Hi Emily,
Sounds like you’re really beating yourself up. Please don’t do that. Mind set is more important than many people think. Being and staying positive when you’re in a loss pattern is difficult but it can be done.
Show yourself some grace. Sounds like you’re the type of person who shows others compassion when they make mistakes. Do that for yourself.
Go back to your “Why”. Why did you decide to trade? Let’s say you did this to help yourself or someone else to gain more financial stability and freedom in the future by controlling more of your own money. Take another look and start with a doable short term goal. But, if you started trading because someone told you that you could get rich in 6 months and retire while in your thirties, then you’re chancing money; which means you’re emotions are leading you. And that NEVER goes well.
How much time did you spend learning about trading? If this was something way outside of your wheelhouse, go back to your educational platform and review and study. After each lesson, tell someone what you’ve learned, take notes and review them daily. When you can tell or teach someone else about what you’ve learned, then you know what you are doing. It also helps to have someone else or a small group learning with you. Discussion and repetition are key to mastery in the process of learning.
Your courses/ educational platform should put an emphasis on practicing in a Demo account and risk management. If it doesn’t…quickly find a new one. In my group we set a goal of having 10 consecutive positive trades before you are ready to go live. I did 20 just to make sure and that took a while. My risk to reward is tight. A 1%-3% gain with no more than a 3%-4% loss. Yes these numbers will not yield massive amount of money, but you also will not bottom out. Use a compounding chart see how smaller amounts grow… It is true that the higher you fund an account the more money you might make. but trading is a skill of patience. Try opening an account with $500 and manage it well. You can add more funds when you know your skills are solid. Also as stated before, go for fewer pips. The longer you are in the market the riskier it gets. Your trading style might be scalping.
Have the utmost resect for the market. I think of the up and down trends like the pattern a sidewinder leaves on the ground. A rattler has an intriguing design but it is a wild animal not a pet. And while it may allow you to get close, it’s nature is to strike. So exercise patience as you pass by.
I hope these comments are helpful. Good luck in the new year.
I couldn’t just read this message and not respond. Honestly, my heart goes out to you … I can feel the pain in your words when you write. I think most successful traders have gone through this phase where they are literally chewing glass, just to make their dream come true.
Ultimately, you must follow your path and I have no idea what will end up being the river you flow on in the long term, but in this moment of time: I hope I can provide some sort of value based on what I read here today. Just as a disclaimer, this will be generalized advice, based solely on what you wrote here. The issue must be more complex inherently.
To begin: your biggest problem is not placing a definitive stop loss. You have no business running no stop loss, maybe an expert can do that out of preference, but even then: that is extremely questionable. What you’re doing when you don’t place a stop loss is saying: I know I will be right on this trade. You never accept the possibility of a loss. The problem with this is that when you finally take a loss, 34% of the time, it will devastate you.
It appears you are saying you don’t know where to place a stop loss. It all depends on volatility in the markets. You want to have a stop loss at a place where your trade is invalidated. JPY pairs are very volatile right now, the bank of Japan keeps intervening, they want stable Yen. Now we are discussing strategy, I would not be shorting the Yen right now. You see what I mean by your solution is more complex? I highly recommend staying away from volatility until you are a proven expert, because it is harder. It’s great for experts, but can destroy anyone trying to learn.
You mention you trade 15m timeframes. What is your avg. win? If it’s 10-25 points like I suspect then your stop loss SHOULD be around 7-10 points with your current win rate. Then you’ll be golden. The problem is that with a stop loss that tight, you’re in the market for 15-25mins TOPS because it is tight. You really should be trading more stable currencies too. Typically the Euro major is less volatile than the others, because it has the most liquidity.
To summarize:
you need to have a stop loss, no exceptions.
you might need to re-evaluate your strategy, JPY is very volatile, BoJ wants stable FX prices.
7-10points risk to make 10-25 points reward. In and out of the markets within 25 mins, your orders are extremely tight.
focus on less volatile pairs for now, it is better for learning.
I really hope something here helps you on your path forward.
Never give up on your dreams.
Jon
Trader
thats your problem right there, your losers are bigger than your winners. I was demoing with a strategy like this and after awhile I thought to myself, why the hell am I making it this way? It makes no sense lol Unless you are an elite trader that barely ever loses, that type of risk management will kill your account everytime. Your wins HAVE to be bigger than your losers! That means stop loss needs to be half of what your take profit usually is.
