Stopped out- help me avoid please

Thanks for the awesome suggestion of taking pics of trade graphs to visually train the eye in my trade journal! I noticed a pattern of getting stopped out before the pair hits my limit order of 15pips.

In school of pipsology we covered Pivot Points and have been practicing placing entry orders when price bounces off the lower Bolinger Band and is ranging back just shy of the middle band and the Pivot Point §. This triggers my entry order to buy EURUSD and then wait for price to climb 15pips which is between P and R1 (also 15pips) thinking that was a conservative and probable spread. Though price has made it beyond that price point, its been dipping below my stop before it takes off again, closing out my trade :confused:

I’m trading in 100k lots, with a demo account worth 10k, with a 15 pip spread I’m keeping the trade risk worth $150 on both the limit and stop sides; 1.5% of my total account worth as advised- Babypips School Rules, thanks for all you do guys and gals, much appreciated :slight_smile:

Suggestions…?

An entry signal is just one important element in trading but we could focus on this for now. Sounds like either your signal is invalid and price action subsequently is random, or it is valid but premature. I suppose you are convinced its a valid signal or you wouldn’t even be putting money in, so it must be premature? A good entry signal should suggest not just that price will move in a certain direction but that it is imminently about to do so. As direction seems correct, what about waiting for confirmation after the signal by some price movement in the indicated direction, or at the very least a failure to move immediately in the opposite direction?

Thanks for your reply. I think I will start with lot size to give me a larger pip spread, say 50k giving me a 30pip stop. Sorry, wish the chart was clearer but it’s an hour chart on the left and 5min on the top right, with a good upward movement.


Widening the distance from entry to initial stop does of course reduce the likelihood of it being hit by noise. Ideally, the stop should be based on your TA - if going long, it might be a price just below recent strong support or a significant swing low. Of course, that might be exactly 15 pips below entry, or it might be exactly 30, but there’s no way you can tell in advance how many it will be. So, from the point of view of the market, which doesn’t care about your risk, the stop is placed randomly: and random exits give random profits.