One of the struggles I have is being patient. I tend to do well early in the process – either in an eval or performance account. But then I get impatient when I hit a plateau and start taking too many risks with the hope of catching a big one.
Knowing this about myself, I need to either change it or possibly embrace it.
One of the things I’ve always thought is the key is simply getting to a maintenance level. That is, for Apex, getting a performance account to $53,000. At this level, I need only make $100 per day on average. For eight days, that would be $800 and I would withdraw $500. I would do that until the balance was $55,000. At that point, I would take out anything over the $55,000.
I think this is a great strategy. And, with Apex, can be multiplied up to 20 times!
So why is it so hard to be patient once I get there? THAT is the specific problem I need to solve before I can become successful. I must set a daily loss limit of say $250. And, because I don’t really need the money right away, it’ll be OK if it takes more than 8 days to make $500. THAT is what I need to see and accept.
The next step is getting to the maintenance level.
There are no rules for eval accounts. I can go big and either get there or blow it. The monetary risk is $35. I think I can pass an eval 50% of the time in one day. So, for the sake of argument let’s say a PA account will cost me $70.
Now, APEX has some picky rules for their performance accounts (PAs). I have found these rules to be a distraction and negatively affect my trading. For example, If I’m in a trade that had gone against me and it comes back, I have to consider the minimum the trade must make before I exit. If I’m in a trade that lost $200, then it must make $40 before I can close it. If I choose to close it at $10 then I’ve broken their 5:1 risk reward rule.
I’ve done this a few times and, to be honest, I may have been satisfied with a simple break even because my thought – at this moment it time – is I think the market is going to go in the wrong direction, again, so I’ll be happy to get out at break even. But, no, now I have to calculate just how big the max loss was and calculate the point at which I didn’t break the 5:1 rule. In the meantime, the market does exactly what I feared and I either have to take a loss or hope it comes back again (working on hope!).
Another rule is the max loss of 30% in a day. I think it’s a good rule, but it does happen. When it does, I know they’ll deny my next payout request.
The other reason for denial is making too much in a day. This is a rule to protect themselves from massive gains and I have no problem with it because I want/need them to hang around when it comes my time for a payout. But it is another concern.
Generally, if you break any of these rules, the penalty is restarting the clock and the withdrawal date – but keeping the accumulated balance. With this in mind, I’d like to consider a solution to my problem of being patient is to make my goal simply getting to maintenance mode regardless of the rules. Then, adhering to strict rules once there. ie, using SMM indicator and trading no more than two times in a day win or lose. Again, it wouldn’t matter if it took 8 days or 16 days to make $500, I know it’d get there eventually. Based on my experience, it’d probably be 8 days every time. That’s a minimum of $1,000 per month for one account. Why can’t I be happy with that?
So, using the same methods on PA accounts that are not in maintenance mode as I do for evals, I could be aggressive until I got the account to $3000 and then take it easy until the first 8 days has expired. I could then start a new payout period in maintenance mode and take a payout after the next 8 days with pretty high confidence.
Let’s say I’m able to maintain that 50% success rate. That means, each account that gets to MM (Maintenance mode), will have cost me $140 + $250. With a PA account costing $125 and an eval costing $35.
PA 1:
2 evals = $70, PA = $125 = $195
PA 2:
2 evals = $70, PA = $125 = $195
MM1:
2 PAs = $390 total cost.
Payout after 16 trading days: $500 for a profit of $110.
Payout after another 8 trading days: $500 for accum profit of $610, etc.
The point is, getting to maintenance mode is costly. But, once there, the break even ROI is only 8 trading days away and pure profit after that. I simply need to follow my rules and I can be profitable. Yes, $100 per day is not a lot of money, but scale it to ten or twenty accounts and then we are talking significant money. FOLLOW the rules!
Again, the key for my personal weakness is to get to MM. After that, I can start a new cycle and build the MM accounts from there. If I need to, I can wait for first payout before starting the next cycle, but that makes me be patient. I think it’d be wise to get at least 1 MA and THEN start the next cycle – even if I chose to be patient once in PA because the MA will be making money.?