How many positions to open?

Almost 2 weeks in forex trading here. I already jump in a real account though it’s only $100. I just want to feel the emotions of trading. I’ve lost 75% of my account already lol.

My biggest mistake is like opening 5 positions and not putting a stop loss.

For you guys, how many positions do you think is advisable?

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A difficult question to answer without knowing your trading approach. If you are a swing trader, yes, five positions in a day is probably too much. For a scalper, on the other hand, not at all.

I would be more concerned about stop losses instead of the number of positions. If you open one position, or ten positions, and no stop loss on either, you are risking 100% of your account in both cases.

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Every position deserves a stop-loss. If you can’t see where to place the stop-loss, your planning is incomplete and you should not open the trade.

But even then, if you open say 5 trades which are long EUR and short 5 different minor currencies, you are accepting 5 times the maximum acceptable risk if the EUR should tank.

@giovannicali

i had so many newbie mistakes already.

Everytime I’m seeing an opportunity to take profit, I’ll take it asap coz of the fear that the market might go against my positions. That’s why on my first ever thread here, I said that I’m winning 8 out of ten but those 8 winnings, I only got like $1 each lol and the 2 loss is like $13 each (average).

Now I’m opening maximum of 2 positions with $ 0.01 of my account for each.

By the way base on what I read, stop loss has cons also right?

I’ve experience this several times already. Right after a placed a position and riding on a trend, I placed a stop loss and in just 10 minutes a pullback happened and it reached my stop loss. It annoyed the hell outa me, what even worse is after that deep pullback, the trend still continues which I should have won lots of pips.

@tommor

Where are you basing your stop loss?

Is it on a specific percentage of your account that you want to risk on every position?

or

are you willing to take lots of risk because you believed on your strategy?

You can’t avoid failed trades. What you can do is to find the optimal place for your stop loss through analysis. I like to put mine behind as many barriers as the market allows: behind a support, behind the last candle’s high, behind a moving average. Ideally I want all of these barriers between my entry and my stop.

I always base SL on the TA, then adjust position size according to the distance from entry price to SL price.

@tommor

TA? Trade analysis?

Excuse my ignorance guys, I still don’t know some of the forex abbreviation. :grin:

@matzhee

Check this out, it’ll help. In fact, go through all the courses. I’m in high school right now. Gives a good background in forex

https://www.babypips.com/learn/forex/kindergarten#three-types-of-analysis

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TA - Yes, technical analysis

FA = fundamental analysis

SL = stop-loss

TP = take profit order or price

No offence but you shouldn’t be trading live yet. Take time to learn first, otherwise you will just keep burning money and putting pressure on yourself. Trade a demo account until you have tried and tested some strategies

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Take a sufficient time for learning after it you have to use actual amount for trading , it will built real pressure when you not get desired profit . Make a lot of practice on some pairs so that you will face less difficulties in real trading.

@eddieb

Again this is just $100 account. I just want to feel the emotions of trading right from the get go using real money. I knew right from the start that I will burn this and it isn’t an issue for me.

How about you, for sure you’re earning a lot already?

Two things matter.

  1. Never enter a trade without a stop-loss.

  2. Never have more than a total of 1% of your account exposed to risk at the same time (that means that if all your entered positions suddenly turn against you and all hit their stop-losses at the same time, it can never cost you more than a total of 1% of your account-funds).

If you stick reliably to those two rules, it doesn’t matter how many positions you open at the same time.

It’s really simple. All it takes is the willingness to do it.

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Yep, SL’s in this case represent the point in the future where the trader decides he/she is wrong, for whatever reason and closes the trade with a loss.

There is another thread where the poster says that whenever he revenge trades he loses, likely on a revenge trade the SL is tight.

Setting a SL behind visible barriers is common, thing is those barriers are visible to the market, the market seeks liquidity - i.e. where orders rest, otherwise price would have to sit stationary waiting for orders.

I cannot understand the need to give the market 100.00 - the bookies love the thinking behind that, good chance that you will get an email with a ‘free’ offer if you add more funds.

If it’s not possible to learn the emotions of trading via demo then …

That’s fine and understandable. My point is that you could do this after you have learnt more about forex, found a trading style/strategy that suits you, and backtested it.

Namaste

No, biggest mistake is opening the live account too early! What was your demo trading result?

Dear; you trading capital is too small but you are using such kind of risky risk management! Without stop loss, it’s not possible. Please, learn Forex and then try to make money! Don’t be rush.

@Luke_Ronchi

That $100 isn’t an issue for me.

I know I’ll burn right from the get go. Again I just want to learn how to handle the emotion on forex trading especially when you’re losing money already.

If I can learn some forex basic strategies. the do’s and don’t’s by opening an account why not learn how to handle real account simultaneously? It’s like hitting two birds in one stone.

Also, who here became profitable right away after they moved to a real account? I’m pretty sure majority started losing money at first.

Then try for cent type account and go with 5$. It’ll save your capital.

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