This way you can have more losses than wins (still have to have some wins) in one day and still come out profitable
I wouldn’t want to trade market-open as a strategy. Such a strategy assumes that the best trading opportunities are always at market-open, and I’m fairly certain that’s incorrect. I prefer strategies that produce high probability setups. By that I mean I’m looking to win 90+% of trades. And some days I would not trade at all if there was not a good trading signal, or I thought there was too much geo-politics going on. I’m looking for just one good quality, high probability trade a day.
My stop loss is placed in an area where I am reasonably certain that if price moves there, then my entire reasoning for taking the trade was incorrect. I allow for a little volatility when placing the stop loss. If I think the stop loss is unacceptably large then I would not take the trade.
Tripling your account in six months is great, but if you are getting margin calls then it sounds like you may have a risky strategy and/or poor money management (I’ve never had a margin call). And with a win rate of 66% you cannot afford too many losing trades in a row.
My best advice would be to try and identify good trading opportunities, rather than always trading the market-open. The high probability trades I take typically occur after several hours of watching for an opportunity. I would only place a trade just before or just after market-open if I thought the preceding price action and indicator movement was highly favourable.
Lastly, I’m sure there are people who successfully trade market-open for day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, but it just doesn’t suit me. It just feels to much like gambling. I prefer high probability set ups, after watching several hours of price action and indicator movement.
First issue here i see is not having a stop loss, which is a massive risk, I reckon you should always have a stop loss. when you trade breakouts, not having a stop loss means if your prediction goes wrong, trade will go the other way and not having a stop loss means you will loss big if it forms a trend in the opposite direction of your trade. but trading a breakout has another draw back that if you put a stop loss, price sometimes does these false breakouts and stop you out with tighter SL and then goes your way. I highly suggest using an ATR indicator for your stop losses and everytime you enter in a trade first thing you do is your stop loss. I use ATR (Average True Range) for stop loss and 2 times ATR value works super for me in 15Min timeframe.
Second issue i see here is your lot sizing, when you say you triple your account in mere 6 months, that means you are risking big, you need to revisit your risk to reward ratio. first determine your SL in PIPs and then goto myforexbook lot size calculator and risk only 2% of your account on any trade and get your accurate lot size before entering anytrade. i can detail my way of doing things if you are interested,
Third and last issue i see is your attempts to make big bucks, you may triple your account in good set of price data but when losing streak begins you will go bust. best thing to do to aim to risk 1% of your account per trade to aim to gain 2% in profit. also i suggest you turn to trend trading which is way better then breakout trades. just my thoughts… hope it was helpful.
my dear friend the truth is that you have to study your losses to realize what you are doing wrong, sometimes you might be right in your analysis but another big issue is how to enter the market and thats where your skills come in that has been a major problem with some many traders i.ve met,before you even enter the market YOU need to HAVE A GAME PLAN mixed with patient,and trust me your outcome will change drastically
Ignore some of the pompous comments here. Your journey honestly sounds so similar to mine and the only way things improved was by trading on longer timeframes. Yes, it’ll take longer to grow your account, but it’s also a lot more difficult to blow it. Perhaps broaden the number markets you look at and you’ll be surprised at how many opportunities still present themselves on a daily timeframe.
Don’t give up, Emily.
Like others have offered to you…
Switch to demo. Trading is worth it if you put in the dedication - just like golf, love and karate.
Your errors are psychological and technical…
You need to master money management, trade size, ADV and ADR.
Your lot sizes are way too big for trading without stops… that is a next level trading style.
Small consistent trades will serve you better than anything.
Try to see how many profitable trades you can make: .25% to 2% profit each, and get out with a trailing stop. Until you can get 10 or more positive trades a day.
That kind of practice will expose to you how much you are gambling and guessing and haven’t recognized it. You need to be MUCH choosier about your entries and have planned exits. (That’s how you know that you know what you’re doing.)
If you can do 5, you can do 50 with practice. Then more. - That’ll make you a millionaire in a year if you start with $50.
Build your screen up with moving averages 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 - with MFI, CCI and RSI, and analyze trends and reversals with that set-up.
Your screen should have at least 4 time frames on it.
Trading is a planned strategic game, not throwing darts and chasing fast chickens.
It is very focused, analytical, quiet, calm, unemotional work. And fascinating.
And nothing can make a human being independently wealthy faster than currency trading.
Consider it a martial art, commit to 4 hours a day, and make a blood pact that you will not give up EVER until you win. Wax on, Wax off, sand the floor, paint the fence.
And you’ll win.