This shouldn’t be labeled why you should a stop loss, your experience should be why you use a “take profit” (TP). Set your stop, set your take, and the whole city can brown out for all you care… set it and forget it. Sorry for your loss, it could have been 1 loss instead of 4… happy trading!
Maybe I’m missing something but why has no one suggested you actually pick up the phone and call your broker if the event of a power outage?
Part of your setup and testing - back before you even spent a dime in the markets I mean - should have involved phoning your broker at least once to establish how good they are, i.e., how quick do they answer the phone and how helpful are they, what is the cost of the call from where you’re trading, etc. Your broker should be able to help you enter or close out any trades you want over the phone if you know how to talk to them properly.
Ok, so you’re in Belize and maybe your broker is in the States (or wherever else) but that one phone call would definitely have cost you significantly less than the losses you actually incurred - with or without the stops - plus you wouldn’t have had to spend five hours worrying about your trades.
If you don’t know your broker’s number, or how quickly they answer the phone, or if you can get hold of them 24 hours a day, or how much that call will cost you to make, or how to enter/close a trade over the phone when you actually have to do it one day then something’s wrong.
I don’t mean to sound disparaging, honestly but it sounds like you’re not prepared enough. You could have avoided this whole situation simply by taking an hour out to plan for it weeks or maybe even months ago (depending on when you started trading). Hell, if you’re in a place where you [I]know [/I]that getting online will be difficult if your connection goes down then you [I]definitely [/I]should have done this ages ago!
Learn from this experience and fix it…unless you’re happy about losing money of course. I wish you luck my friend and thanks for sharing your story.
Consider buying a power inverter if you will live in Belize for a long time.
The use of stoploss is very essential. The forex market is very much known for high volatility at times and stoploss can protect one from financial risk and ensure that profit are taken for successful trades. It can also help you from emotional involvement decision during trades.
Totally agree with last comment. Although many brokers refuse to use stop loss on every trade, this is a great tool that will allow you to minimize your losses when there are abrupt changes in the market due to its high volatility.
We all should learn from your story and should have a back up plan for any unforeseen situation. People always suggest for using SL but its a bad habit of mine that I never uses stop loss in my trades.
It’s weird that there is broker which refuse to use stop loss in every transaction, I think it’s basic tool in metatrader when you want to set TP and SL. It’s not only in mt4, but I think webtrading, streamster, java platform and another platform allowed us to use SL and TP too. And about its effectiveness, it’s depending on trader himself who placed it in which price. If you didn’t place it correctly then it can drain your capital with losses.
All brokers allow the use of a stop loss, which in essence is simply a reverse trade from the original. The term “stop loss” is just a generic name for retail traders - correctly called either a Sell Stop or Buy Stop.
Guys, personally I’m doing the opposite of what the majority are doing. I don’t put anymore stoploss on any of my trades. I have an algo that would handle losses and turn them into winners.
Stoploss is a way to lose money. As you may notice it’s always hit. It seems the market is against you most of the time.
Most of the retail traders due to limited funding can afford only to place a very tight stoploss that are often run out.
Most of the time, big players are having great advantage over retail traders because they can handle not to put stoploss and if ever they do , it’s too far away from market fluctuation. Their trades can withstand the ups and downs of the market.
So my advice, if you want to put stoploss , make sure your trades can breath long and stay away hitting your protective stoploss. You really need a large account on this.
…unless your dealer is Oanda In which case you can trade position sizes as small as a single currency unit.
-Adrian
An algo that turns losses into winners… wow, very impressive.
Mark, how about posting your myfxbook so we can understand just how successful your methods are
stop loss is not necessary in every trade . It is a supporting tool you can skip it and do trading without it. You can handle your trades by self when watching it continuously . Stop loss helps new traders to avoid high loss but we can not make is vital part of trading.
It’s better to observe the behavior of the market, instead of putting the market into a frame.
I think stop loss is necessary, you cannot skip it. There are many other reasons that can suddenly happen such as disconnection from internet, then you’ll be stuck with you account wide open to the market.
You are still using an equity stop loss.
Yes i’ve also experienced that , even power failure make computer off also the factor that suddenly not expectation when trade of forex market , so when market go to opposite the order then we don’t know to anticipate to not bigger loss without using stop loss
Even if you have the best trading system, you are going to lose some trades in between. You won’t be knowing which trades are going to be the losing ones. So its necessary to use stop loss on almost all of your trades.
The usage of stop loss is limit maximum loss which can happen when trader made mistake in analysis. So, stop loss is risk management strategy in every single transaction. No one who can make sure about what will happen in the market so stop loss can be used to minimize loss which can happen. Not all traders like to use stop loss as risk management, but the point is not using stop loss or not. The point is trading with risk management (beside good money management) to limit loss which can happen in every transaction.
Its always easy to speak behind the confidence of a robot, until it fails.
“Stop loss is a way to loose money.” It is also easy to dispense advice against tried and tested rules like using a stop loss.
All I get from your expression is that manual trading didn’t quite agree with you, and before you actually got to manage your psychology, or hone your strategy, you found an EA to do the work for you. Consequently, you now speak as if you know something the rest of us don’t.
I look forward to your continued wisdom.