I suspect you are setting yourself up for [U]another[/U] clean out by the concentrated GBPUSD shorts.
Carll has been very kind to post some charts in here with logical conclusion WHERE to consider initiating your short orders.
In theory - I only need to average 250 pips a week to get to $50,000 in 3 months. When I am trading my main account, with my regular strategy, and using extremely low risk money management - like 2.5% risk per trade is what I usually do - I don’t even pay attention to how many pips I make per day or week or month, but I know it’s usually more than 250/week. Since each trade is 1to1 R2R ratio, I only ever pay attention to whether or not it won - and it’s always -2.5% or +2.5%. My target for a trade could be 25 pips, 100 pips or 200 pips, an no matter the distance, the profit potential is the same.
It’s been awhile since I’ve tried to measure my trades based on pips - so we’ll see how it goes - and I’m not actually setting daily or weekly goals and stopping when I meet them. I am just gonna take every trade I can in my time awake that fits the entry rules of my strategy and hope my weekly average is high enough to eventually reach my goal.
I will start with [B][I]week 1 (or my first 400 pips[/I][/B]) trading 10K positions.
After I’ve made 400 pips I will trade 20K [B][I]for another 400 pips[/I][/B].
Next 400 pips - 40K lots.
Then 80K lots
. . .160K lots
. . .320K lots
A change I’m gonna make to my plan is for the first week(or first 400 pips) I am gonna start with 5K positions first. I forgot you could do that with a micro account.
That will be more appropriate for risking [I][B]15% per trade[/B][/I].
So basically just added an [B][I]extra 400 pips[/I][/B] between me and my goal.
[I]What’s it then?
250 pips average per week
with 400 pips or 800 pips the first week???[/I]
[I]Did you have a look at ATR prints for GBPUSD before you did your calculations?
The average ATR print over the past 12 month for GBPUSD is less then 180 pips in [B]both[/B] directions.[/I]
Good luck. 
Yes I posted later that I will be starting with 5K lots - and make 400 pips at that lot size before moving up to 10k lots. Doesnt mean I plan to make 400 more pips in my first week or that I will make 400 pips in any week - I was just using it as a guideline for when I increase position size. And yeah I hope I could 400 pips a week - that would be convenient then I could move up in lot sizes avery week - . So if you look at doubling lot size every 400 pips, it would take 3200 pips to make it to $50,000. So, divide that by 3 months or 13 weeks, that gives you 246 pips per week. Plus, I do plan on trading other pairs after the first week.
About the ATR for GU over the last 12 months - just wondering what that has to do with how many pips the pair is likely to move in an impulse of trend continuation - which is usually a run between 80-160 pips when various indicators resume the direction of the trend after a pullback, and price breaks out of local support or resistnce.
current pending:
BUY 5676, SL 5638
SELL 5637, SL 5677
I sold at 5637, then moved my SL to break even once I was up about 20 pips and position was stopped out at zero.
Current pending BUY @ 1.5677
pending SELL @ 1.5609
long @ 1.5677, SL @ 1.5640
closed long at break even - placed pending order for long above UTL drawn from 4hr chart - BUY @ 1.5696, SL 1.5666
Last night, Buy triggered at 1.5694, adn I put a 25 pips trailing stop on it before I went to sleep, which caused it to close at break even.
So the account is still at 200 ( well 199.76) after an indecisive European session.
Just my opinion
I would stay away from trailing stops. If you have a pending order that might get hit when you are not there move the TP in it will be much more likely to be hit. You will lose some pips sometimes but you will break even less. It sounds like your trades are not bad but a preset tp sl or trailing stop limits your ability as a trader to save a trade thats got some profit and now looks like it is turning the other way.
I am not suggesting not setting a stop but I try to be flexible enough to manage an open trade based on what I see price doing.
Nice Job so far you are doing good not losing money sometimes that’s the hardest part.
It depends on how you make use of trailing stops.
If trailing stops are set & calculated depending on how PA plays out & hidden behind peaks for shorts & troughs for longs on lower TF like 1m,5m,15m you’ll increase the likelihood for your trade staying alive a lot longer & securing profit at the same time.
