I’ve recently seen an improvement in my results and am getting into quite a few good positions.
My problem is that I’m coming out to quickly and not letting the winners get to my TP target.
I only trade the majors with price action, on the daily charts, and was wondering if anyone could give me and idea of the length of time I should give the trade to play out, (days or weeks??)
I keep an eye out for technical reason for why I should close out but feel that I’m struggling with letting the winners ride.
You say you don’t let the winners get to your profit targets so I’m assuming you are deciding the profit objectives before you enter your position which is good. Try to stick with your original plan because, as im sure you know, once in a trade its easy to talk yourself out of it. If you’re trading the Daily time frame your trades could take anything from a day to a few months to play out depending how far away your targets are. I struggled with this alot but i trade intraday so its easy, i can just turn my charts off and forget about it, not easy to do on the daily time frame though.
One thing that worked for me was to take most of the position off, say 80%, and leave the remaining 20% or even just 10% on to reach for the targets. Then as you get more confident with letting your trades play out start to leave 30% on then 40% until you are only taking off say 30% and leaving 70% on to reach for the targets.
Enter when you have a signal, exit when you have a signal!
If you trade the daily, you should exit from a signal on the daily and you should also
hold your trade for several days either for the trade to start moving your way, or even better reach your limit!
The holding period of a trade comes from the time frame you are trading. If you trade the daily and exit after
15 minutes of entry, then you are definitely doing something wrong! On the other hand if you are trading the daily
and you have to wait several weeks for a trade to pan out, then your also doing something wrong!!!
My advice, start trading smaller positions so that moves against your trade don’t make you nervous enough
to close them and build on this emotional situation gradually!
Usually I let it run until it hits the TP…I understand the reason why a trader may want to bail out early on, but with any good strategy, you need to let it play out.
We had a valid setup out our level. We always wait for the conformation entry, giving us a better entry price. Entered @ 1.59700
20 pip Stop Loss
40 pip Take Profit (2:1RR)
Stop to Break Even at 20pips
There is nothing better then walking away from the pc knowing 1 of 2 things can happen, 1. TP gets hit and I walk away with a profit, 2. My SL gets hit at BE and I protected my capital.
Don’t sit in front of the screen after entering your position as that will allow your emotions to come into play more = bad!
It takes time and practice but its the way to go mate.
I normally set my stop at whatever it is I am willing to lose. Other than that I let it run but I also don’t work. I live off my account. So I always have something in front of me iphone, ipad, laptop or desktop to constantly watch and see how many pips I am up. Also can bite you in the butt, like I had a sell EUR/USD and watched it climb to +110 pips and was so excited that I let it continue, I ended up closing at +60 pips I would have doubled my profit if I would have just closed it when I saw it hit +100 or so. You see without a take profit you’re risking losing pips but with a take profit you risk losing pips. So it is really up to your personal goals as a trader.
This is my favorite question to answer!!! I practiced on a demo account for 3 months then opened a live account with only $1,000 USD. The key to living off your forex account would be how much money you need for your bills. I only need about $400 USD to pay my bills. Also though my house is paid for and I live with my sister who she pays all the other bills, like electricity and water and she buys food and I cook for her. All you have to do is add up what bills you have, make that, withdraw that, and compound the rest of it! I do not go shopping, I do not buy things I don’t need. I am not going to give up what I want in the long run for what I want right now. It’s very simple. At least for me it is.
Hi there,
Spiperman’s advise is the most proper and meaningful one I see.
When you have a system (analyzing price action is a system, too) you better off consistently flowing your system no matter what the rest of the world is telling.
If your system has hidden bags you can easily fix them. If not then should be happy. Just sit back and relax watching your pips running in to your pocket.
I allso had the same problem, closeing the trades to early. I had a profitable system, but i lost money because I took profits too early. Was afraid that price will turn against me.
Then I started to do the same as has been said before already:
1.Move SL breakeven after 1:1 profit
2.Start to trail stop after moveing BE ( use Sar, Fractals, Lows or Highs, what ever U like to use)
3.Take 75% of profits after price is 1,5:1 or 2:1 ( depends S/R levels, fibo or from your strategy)
4.Leave the rest run until TS takes it out or use some idicator to close it ( like MACD or Stoch turning back)
It works like a charm for me. Earning consistent profits now. If I don`t fk up it with my greed.
And SCUMMY666’s, Im doing the same thing right now, started with 1000$, first months. Only for me it took 1,5 years to get here :). It`s all about how much You need for living, like managing Your account.
Good points here, but the main problem all traders run into are bolded, the would have should have. Like any strategy for entering a trade, you need one to exit a trade and TP. 60 pip gain, you’re acting like it is the end of the world cause you missed out on 40 more pips. Fact is, you protected your capital and made a profit, that alone should have you saying my strategy has been working PERFECTLY. Stop focusing on the would have should have because that will cause you to change the way you do things due to emotions. Make a plan, stick to it because in the end if it is working no matter how many PIPS you “miss out on” you aren’t LOSING CAPITAL.
Protect capital
Make a profit
REPEAT
I use to think the same way, should have, then I let the emotion of missing out creep in and before I knew it, all my winning trades would close out against me, then I was back to I should have taking profits when I had the chance, terrible cycle. Set up ground rules, following them NO MATTER WHAT.
Quick example, I closed out a trade that triggered yesterday for a loss. Too many signals telling me the trade is going to reverse. So I bite the bullet and take a loss (very small only 9 pips). So was it the right decision? Will the trade keep going and will I miss out on profit? I don’t know and more importantly I don’t care. This is part of my strategy. Close out trades when the signal is there if it is a looser before I lose even more. In this case, perhaps I will check to see if it was the right decision, analyze and see if the strategy worked, but I will not stress over the fact that I closed out a current loosing trade to see it be a winner, because if it turns against me and I hit the SL that was set, I would really be out - protect capital #1.
