When to take profits as a beginner?

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That’s why we need to be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Start it low and keep it up and you’ll finish it big…

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First of all I just want you to know that I am a beginner too so any pros, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. I can handle it lol

I too try to treat my demo account as if it is real cash I’m trading. This is so I don’t change anything once I go live.

As for profits - I’m only targeting 10 pips a trade at the moment. In hindsight it’s easy to see how much I could have made instead but I’m trying to concentrate on getting my entries correct and it’s working. If it still works by January, I can see that a lot of my trades would have booked me 20 pips so ill probably try that for a few months. Some have gone a bit higher and a couple have gone ridiculously higher but whoever said money management IS the “HOLY GRAIL” Is Right.

It’s not about how much you can win but how much you can afford to loose. I always place my trades so the maximum I can loose is 2% of my overall account in any 1 trade. I only open one trade at a time and once my SL & TP is set, I leave it to do its thing. Once I have the entry’s nailed I know I can increase my TP to 20 pips so for every win, I’d have to loose 2 in a row to return to before that first win. (I think) This way I wouldn’t even need to be right half the time as my wins would outrun my losses.

Point is, limit your losses and your profits will look after themselves.

I trade with the Cowabunga system btw.

Take a Top - Down Approach.

  1. Determine how much Money you need to make from Trading to make it worth it. (ex. $1000 Monthly)

  2. Determine how much you are going to invest in a Real Account. ($1000)

  3. 1 and 2 will give you your expected Rate of Return per month - 100%

  4. Determine if you can/want to trade every day or a few days during the month - Day vs Swing Trading

  5. After choosing, determine how many times per month on average yu will trade. (ex. 10 times)

6 . This then gives you the average dollar amount per trade you need to get to that $1000 per month - $100

7 . Then use this $100 along with the risk per trade (ex. 5%) to determine the Risk/Reward Ratio per trade you need.

  - If you risk 5% per trade ($50) then you need a strategy that gives you a 2 to 1 Reward Ratio ($100/$50) on average

Naturally, as your account balance increases/decreases, the dollar amount of the gain per trade will change.

This approach takes the uncertainty out of how many Pips to get per trade since you now know the bigger picture. The challenge is then to determine which trading strategy can get you this consistently.

[B]Duane
DRFXSWINGTRADING
[/B]

I would not personally put the number one question as “how much do i need to make” because the amount you make is not up to you as you are not the market, you trade the market…don’t forget that.

To put it simply you “can make” what the market offers. This non-subjective level for the sake of this discussion can be known by the trading approach that you use, whether its Support and Resistance, Fibonacci Levels or mathematical proven “higher probability” pip ranges…also many more.

However, working out that you need to make 100%, 75%, 50% or 30% per month is not even possible on a consistent account. It spells disaster and you will blow your account. I’ve not met one single trader who has made over 20% per month for each and every month and I’ve researched this game for over 8 years.

I follow resistance and support levels closely on most time-frames and if I think that the pairs I am currently trading have reached a significant resistance or support I close my positions and take my profit.

That’s the main key in forex trading to keep you survive. And so, patience is really necessary when you’re facing the outcome of your trading (both profit or losses).

Patience is the ultimate key to success when we are trading in this highly potential forex trading business. With the help of patience one can certainly profit in the forex market.

Rules for taking profit

  1. It’s really discretionary. At first you’ll decide to take profit when you feel like it.
  2. As time goes by and you learn more, you’ll most likely take profit when you see a reversal candle.
  3. More time passess, and you’ll put your TP stop at a strong level. You may be discretionary with this and decide to manually stop the trade once you see a reversal candle at the profit.

Newbie or not, it’s best to have a trading strategy when you do begin trading. Usually the strategy mandates when a position should be closed. If you know that you have a good strategy, then trust it, follow your plan and close your positions according to its conditions.

Each trader has to learn how to use a well balanced trading system and then only he would be able to make a good income from his trading…

Very much true, without balance in the trading system which includes the risk and money management as the main core ingredient, it is critical for traders to succeed.

If we are using such a trading system upon which we can rely then a time will come when our income will be good and we can say that our trading system is profitable :smiley:

What risk to reward ratio do you use? I look for 3:1. Do you think Im losing too many opportunities that way?

I take risk-reward ratio into account when I trade, but I don’t base my trades entirely off of it either.

Like you said “do you think I’m losing too many opportunities that way?” Technically, of course you are, yet this depends on your trading style(s).

I also take trade/lot size into account, how long I plan to hold the position, and the type of profits I plan on going for, and my certainty of the trade I plan on conducting.

For shorter term trades (within the same day trades) I look less at the risk reward ratio because the market doesn’t care what your risk-reward ratio is, place your stop loss and limit orders in places you decide based off your technical analysis. Then based off your technical analysis as well, you should be opening a position at the best possible place as well, which results in the best possible risk reward ratio with the smartest placements possible as well. When I trade for the short term I take smaller lot sizes because I can do these types of trades more frequently, I take very tight risk (so a close stop loss to my entry point, that is ideal due to my technical analysis), and depending on other technical analysis research I place limit orders to get rid of partial or my whole position. I highly recommend scaling out of a trade, meaning, get rid of part of your position and let the rest ride. This will allow you to put your stop at a better price so now due to some profit taking you just made yourself break even on the trade.

All in all, the shorter amount of time I plan on holding a trade, the smaller the lot size. Risk reward ratio is not thought about, but rather made based of technical analysis. Lot size may decrease as well if my certainty is not as ideal as I’d like it to be.

For longer term trades, I sometimes scale in and take larger stop loss areas. If I plan on holding a trade for a few days or longer, I often scale in so I can continuously take the best entry points starting with the tightest risk-reward ratio if it ends up going wrong. Then when I am in some profits I add to the position at good times and slowly trail my stop higher. Then after a little bit of that I scale out of my position to guarantee some gain in case the trade suddenly ends up going wrong. The only time I take longer term trades is when I am very certain on the position, therefore leading me to have a larger lot size, and potentially a larger stop loss size.

Take risk-reward ratio into account but don’t base your trades off of it alone. My short term trades often have like a 10:1 or better risk reward ratio because I just open the position at the best price possible to where the price shouldn’t end up hitting my stop loss. I would be dumb to just risk, a specific ratio for every single trade, not matter what the lot size was, how long I plan to hold the trade, my certainty of the trade, and the type of strategy I use on the specific trade.

Of course you should only take positions where you are very certain you will be correct, but sometimes for my shorter term trades, mostly scalps, I will sometimes make a trade even though I am somewhat certain about it because during those trades my risk reward ratio is crazy good like 10:1 or 20:1 etc.

Plus for short term trades, like scalps, there are hundreds, if not thousands of areas you can enter a position with like a 10:1 ratio or higher. Yet, that’s only because I like to scalp, I tend not to hold most of my trades for more than one hour.

agree with that :slight_smile:

Every one wants profit at very first day of his trading. As I see one should do trading on micro accounts for better experience and getting skill. Here you will not get enough profit . When you will do trading with proper investment in standard accounts then you will be able to get earning very soon.

this is kinda hard to explain, though many of the replies are good, lets just put it this way, there always should be a plan, and you have to stick to it religiously, usually what i do on my hotforex account i set small goals, as long as i end up getting a profit from any certain trade its good, i always eject any thought of “it could have been bigger” dont matter how big the profit is aslong as its a profit… in my opinion even BREAK EVEN is a good ending compared to a lose. so stay on the safe side and it should work fine…

When one takes their profits depends on the strategy they are using. My advice is, follow your strategy and trading plan and don’t deviate from it.