Hey all. I’m still new to forex. I was just wondering how the experienced traders decide to pull the trigger. Do you wait for the perfect setup when all of your conditions have been met or do you pull the trigger even when let’s say for example 2 out of 3 of your conditions have been met? Also, do most traders have a pip target per day and if you reach that target, even if it happens at the beginning of your day, do you call it a day and go do something else even though you know you can hang around and make more pips? Thanks very much for any input.
The trades I regret the most were early on when I figured, “it’s close enough, pull the trigger”.
I wait until ALL criteria of my trade setup is complete.
I don’t have a set goal of sorts, but I try to take setups that I feel have the best potential to go 20 pips or more.
If that happens early, I don’t stop. If the market is cooperative, I’ll keep at it, because there are days it won’t be there.
Yes you have to be patient. I have no set limits, I’ll take what the market gives from the trades entered. What matters is being positive in returns at the end of the month/year.
When you have the answer to this question, you will be a profitable trader, if you wait for all perfect setups, you are unlikely to profit, since they will be so far and few between, and even then they will all not work out.
It’s the Holy Grey Line (:D) you need to find between losing and winning, with experience you will learn more and more where this line is.
Even perfect setups don’t always lead to a winning trade, they just give the best chance. So for my part, I only like high probability trades, so I wait for all my setup criteria to be met. You can make a great living on two or three net successful trades a week, so if I sit at the screen for a couple of days and don’t see a setup, I don’t place a trade. When I first started out I would often feel under pressure to place something, feeling that two days without placing meant that I wasn’t getting anywhere. The trades I placed under those circumstances didn’t have a good success rate. This game is unpredictable enough without bending your strategy to fit the market. If the strategy is good, you can sit and wait for the setups that fit it. Patience and confidence in the strategy are key.
I try to wait for the perfect setups and pass on the mediocre ones. But alas, I am only human and I’m sure I fail at this often still.
On a channeling trade setup, I will often pull the trigger a tad bit early on entries if it has already completed the channel at least once. I’ve noticed that frequently, the price will “tease” and not fully reach the channel boundary on subsequent “touches.” This is not always the case, but sometimes if the boundary is a strong area of resistance, I don’t want to “miss out” on the bounce. I also often take target areas with a grain of salt, especially if the trade is extra-weighted. For example if I’m in a double-weight trade, I want to make darn sure that I get my target profit. So rather than risk a teaser (that never actually reaches the channel boundary), I might get out just a hair before the “real” boundary line…just in case.
I don’t have a pip-target but I do have a time limit/target. I trade only in a specific time window. I almost never stop early. The profit (or loss) is whatever the market wants to offer on that day. I figure that the best training I can give myself is to continually trade and re-load/reset my brain after each trade. One thing that helps with this is to really not pay attention to the equity until after the trading session ends. I don’t really want to be affected knowing I did good or bad “so far”… because that could skew how I trade for the remainder of that session. I’d rather do a thorough analysis in retrospect with a trading journal.
That is a key point, find a way to reset your head in between trades. If your strategy is good, then it will pay out over time. I always risk 1% per trade, and aim for a target of a minimum 1% per trade. When I was starting out in trading, I would place a couple of trades at 1%, then if they hit my Stops, my nerves would kick in. So what would I do? The next couple of trades I would only risk half a %, or maybe even less. They would often be winners, yet as I had carried forwards the negative emotions from the first two trades, overall I was down. Had I stuck with the 1% risk, I would have been at minimum breakeven, probably even up on the day, as trades often run to more than 1% profit. So it is partly setting Stops correctly, it is partly trusting them, and it is partly understanding that they will get hit from time to time even when the strategy is sound.
Not all good trades are winning trades. 
Absolutely right, but worse is when bad trades win! But you have put your finger on the very reason why I think that it is important to wait for the high probability trades, rather thank taking anything that just about fits the strategy.
There will be plenty of “good” trades. Be patient and disciplined, stalk the high probability trades. Just remember you can’t predict the market, no one can. You will win and you will lose, you just have to tilt the odds in your favor.
What I have found over my many years is that discipline is key…
Key to building your system.
Key to testing your system.
Key to having confidence in your system.
and the Key to consistent profits.
I ALWAYS wait for my setup to happen, no exceptions.
As far as a profit target, etc… I don’t have one “per se” however, I do live by the adage that there is such a thing as overtrading… So, FOR ME, I like to trade around the same times each day, so that I can learn the ‘feel’ of the market during those “normal” times. Then when that time ends, so does my trading.
Good luck.