The duration of trades depends on strategy and market conditions. Scalpers often trade for 1-15 minutes, targeting small moves, especially during high-volatility sessions like NYC/London overlap. Longer trades may suit trend-followers. Practice spotting setups and refine your approach for better timing.
In day trading, some traders hold for just 10-15 minutes, especially during high volatility like the NYC/London open. If youâre struggling with that, consider adjusting your strategy to match your style, whether thatâs quicker trades or holding a bit longer. The key is consistency and sticking to your plan.
Flexibility is key! How do you adjust when the market doesnât move in your favor?
1 Like
So if you donât hit TPs, but arenât at a loss, what do you do. Keep it open?
When the market doesnât move in your favor, itâs important to stay calm and avoid emotional decision-making. You can adjust by reassessing your strategy, either by cutting losses if the trade no longer aligns with your initial analysis, or by shifting your position to hedge the risk.
If Iâm not hitting TP/SL then I manage it based on structure. You let your run or close early?
Yea, usually run. But if itâs not moving I start to think my analysis was wrong and then I think really hard about setting or adjusting the SL.
1 Like
I just read the thread (quickly, I admit) for the first time and am posting just to say that what I consider the most important point of all seems not to have been mentioned yet - namely, that whatâs important is to make quite sure, when you check over your figures weekly or monthly or daily or whenever you do it, that the duration of your winning trades is a whole lot longer than the duration of your losing trades.
This is a valid and important metric whatever your trade-frequency, chart-speed and so on. Itâs valid whether youâre a very fast, frequent, or a much slower, more occasional trader.
Itâs one of the ways you can really tell a âwinnerâ from a âloserâ, among traders.
All traders.
Retail and professional and institutional, too.
You need the average trade-duration of your winners be longer than that of your losers.
Itâs just another way of saying âCut losses quickly and let winners run.â Itâs far more important than many people expect! 
3 Likes
I use myfxbook to tracking trade performance and stats and one metric they include in the trade history table is Time Profitable. I never really looked at it before, but after closing a trade, I can see how long the trade was profitable or not.
3 Likes
I totally get it, but do you trust your original plan or tweak it?
I do both. Iâm trying hard to cut losers earlier instead of waiting and hoping. For me I guess it also that depends on my account size, free margin, other open traders (like are they all in one direction, or trading on similar currencies, and the structure, like you said.
Do you think managing the free margin makes it harder to cut losers or does it make it harder to let go?
Well, sometimes my open trades arenât in profit and then I see an opportunity I want to trade but canât because of margin limiting what I can do.
Itâs easy to cut losers at that point. I mean I hate to actually realize the loss, but âhopingâ for a turnaround vs actually seeing something that could be profitable right now should be an easy decision.
1 Like