How long before you move your stop loss to BE or better on a profitable trade?

[MattyMoney]

I debated replying here because I use a very wide SL and really don’t pay much attention to them after I’ve set them, and most people around here don’t trade like that.

Honestly, 35 pips is not far enough away in my trading to even consider moving it, you’re pretty much guaranteeing a BE trade, unless it spikes in your direction and hit your TP.

I currently have 3 long trades open on USDCAD, they’re in profit by 59, 89 and 106 pips and I never even thought about the SL(which is almost 300 pips away) until I read this thread.

Now saying that, I don’t use TP’s either and a lot of my trades are closed manually at less than 1:1R, but since I trade with the long term trend I have lots of confidence in my direction with a high win rate, so R;R’s are of little value to me anyways.

Sorry if this is not helpful, but I thought I’d throw it out there anyways.

[flamingoproxy]

@MattyMoney

Sorry if this is not helpful

it is! at the very least it’s a good demonstration that even among successful traders, there’s no “one size fits all” on this question

[Mookmik]

I understand you, but keep in mind that day trading and swing trading are two very different approaches to short term investing and the SL or be topic can not be compared.

My answer was from how i am day trading and ues the SL and BE i do not swing trade and if i did then i can not use the SL and BE as i do now i n my day trading.

Before i enter a trade i know exactly my targets, so my first target will be a BE target or i trade out for a profit of x pips and i use the x pips to enter the market again but that is normal setup as pending order(s)

[samewise]

@alphahavoc

This is one sticky question to address

Looks like it! Like @flamingoproxy says,

@flamingoproxy

no “one size fits all” on this question

@alphahavoc

Another option is to hedge 70% of your position when you’ve made a 33-pip profit to secure some profits. For the remaining 30% of your position, you can either aim for breakeven at the entry price or let it reach the original target of 55 pips.

Yea, I mean in this specific case, I was already past the 50% TP mark, so my brain is telling me, is it worth another 15-20 pips to potentially lose 35 pips if price falls back to BE.

But I guess then if that happens, my original TP was bad. Which goes to @tommor s point of whether it needs to be set anyway. Personal preference I guess.

[flamingoproxy]

@samewise

But I guess then if that happens, my original TP was bad

this is part of the reason there’s no “one size fits all”, lol - i very rarely use a TP, because almost all my trades are trend-following

[samewise]

@tommor

Suppose your long position is say £1 per pip, and you have a 26 pip Entry-SL distance. When your gain reaches +£26, you can move the SL to the Entry price and add another £1 per pip position, with its SL also at the original trade’s entry price. If price falls both positions will be stopped out and you will lose £26: but if price rises another 26 pips, you will have a gain of £52 for a risk of £26.

I wonder if this is similar to @AmericanTrader 's current strategy over in

Scalping strategy to finish the year strong

Nice! How’s the stress level as you wait for it to come back? Holy crap man!

that adds more and more smaller positions. Maybe the thinking is the same, trading off the original entry and move to BE.

@steve369

Top pros have money. Therefore when they trade a winning trade they jump aboard for a free ride.

I mean is this like a day trading scenario or even with longer term trades (longer than a day), where they add to the position? I guess it doesn’t matter from a time frame perspective.

@DigitalRahul

Alternatively, some traders prefer to use trailing stop orders

I don’t think Oanda offers this in the US. Let me do some digging.

[flamingoproxy]

@samewise

I don’t think Oanda offers this in the US

i’ve been wrong before, certainly, but i’ll be amazed if that’s so

Oanda is (by their own very open admission) a counterparty market-maker (albeit a very good one), and they love their customers to use automated trailing stops

(i trail manually, anyway - after exhaustive backtesting: i always do better without an automated trailing-stop)

[samewise]

@flamingoproxy

i trail the stop-loss manually just beyond the most recently formed swing-high (for short trades) or swing-low (for long trades) without reference at all to where break-even is, so my first adjustment to the stop-loss, when a trade’s moving the right way for me, can be either below or above break-even, depending on price movements

I feel this actually makes more sense, doesn’t it? I know from a risk management perspective, we’re taught as noobs to trade 1% of your acct balance, or .5% or no more than 2%, or whatever, but maybe that number needs to be combined with whatever the chart and market structure shows.

@flamingoproxy

Oanda is (by their own very open admission) a counterparty market-maker (albeit a very good one), and they love their customers to use automated trailing stops

I’m using the Tradingview desktop app, and only have a two check boxes, one for SL and one for TP. Maybe it’s TV that’s the problem.

[tommor]

I don’t think I’ve actually looked at that thread. I saw the reference to scalping and skipped past it straight away. People who talk about scalping are either far better traders than I am, or far worse but don’t know it yet.

[flamingoproxy]

@tommor

People who talk about scalping are either far better traders than I am, or far worse but don’t know it yet.

lol, it’s one of those “i wish i’d said that” moments … but threads like this one do restore my faith and confidence in the forum, to some extent, though i’m saying that before it fills with all the mandatory ‘bot contributions,’ of course

[samewise]

@samewise

I’m using the Tradingview desktop app, and only have a two check boxes, one for SL and one for TP. Maybe it’s TV that’s the problem.

I just figured it out and you gave me the motivation to investigate. You can actually click “Stop loss” to get another dropdown option for Trailing Stop! It was there the entire time.

Thanks so much for making me take a second look!

[tommor]

Though I must add that consistent trends in forex are not that common. A better place to run pyramiding tactics is when following a US stock market index uptrend. That’s where I have made most money with least anxiety when pyramiding.

[samewise]

@tommor

I don’t think I’ve actually looked at that thread.

There are a couple different strategies being talked about. Some good stuff in there.

[samewise]

@MattyMoney

I currently have 3 long trades open on USDCAD, they’re in profit by 59, 89 and 106 pips and I never even thought about the SL(which is almost 300 pips away) until I read this thread.

That is a monster SL!

[MattyMoney]

That’s how you stay in the game.

[samewise]

Are you a purely TA type of trader?

Are you still trading this?

Day Trading Strategy - High Probablility Trades

It was a good day. I decided to open trades for the following pairs: AUDNZD -27 pips (SL hit, too tight) EURCHF 34.4 pips [image] NZDCAD 13.7 pips [image] DOW 197 pips (average of 3 separate positions) [image] I did notice that with 5 of the 9 pairs/instruments I suggested in the OP, price slightly surpassed the previous days’ H/L before reversing, meaning that if the SL was too tight the trade would have been stopped out. This happened to me with AUDNZD and would have happened with N…

[MattyMoney]

@samewise

Are you a purely TA type of trader?

Yes I am, 100%

@samewise

Are you still trading this?

No, because I work full time it doesn’t work with my schedule, unfortunately. I do think there’s potential there though.

[samewise]

@MattyMoney

No, because I work full time it doesn’t work with my schedule, unfortunately. I do think there’s potential there though.

I thought this was like an EOD type system. Were you trying to open your positions before EOD?

[MattyMoney]

Trying to think now…I don’t say much about opening them in the OP, but I believe the idea was to close the open positions then open new positions around the EOD.

That could certainly be modified to opening them a few hours after the NY close since there’s generally little volume at that time.

Perhaps I need to revisit this at some point.

[samewise]

@MattyMoney

Perhaps I need to revisit this at some point.

Haha yea I get that way trying out different strategies. Plenty to choose from. I think I’ll give yours a deeper look. Thanks!