Be careful in the markets today! It's crazy time!

I had several 50+ pip moves on yen pairs today on the 5 minute. You might want to sit this one out if you’re trading live and a beginner. Crazy volatility.

If you’re on demo, no worries! Watch the markets and learn!

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“Crazy time” is right! :open_mouth:

I’ve just had one very lucky, very good trade (and had absolutely no idea how potentially dangerous it might have been, when I entered it), emerged well and luckily, and with great relief, and might now call it a day!!

(At times like this, it’s never 100% certain that a counterparty broker will be able to honour a stop-loss. It’s REALLY risky, trading in this “weather”!)

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Yep, this is blowing accounts heaven type markets. The crazy whipsawing has caught me out. If I’d stuck with my entry and looked away, I’d have come out with good winners, but the whipsawing saw me close with a move that flew the wrong way in minutes and I cut my losses and ran.

I remember the market being like this on gold a year or two ago. I think the way to play the US markets now is wait for the big candle against the trend and then go the other way.

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And here I was moaning about being too busy with work to trade, today: sounds like I had a lucky escape? (And NFP to avoid, tomorrow, as well?).

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Bad news on NFP and there will be major fireworks. Stocks are tanking as it is, any signs of a weakening economy and it’ll be a big move.

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Are y’all in the US? And is there a morning broadcast (YouTube, podcast) that you check for news and look aheads?

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I’m in London. (UK, not Ontario).

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Same. Too much micro managing the trade for me too.

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Always easier with hindsight! :upside_down_face:

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Yep US. East coast. On big news days, I like to watch the live Bloomberg stream on YouTube in the early morning. It’s free.

But I just keep an eye on the high impact calendar events here on the Babypips calendar.

Plus I was on the charts so saw the moves while trading.

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It’s like, why didn’t I see that trend to begin with. Or that change in XYZ.

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Depends how you’re trading. I’m going big and getting out quickly if it goes against me. If you’ve ever seen Tom Hougaard, it’s like a poor version of how he trades haha. If you’ve not seen him, I thoroughly recommend watching his videos. He’s doing a series on Youtube, live every day and already doubled the account this year. Not only does he share everything live, there’s loads of discussion about systems and the market behaviour.

I’ve never paid for any training course, but what he does is miles ahead of anything else I’ve seen out there.

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I’m a big fan of Tom Hougaard - I watch and listen but I do not copy his trades - he’s been using some very large stops recently. But amazing what he does. :+1:

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His stops are big in case his entry is bad and it drops into the range, but more often than not he’s in profit within a minute or two and moves it to break even. I’m struggling to get the entry timed well enough to do this.

They’re so big right now because the market is swinging all over the place. It’s definitely difficult to trade safely like this, but his methods are so good that I rarely go into too much drawdown even without his timing.

Yes I’ve noticed he moves to break even quick.
You are doing well if you even keep up with him
I’m taking a bit of a break with the wild markets.

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I’ll have to check him out. What time frames does he trade? I’m guessing if it’s live trading, it’s something lower. I do see his name mentioned a lot.

Man, the price action is just crazy right now. Lots of opportunities for trades.

I’m definitely using stops more than I’m used to

That’s rather an alarming sentence to find in the forum?! If you’re using them less than 100% of the time, then you’re not using them enough.

It works for me to not use them 100% of the time. I would say not using them was actually the turning point in my trading being profitable. There’s plenty of threads on the topic of using them and not using them. I’ve also shared trades that went against me bigly that a SL would have saved a huge headache and loss. So there’s risk in how I trade.

But I watch my risk and margin on a daily basis. And add to my account balance when a trade pushes me in the wrong direction, or scale out a position.

So for me it works.

It didn’t go as I planned. I think I need to focus on my risk management more

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