Thanks for the input.
Looking back I should have set a profit target at 25 pips, instead of a trailing stop - but it was about 3am my time and I was ready to go to bed so just tried to protect myself with the potential for decent profit in case the market does break out of this consolidation when the US session starts.
But I think I just saw in a chatroom someone said it’s a US Bank holiday - maybe not I don’t know - have to check it out. . .
It tells you how much to expect on likely average milage the pair is going to travel on any given day & utilize that information for your trade management structure you are going to employ.
Yes, trades need management unless you trade set & forget.
If I would aim for 400 pips per week I would look at ATR prints of different pairs and pick the pairs with the most likelihood of coming near expected pips within a week because I would try to make 400 pip milage with the least trades possible.
Different approach.
It played out nicely again, today.
Another repeat of last weeks PA.
As soon as price stuck it’s head above 1.5700 again it got repelled by the shorts & pushed back below previous day 1.5677 High.
Yeah I think that while its in this range I can still trade but take profit much sooner than I would normally like to instead of trying to trail a stop for 80+ pips of profit.
And I don’t specifically look for entries based on a reversal at the top of a range - even though that would be a good this scenario its just not my plan
I am familiar with ATR, but the way I look at it is that when a trend is still valid ie. a major trendline not broken, a narrowing ATR on the 4H or daily would indicate that a large move in the direction of the trend is very possible - and once it starts - thats when an entry would be signalled with my methodology.
But hey - I’m just gonna take things as they come and stay true to my method and protect myself - and look forward.
Say 100 pips a week (average) with GU is possible?
Then add another pair and another 100 pips a week for that pair?
. . .just rough ideas - not goals set in stone
I’m just thinking though - as the ATR is small due to complex correctives trading in a tight range, that shouldn’t be an indication of how much the price will move when it breaks the corrective cycles and either experiences an impulse wave in the direction of trend continuation or in the direction of a corrective impulse wave.
I think a better indication would be something like the 161.8 and 261.8 fib extensions of that range - but either way I’d like to trail a stop with either H/L’s or parabolic SAR on 1hr instead of having specific targets in mind based on any ranges.
…wow I just looked at the Adaily ATR for GU and its currently at 160 pips
So, before the euro session today, GU had a daily range of 40 pips so far since 0000gmt, now since the daily ATR is 160, that leaves 120 pips of potential movement left based on the average of the last 7 days.
We can even pretend to expect 80% of the ATR = 120 pips
now there was already 40 pips used up, so 80 pips left.
You can either add 80 to the top or to the bottom to get the new expected range.
Or since the current 40 pip range seems to be right in the middle of the consolidation range, you could add 40 pips to the top and 40 pips to the bottom to get the expected range based on 80% of the ATR.
Yeah this doesn’t sound condusive to making any decent trades,
but does this sound like how you would use the ATR?
used. . .
thank you
you sparked something that ignited me to convince myself to start using the ATR in my profit target expectations
That’s one way you might use it.
Some traders use it to set absolute and/or trailing stops (as a % of the days average range).
Some use it to gauge specific session continuation potential.
For instance, if price has travelled in excess of 65-70% of it’s average day’s range leading into the London trading session, they might reduce or adjust their bet size to reflect the remaining days potential, taking into consideration previous days trading activity.
They might decide to wait for a pullback (to move back off the 65-70% marker) before engaging & use the remaining average range potential to calculate their bet size (& stop-loss) percentage.
They might also use the ATR extremes as possible reversal points to consider legging into set ups for return trips back to a heavily traded technical level.
Quite often the outer extremes of a pairs average daily range will match up with a popular technical zone such as a previous day or weeks high-low line or a much touted big figure/round number, where recent option barrier or large stop orders are known to be defending a level.
Common & distinctive price behavior patterns, influenced by herd psychology, can be highly visible around these regular reaction area’s on the chart & if they also happen to be reacting on & around a level that matches up with a positive ATR reading, it’s usually worth paying attention to.