[Advanced] How to aggressively grow a small (10k) account?Most of the time growing an account is a very slow grind. Make some, lose some, hope to make a little bit more than you lose.
For example, with an average risk to reward of 1 to 5, and a win ratio of 21% (not counting once a year outliers), which is pretty good, breakeven being at 16.67%, after 100 trades the result will be - with a risk of 1% (flat) each time:
- Profits = 21*5 = 105%
- Loses = 78*1 = - 79%
Net result = 26%
Finding 100 good trades might take more than 1 year. With a theoritical compounding of 1% each trade the max profit would be:
- Net = (1.05)^21 * (0.99)^79 = 25.94%
Compounding is not always the magic trick.
You might be looking at something like 20% a year. But once in a while, often in September-October, and sometimes at specific times such as March-April 2020, we get these monsters that go way further than usual. Often from a boring tight period, an explosion that grows exponentially, this pushes the reward dramatically. So we can end with a few winners at 10, 15R, rather than the usual ~5.
So you can "easily" get the regular barely above breakeven 20% (for the example) with on top of that an occasional 10, 20, or even more, percent.
On our small accounts these extras feel good, and they give a nice boost, but nothing dramatic. Growing a 10k account into 100k even with 50% a year will take 6 years. With 30% a year that would take 9 years. With 20% a year, 13 years.
An experienced but poor investor, that spent years working on entries, exits, and so on, will need do something rather "dramatic" to grow his account. Doesn't have to be a complete gamble. An idea is after one of these "boost" periods, the investor could put all of that profit at risk. Say he made 32%, losing it all would be a major drawdown of 25%, but if the investor sees it as extra it is not the same as a crippling drawdown. Having a great period is nice (within years of moderate consistency), but it is not life changing.
It might be a good idea to use that as some sort of springboard (or launchpad):
- Losing that profit is a return to last step it is disapointing and the grind continues but even with an extra 30% the grind would still continue it wasn't going to be life changing. Maybe 6 months - 1 year worth of profit lost (but it was "extra" anyway).
- Not losing it all (winning or even a period of breakeven) is great because it will allow the account to leap up suddenly, you quickly end up years ahead.
So how does this work? Going to use an example. The investor gets 100 trades a year because why not (that's 2 a week or a little over 8 a month), has a reward 5 times the risk and a winrate of 21% (PF = 1.33). Account size = $10,000. Risk per trade = $100. The investor was able to grow 4000 into 10,000 over 4 years "slowly" (not that slow) but surely. The biggest drawdown ever was 20%. The yearly return is 26%.
Over September to November he made $4000. He would "normally" make $1000 over 3 active months like this, but as is often the case, that period was violent with fear moves, winners just kept going and our investor that was able to add early ended up with 2 winners at 9+7 R each. So 32R. It can go very fast. 32%, on top of 8% on other grindy trades (over 3 months).
Trying to catch whole trends and hold forever in my opinion is not realistic, but adding once or twice to winners is (talking about FX here), and winners (especially in March 2020 or September-October) going vertical does happen.
So now how does the 10K investor scale up? Well $100 was 1%. 1% of 14,000 would be $140. but how about he more than doubles the risk?! So investor's profit in Sept-Nov was $4000 ("regular" $800 + "extra" $3200) and he/she decides to put it all at risk. He pushes the risk up to $280 which is now 2% of the new account size. After 12 loss in a row (down 3360) all the "extra" will be gone with only $640 profit left, the risk will then be reduced progressively, first down to 200 and if losses continue, 150 and finally back to 100.
To attempt this our investor must have several years of results. From these years, taking out the handful of outliers, we know average RR & WR. The important question is what are the odds of 12 losses in a row? (With 21% WR)
==> First the probability of 12 losses in a row (if it was a random coinflip) are 6%. The odds are rather low.
==> Second the odds of exactly 11 losses out of 12 are 19%. In that case investor lost 1680/3360 -> Half. Still 6 lives left.
==> Once investor has 6 lives left the odds of losing all 6 times are 24%.
