Why you need to have a Stop loss on EVERY SINGLE TRADE!

So here I am making trades from 7am EST till about 9am EST. Not doing to well today either at that time. I had just put on 4 trades on EURUSD, EURJPY, EURGBP and NZDUSD at around 9am. Everything is going well and I am actually ITM on all 4 trades.
[B]AND THEN…[/B]

The power goes out across the entire neighborhood! :o

Talk about freaking the hell out.

I was going into a panic cause I can’t trade. What the hell is my portfolio doing? Am I up? Am I down? WTF is going on here? AhhhhhhhhhH!

For [U][B]5 LONG Miserable Hours[/B][/U] I had no clue what was going on.

THANK GOODNESS I had stop losses on all my trades. When I was finally able to get back on I saw that I had been stopped out of all 4 trades losing $532 in total. Now had I been sitting there able to keep an eye on my trades and get out of them when I should have, I would have been up on 3 out of the 4. I know that from seeing the charts. But damn. A single power outage cost me $500+. BUT here is the kicker, had I NOT had those stops on there, I would have been down a total of around $1800 at that point.

So guys (and gals) make sure you have stops on Every Single Trade no matter what!

Just my opinion!

Karma

That’s scary! Thanks for sharing your story

Can you not download your platform to your mobile-phone?

For some reason, the FXCM Mobile trading app hates my phone and won’t log me in. It’s an old phone.

Better get cheap tab or upgrade phone then just to be safe.

I placed a like on your post not to insinuate that I like what you went through but generally you decision to share your experience. That is one hell of an unsettling occasion. Now with stops, they never really fail you. They are good ways to managing risk. You can always decide your potential risk of loss no matter what happens (with the exception of slippages).

I think not having a SL is the least of your problems here…

You say that you could have got out of those trades when you should have…but hindsight is a wonderful thing. If you have predefined targets then why not have a take profit in place?

I don’t see how you can complain about your losses either. Yeah no-one wants to lose money but if you’re using sound risk management, you should only risk what you’re willing to lose. If you were in that much of a quandary about your trades while the power was out, you were clearly risking too much as it seems as though you’ve well & truly allow emotion to creep on to your trading. Greed is a powerful motivator & can cripple your trading.

If you can afford to lose $500+, surely you can afford to buy a laptop, tablet or decent phone. There’s an MT4 app if your current phone doesn’t like your broker’s app too. Plus even with SL & TP in place, you should always have a backup plan. I don’t know what it’s like where you are (being $'s I’d assume the states) but we have free wi-fi in McDonalds, Starbucks etc & then there’s mobile 3G/4G signals, dependent on the extent (range) of the power outage, you may have to drive to get to these but if you’re that worried about your trades - it’s a small price to pay.

You could blame the power outage but there’s a certain element of blame that lies on your shoulders too. It’s good to encounter these problems though, it’ll help develop you & your trading to phase out silly errors. Onwards & upwards!

“Technically” my “Home” is still in the states Yes. But really I live in Belize (Central America). I do go back to the states 4-5 times per year though. And we don’t have McDonalds, Starbucks or anything like that here. There was literally nowhere I could go. Had I been back in the states, you can bet your bottom dollar I would have gone somewhere with Wifi. There is only one internet cafe here in town that I could have gone to, But they are closed for repairs. And no where around here has wifi. It is not a common thing in third world countries.

I’ve had a very similar experience and it was definitely very stressful waiting for the power to come back on. Thankfully it ended well, but I too learned to use stop loss more often.

Trading longer term takes a lot of pressure off of a situation like that too. Example: If a trader took the EUR/USD four week low back in June as a sell signal but got in two weeks late because he was on an ayahuasca journey in Peru and he is still looking for a four week high to get out he is doing just fine.

May the gnomes of psychedelia bless your account with the profits of the prophets.

-Adrian

Forex market is a random market where no one knows what can happen next. Traders only speculate moves that “may” happen so to avoid any unnecessary loss, stop loss is used.

I think so , there are so much moment that unpredictable, so much condition that show unsure for where the price are going and also so much time the movement of mamrket that unknown how far the market will move , That is why the reason why we need to have a stop loss at every single of trade

I don’t believe it’s completely random or technical analysis would not exist in its own right. The market as a whole is represented by human psychology - the thoughts of each and every participant. Thankfully humans are not 100% random, even the worst of us have some degree of rationality :wink:

I too do not believe that it is completely random. Randomness means lack of pattern or predictability in events. And as we all know there are plenty of patterns in the price action.

Patterns are same but their outcome is different. For example if you see a pin bar, price can do either way after it. There isn’t any guarantee that price will only and must go against the pin of the pin bar, so for this uncertainly a trader needs to use stop loss.

i had the same problem 5 years ago. though it went well for me, i had won about $900 USD on trades that i didn’t set SL/TP to. when the power came back i had wished the power stayed out longer (kidding :D). but that was 5 years ago i wasn’t experienced but we’ve come a long way and learned so many things. SL and TP are a must for every trader.

i’ve never been in the same situation as you have but i cannot begin to imagine how nerve wrecking it must’ve been.

The question of “Are markets random” is too vague. My thoughts.

-Adrian

here in south africa we have “load shedding”. i have a back up battery and dongle for when the power suddenly goes out. Stop loss is an essential part of trading!!!