Newbie member from Japan :)

Hi Fellow Traders!

My name is Ronnel. I’m a Filipino living in Japan. This may sound weird but I’m a newbie-pro (kinda…???, lol!). I’m still very new to trading and still have tons to learn. I have been ninja-sneaking babypips forum for over a year now trying to learn Forex. I started with Binary Options and I’m a member/moderator of a popular Binary Option site. I rarely trade Binary now and fell inlove with Forex so here I am, hoping to find new Forex friends.

I am a naked trader (I don’t use indicators), I don’t follow the news and I only use one time frame chart for everything. I also don’t use SL and TP, would like to learn this someday but since I was trained to trade without SL and TP I’m just surviving :slight_smile: I would also like to learn in the future how to interpret the news because I really do suck understanding the news but I do trade the news especially during high and medium news releases. I just wait for the “red or yellow flashing light” on my platform and away I go, lol! I just spring-trade the bounce with basically no knowledge about whats happening outside the charts… lost some won some, weird ehy, haha!

I am basically a scalper/ day trader but I also swing trade. My favourite currency pairs are USD/JPY, EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY, ZAR/JPY, EUR/USD/ USD/CHF and GBP/USD (yep, currency correlation and I use it a lot!). I also trade other pairs but not much…

I’m here to make friends and maybe steal some of your brains, hidden trading strategies, trading secrets and trading gossips… Hoping to learn how to trade Forex the proper way…

Anyway here is a photo of how I trade. Red = UP and Blue = DOWN (Japanese style)


Hello and welcome to the forum.

Im a bit curious…you dont use any SL and TP? So you are all the time in front of your computer to stalk your trade?
I think, i would die without SL and TP…would scarry me too much and could not be possible because i cant monitor the Trade every two minute :slight_smile: Isnt it a bit risky?

Welcome again :slight_smile:

Welcome to the forum! :cool:

I respectfully offer you the observation that it costs nothing to enter at least a “disaster-stop” routinely with every trade you make, however closely you’re watching it.

Any trader who has ever had an “expensive accident” from a brief power-cut, computer problem or internet outage will endorse this view. And some who haven’t (yet) will endorse it in future. :wink:

Today’s a good day to start: there’s not very much to learn about “disaster stops”, really: they can just save your account from being wiped out unnecessarily.

Looking forward to hearing more from you. Good luck!

Hi Rosalba1981,

Basically yes I’m infront of my computers stalking my trades especially when I’m scalping. If I’m day trading I still can do some chores like doing the dishes, cleaning the house and washing the clothes but I move around with a laptop. If I do a milk run I bring my iPhone so that I can exit my trades if things go south. Actually a few months ago I even did some part time work at a night club (waiter-bouncer, lol) and my iPhone did just fine monitoring my trades while I was at work.

Yes it can probably be scary to trade without SL but when I was with the company we did not use SL because I’m basically on the clock and my job was to sit, watch and trade. When I went solo I just continued doing the same thing. I do lots of trades especially when I’m scalping so it’s just easier to just eyeball my trades. Day trading gives me a bit of breathing space and swing trading is like paradise :slight_smile: Yes it may be a bit risky but I did try using SL before and I was never good with it and often got trades busted prematurely so I just imitated my seniors trading without SL. I’m still keeping my options open that maybe old dogs like me can still learn :slight_smile:

Hi!
Yes I will still try to learn how to use the “disaster -stop” but the more I try, it seems the more I suck. About expensive accidents, been there done that… I do have precautions like I have backup PCs running batteries and also a separate portable wifi so that if my house internet dies I’m still in the game and if things really go south, I have my iPhone as a last resort. The thing is here we rarely have power failures but sometimes my house wifi goes crazy when a train passes nearby (laptop and iPhone problems but not with my desktop since it’s on LAN).

Aside from the power failure or connection problem, my biggest enemies are: someone is on the door, talking on the phone, friends visiting, getting involved too much watching sleazy B-movies, or by just playing too much Borderlands or World of Tanks while trading. Yes those are my main enemies but they are habits that are hard to break so if I learn how to properly use SL then maybe I can blow up more tanks in the game before the market blows my trades to bits, haha!

Are you good using SL?

Here is a photo when I was scalping using M5 where things can go wrong in a snap…???


Well, I certainly never enter a trade without one.

Personally, I put my stop-loss at the level which (if the price reaches it) I’d no longer want to be in the trade because the price movement since entering it would invalidate the reason for my entry. And in practice, with the kind of trading I do, that usually means putting it just above/below the last swing-high/low, because I’m doing fairly fast intraday trades (clearly this doesn’t apply to everyone and may not apply to you) and if the most recent swing-high/low is taken out, then my original entry criteria for the trade would no longer apply … it’s essential to cut losses short. But “short” is proportional to the time-frame in which you’re trading, naturally, and if you’re trading on a much longer time-frame than me, you’ll need wider stop-losses.