Risking 280 rather than 140 means in 1 year rather than grow by 3640 (26%) the account will grow by 7280 (52%). Basically fast forward 1 year. In a way this is risking 1 year of profits to make 2. With something like 80% odds of making it. Aiming for much less than 12 lives is really gambling. An investor could also go for 20 or more lives but the higher the number the slower the grind. With 6 lives there is 1 chance in 4 to lose it all. But it would be a $560 risk, a huge increase from $100. Is there really a need to increase size by that much at once? It would not even accelerate growth that much. Our little investor can always make another jump after that first one.
Because yes, that snowball can keep getting bigger. It is a terrible idea to keep going double or nothing, eventually it will be nothing, but we could find a compromise between being very careful and careless. We might not accept a 30% drawdown, or losing 3 years of very difficult very slow profit but if we can separate that say slow grindy 15% a year and go "I won't risk this" but the once a year or two monsters that provide 20%-40% at once (arbitrary numbers) we can see it as "extra", we got our account with 10k in in and the 4000 we just made well losing the 4000 technically would be a 30% drawdown on 14k but we can perhaps separate this, it was unexpected, and we put all of this capital at risk, without hurting our "main" capital. Might be a great way to boost growth without risking to blow up or being set back years.
And if it works out. As I said the example investor (which is already at least in the top 5% by the way) made 7280 rather than 3640. An extra $3640. Actually since his account was $10,000 and he was supposed to make about 3600 in 1.25 year, but instead made 7280 + 4000 = 11,280, well that's an extra of about $7500. Last time investor risked 3400/4000 in 12 trades (6% odds of losing all 12 and perhaps ~15% odds of losing all that money over a longer time), maybe this time investor wants to risk 6000/7500 in 12 trades ($500 each!). 26R = $13,000. If it works out in 2 years investor's account went from $10,000 to $34,000 rather than $16,000. $24,000 profit rather than $6000 (or $10000 with the big winners). With what? 1 in 4 odds of only making 6000?
It is still going to take years anyway, but it is possible to take ponctual big risks to try and jump up a few steps, without playing russian roulette either.
Another quick example...
I think this example is within the good compromise area. It would be possible to go "I will risk $1200 over the next 3 ($400 each)" but just 3 trades that gets rather random so it becomes gambling. Over several years risking "1200" (12% base account) over the next 3, well the randomness would even out but seems bad, better to have some sort of certainty. 4% and 6% odds to immediately fail means 94/96% odds of success, unless really bad luck that should rarely happen, this should work. Just not with rent money. And even if it fails the "base account" is still here, simply some unexpected profit evaporated. If it fails, can always re-try next time, after another while of grinding, making sure we are still actually profitable and it was just bad luck.
On top of this whole concept of putting profit at risk for a boost, there are the very rare "generational" trades (George Soros versus BoE 1992), where risk is known to be limited (so no swiss tsunami), the odds are really high (way more than 21%), and the reward will be even better than 5R. Also more generally when having a great winning period, great conditions, but I would not trust anyone to be objective about that. Our eager investor that made 4000 could out 3000 at risk over 12 trades with $250 each, and leave the remaining 1000 for the "great ones" where maybe $300 can be risked at once (and if it works out a one time 1500-3000 boost), 300 being "only" 2% of 14000 so it's still fine, not completely crazy (we are talking about a serious investor that has been doing well for a few years not a retail day trader with a gambling addiction).
Just like with trade selection strategies, there is no secret magic trick. This scaling strategy is honestly the best I can do.
Maybe 1 last example...
And finally, this can be tweaked. Rather than rambo the risk from $100 to $280 in the example I choose, still putting all or most of the 4000 at risk, an investor could first increase the risk to $190 (takes 20 losses to lose most of the 4000 rather than 12), and if that goes well, which if it's a profitable investor is more likely than not, then once at +5R (+$950) or so investor could then increase it $280 which overall is safer, and much more likely to work out. With $280 from the start 5R would be 1400 so investor left 450 on the table, not that big of a deal. From that point the next 12 will have a 280 risk, if unlucky then there is still profits left and we can drop to 190 before returning to only 100 which hopefully won't be the case, at least most of the time. Then stay at 280 a while (if it works out) and next time big profits appear, risk that + a part of the 4000, without touching the rest of the profit made in the meantime.
Risking profits is really not the same as risking the "bulk" or "base" capital, that's a slippery slope...
Rule number 1 = protect your capital
Rule number 2 = do not lose money
