Hey guys, great forum here. Lots of knowledgable and informative posts and people here.
I started a mini account over at forex.com a couple weeks ago, started off with $1,000. Anyways, my account is now sitting at $800, so I haven’t been successful at all. I feel as though every time I place a trade, it automatically goes against me. About an hour ago, I bought USD/JPY and immediately went against me. After looking at the charts, it looked as though I made a mistake initially, and that I should have gone the other way. So I closed my initial position with a small $15 loss and sold USD/JPY. Once again though, it went against me. I’ve made roughly 20 trades, and I think maybe 5 have been ok. The most I was able to make in one day was $50 a while back, but for the most part I’ve just been bleeding money. So I’d like to ask the following:
How long does the average trader stay in a trade? I usually don’t stay in trades very long, many times 30 minutes or less. Should I stay in longer?
What kind of stop loss does one put? I generally put a stop loss of 50 pips, more often than not it gets triggered. Too low?
I know Forex isn’t a get rich quick, but I had been demo trading and doing ok. I demoed for maybe 2 weeks or so. I’ll admit I like action, so I probably jumped into live trading a little early. But I can’t believe so many trades going against me. It seems that whenever I feel a pair should go one way, it goes the other.
How long a trade lasts depends on your time frame. I trade the 4h charts and stay in a trade from a couple hours to a day.
50pip stop loss is an ok figure, but it’ll depend on the timeframe and the usual amount of drawdown.
Personally I think you started live WAY too soon. I demoed for about 6 months before jumping in with only 50 bucks, and even then I couldn’t get into a good rhythm and make consistent profits for 2 months. Emotions play a big part in how much you make.
My advice is keep learning. The reason trades are going against you is because you don’t know what you’re doing. Really learn the material and develop your own trading plan.
Look at the holy grail’s section to get a jump start.
I agree. Two weeks on demo before jumping live is pretty short, unless you developed a solid strategy backtesting. Also, if you started with $1000, I’d only put in $100 and trade micro lots. When you start trading live, that’s when your pyschology and discipline begins to affect the execution of your strategy. Better to get used to that with a small amount rather than with all of your money. Regardless of your position size you’ll feel the pain of losing money, as you already probably know…
I highly recommend the 301 Moved Permanently thread. It doesn’t mean you’ll never lose, but it [B]WILL[/B] help you win more. Yes I’d use micro lots to start if you’re going to practise on a live account while doing your homework to understand the concepts and get consistent. Then go up to mini…then to infinite and beyond…LOL