That’s one approach … but even just “thinking up a [I]very[/I] large number of pips” (which you’d think the price would never reach under normal circumstances) and using that as a “disaster-stop” is far better than not having one at all, because if that is reached, then it would signify [U]abnormal[/U] circumstances in which you wouldn’t want a losing trade running away with your money.

Real disasters are very, very rare … but you only need [U]one[/U], to wipe out your account, and it costs nothing to [I]try[/I] to protect against that.

When I did try using SL, first I placed it on the tip of the peak, still lost. Then I added another extra 2 pips over the peak and I still lost. Now I just set a guesstimate and eyeball it like -20, -50, -70, or -100 pips but my biggest was -150 pips then after exiting the market turned, hahaha! For me I think it’s more on loss tolerance but unlike my seniors where they can hold even with -500 pips on just a single trade (and we all trade multiple pairs at the same time…) is just too much for me. I just don’t have that money to gamble…

This may sound weird because I don’t use SL and just see how much I can tolerate seeing the market bash my behind before I say quits. But usually I notice that If I go with the general trend that eventually the market will turn and go with the trend but the problem is how much I can keep on getting bashed before I see some wins. So it’s not uncommon for me to turn my scalping trade to a day trade and it can go longer until I reach my tolerance point. This may sound crazy but this is how we basically traded when I was in the company and it’s hard to change old habits but since I’m doing solo now, I’m opening my eyes for better options because now I only have a small account and my tolerance is very limited.

Good to know that SL is working well for you.

We’re talking partly at cross-purposes, because you’re not distinguishing between a normal “stop-loss” and a “disaster-stop” of the type I’m suggesting, from which you can only gain. It will work for you also, if you use one. There’s no downside. It’s a “no-brainer”. Good luck.

Ronnel, can you give us an example of a trade where you got hit for 100-150 pips? Your trade entry price and price you got stopped at.

Hi Carlos!

Actually I just had one last early February where I lost 150 pips. I took a long trade on the big red engulfing candle and thought that price will go up. Based on my calculation that price should go UP but I didn’t know when but I still took the trade. I don’t use indicators but to make it easy I added some moving average lines before I sent my screenshot to my senior. You can’t see the SMA 200 which was below the chart and steeply pointing upward so it indicates that price should go up. Even though I don’t use SMAs or indies but based on my naked charting calculation that price will be going up but the problem is “when???”. The problem here is that I have set myself to exit the trade when I hit -150 pips and I was totally wrong. I should have stayed with the trade up to -160 pips something… then price just sky rocketed just a few hours after I exited the trade, HAHA! My calculation was 100% correct but I just got burned by that extra 10 pips loss, lol!

Anyway here is a clipping of our conversation (me and my senior) on Skype about my stupid move. This is much easier to understand than looking at my chart since it’s not written in English. This also shows that I didn’t wait for the “market’s rest time” (rest time happens often after a strong movement…). This is a problem with people like us (my senior was also a company pro trader before and has detached from the company) who have itchy trigger fingers, haha! Notice that SL was never in the topic of our conversation because none of us use SL and just use holding power or loss tolerance. I think that many wont understand how we play but I think it’s the same just with a different approach.

Are you good with SL Carlos? If you are good with it I think you should use it. I just suck with SL…


After researching about disaster stop now I understand. Thanks for telling it to me in English because we use a different term for it. I hold several small accounts so if SHTF and I loose one, then I’ll just have to put on my big boy pants and admit my loss and move on to another. As the usual disclaimer says " trade what you can afford to lose"… Actually I still have some account that got burned and only have pennies in them, lol. I’ll ask around about this disaster stop…
Cheers!

Ronnel, can you post the screen of chart only where you got burned 150 Pips ? I mean without the skype conversation. Its soo small.
I would like to see the entry if its possible and if it is not too much work. Im just curious to understand, what happened after the engulfing and where the market turned around to laugh at you

Here it is. I’m just curious why you have asked, is this so rare? Anyway here is the chart with moving average. Notice the third blue candle. I placed my bid on the 2nd red candle when it was o the tip of the wick. Basically I’m not using candle engulfing here. It’s nothing special and it’s just that my holding power was not strong enough.


Thanks Ronnel. It was just for training purpose and because this happen alot to me too. Im just a beginner yes but it sucks really alot to get stopped out and then right away on the next second the market reverse :slight_smile:

Thanks for sharing

No worries!
I do know the feeling having that big question mark on the face. You should see some more of my losing charts then you’ll feel better, hahaha!
Happened to me many times and I’m sure I’ll see more of it :slight_smile: