Honeb,
After reading your first post it seems that you are quite panic striken about trading now. I want to try and encourage you or cheer you up a little.
First and foremost, DON’t PANIC. When you trade, it needs to feel easy and relatively free of panic. If all of your above reasons are going to lead you to feel fear and panic with every single trade, then it implies that there is some internal conflict with trading or with the methodology you wish to pursue.
If i understood your post correctly, you are looking to scalp and news trade. These are some of the toughest trading methodologies to successfully execute. This is precisely when spreads widen and stops are hunted. Please forgive me if i am stating the obvious but when scalping, the spread is what kills you anyway. If you are scalping 5 pips on GBP/USD, then it means you must make 9 pips to close the trade with net 5 pips, because you are starting off at a loss because of spread. On the losing side, however, if you have a 10 pip stop, then you really only have to lose 6 before your trade closes (again because of spread). This is very demanding. I’m not suggesting it’s impossible, i’m just saying it is very difficult to manage a healthy risk:reward ratio when doing it and it is the very thing traders are doing when they are 90% right but still end up losing. My old trading partner practically lost 40K trying to scalp. He didn’t have a losing trade in months taking measly 4-5 pip gains after news releases but gave it all back in 2 hours with one trade he couldn’t close.
News trading is not meant to be easy. It is when the most volatility exists and most newbie traders think they can make a killing and treat reports like slot machines. If you insist on trading news, trade it after a certain time has elapsed after the release is out. News trading is full of profit potential, but the fact is there is nothing more risky for your account if it is not managed with precise timing and execution. And even then it’s very hard. Brokers hate people who straddle the news and that is just the reality. We can either continuously be upset about it or just accept the rules and find a way to deal with it. You said it right, we need brokers. Brokers may be sneaky but they don’t care about sabotaging our tiny accounts. Stop hunting, in my opinion is really a non-issue if you place your stops properly, outside of the market noise.
All this to say, why must you trade the news or scalp trade? Those seem to be the quick way to riches but nothing could be further from the truth. If it seems quick and easy, then it is very likely the least effective route to take. It seems unscientific, but to be honest it is the very reason i started to stay away from news and scalping and day trading in general.
I hope you are not considering quitting. At the very least consider some other style of trading that triggers less panic or stress. Why not consider swing trading, or trend following or something a little longer-term? The stress levels are much lower and you are not subjecting yourself to the same broker tactics you outline in your post.
Don’t fear trading or brokers honeb. I think if you were to scrutinize every single unsuccessful trader’s trades, i’m 100% sure you would not find broker tactics to be the focal point of his/her failure.
Keep your head up and stop thinking about brokers. They may not be the boy scouts we want them to be but i also don’t beleive they are out to sabotage us. Only we do that. We just have to accept certain truths and work around them.