA due to compliance reasons but I can assure you that the $2.5k I spent trading my own account taught me more than any guru/seminar/course else could.
If you are starting out, see if you can achieve the same results. Test your risk management and patience - how long can you make 2.5k last? If you can make it last 2 months but end up losing it, re-read through your notes and see if you can pinpoint where it was going wrong. For me it was over-leveraging, cutting winners too soon and revenge trading. If you can't make $2.5k last a week or two, you won't do much better with 25k.