I see a lot of people commenting on how they like to trade this pair because of its volatility but I digress lol
I have a specific startegy setup that I look for and it’ll look perfect on this pair but it just never goes my way
other pairs, my strategy works much better and more frequently
I also noticed (could be a broker issue) that specifically with this pair, my trade will literally close out randomly (not in profit), even with a stop loss not set. Today apparently my stop loss got hit that was set for $157 but closed out somehow at $197 and when I went to go look at the chart, the candlesticks weren’t even touching my stop loss!! (none went past it either, no crazy spikes, nothing)
is gbpjpy a pair that maybe brokers feel like they can target because it’s so volatile?
you cant just go by range. price per unit dictates how many you can purchase with a given amount, which dictates positional pip value, then with typical range you can create a profit potential ranking system for all pairs. and with yen pairs theres an added conversion albeit simple enough. kiwi and cable pack the biggest punch across the board.
A position of a certain size, in $ or £ per pip, will require you to have a certain amount of capital uncommitted to other trades as free margin in your account. If the free margin drops below that % level, the broker will immediately close the position.
Bear in mind that we are trading on credit: that is, you don’t have to have the full value of a position in capital in your account. the full value of a position of £1 per pip in GBP/JPY, is equivalent to £16,142.
OK, then perhaps it was the spread being widened out dramatically wide by your broker. This won’t show on your charts.
Most charts are by default set to display where price is using the bid price. The ask price is not shown. Some charts can be manually re-set to display the ask price, so if that’s the case for your charts you could compare the prices at the specific time when your trade was closed.
But its still possible when you watch live quotes and the live chart to see that the two do not exactly match. Quoted prices can briefly touch certain levels but the broker chart does not ever catch up. I’m not sure but I have always guessed this is because the charts are set to update only if price reaches a certain level for more than perhaps 1.0 seconds or 1.5 seconds or whatever. Within that time the chart will not show the price level reached by the quote, but the trade can be closed by the quoted price. Its the quotes that count.
If your trade is closed by SL, it’s because the spread went so large for a moment, that your SL was hit without price coming anywhere close to it. Try another broker. If your trade closed without hitting SL, it’s a lack of margin issue.
Story short, you were stopped out by spreads of jpy pairs so for you, I think to solve this problem you should turn on the ask prize line and the Bid prize line so that you can see how big is the spread at that time you wanna trade. So on MT just go to
properties or press F8 go to → show → and switch show bid prize line (on) → show ask prize line (on).
So with these two lines on your screen you will be able to see how far you should place SL. e.g you have a fix stoploss as an like, you love or with your strategy you only loose $1 or $100 or $1000 everytime you place a trade.
so with Bid and ask prize line turned on and if spread Is high bid and ask will be way far from each other the when spread is normal they are close.
So all you should do is to increase your a little bit for the sake spread instead of a $1, $100 or $1000 you now put $1,10 or $110 or $1100 depending on a current spread you see on you screen and also check if your SL is near a order block too
Note: Bid and ask lines affects shortening, bearishing , selling positions only
It’s always high for almost like 1h to 3h of the new york session if you use low TF’s of 1min to 15min above 15m you are safe a little from spreads coz they can get high at anytime when they want to or I should say do to economy
Then rest is all about you yourself on how you trade
GBP/JPY is also called a Dragon (self-explanatory).
Check your broker if they’re suspicious.
Another reason could be the news when spreads are much wider or if you have left the trade opened after New York Close when spreads become much, much more wider and could go to even 40, 50 pips and reach your SL.
Concering the pair itself, nothing much different from other pairs if you stick to your strategy. This pair is more volatile, yes, however then you should adjust. If you put your SL on EUR/USD, for example 40 pips, just make it 80 pips on GBP/JPY, however adjust appropriately. Meaning, lower lot size due to the bigger SL and that’s it. If you trade EUR/USD with 0.04 and SL is 40 pips, on GBP/JPY where SL is 80 pips due to pair being more volatile, just enter with 0.02.