I’m in another one of my wonderful losing trades. Earlier I found a picture perfect reveral on EUR/USD with stochs hooking over. I jumped in targeted for 35pips and all is well. Took about an hour to get there though. Things kept moving another 40 pips afterwards, but I kept myself from jumping back in (although I should’ve).
So now we’re at the bottom. Stochs are wiped out and what could be a reversal looking candle shows up. I jump in. 5 minutes later I’m 22 pips in hole. Currently I’m 40 pips in the hole. At 22 pips I was past the point of no return, so once again, I have to ride it out. I wish I could have moved fast enough to close it at 3 or 4 pips, but then what if it did go my way? Closing it then would have been a waste. Doesn’t it seem like a dirty coincidence how that happens? Takes you 8 times as long to make money as it is to lose it.
I wish I could tell the difference between a reversal and not. Stochs are totally at the bottom, and price has passed every recent support line that I thought would be useful. How do you trade peaks and valleys?
I read that one early in my learning. I get in this habit of thinking what goes up/down, must come up/down, and think that I’m always going to hit a reversal just because price reaches a suport line or blows past a support line and looks to slow down.
I think I’m done with stochastics… Stochs have been telling me to buy for the past two hours.
you’ll never make any money playing with such small margins you need to look at the bigger picture, if you plan on day trading i’d look for some different indicators
If your methods are not making you money, then common sense says there is a flaw in your methods. There’s a fine line between perseverance and not learning from your mistakes. I only say this because I can see the frustration leaking through the threads you start and trading doesn’t have to be like this!
I would suggest to place the TP closer to the pivot, below the resistance and the SL a bit below from the support, if your analysis is correct and you Apply what I�m saying you increase a bit the chance of profitable trades
My advice is stop hunting for tops and bottoms, dont be greedy just because you see it keep going doesnt mean that you keep going. Dont be anxious to be in a trade.
I used to think exactly like you buddy, but after loosing about 3 grands and learning some tough lesson, I have come to a conclusion that you don’t have to in every trade. If you are not 100% sure, don’t trade…its that simple.
What I usually do is after every trade…successful or not, I take a break, organize my thoughts and clear my mind.
My methods are making money though. My profit factor is 2.17. I make 10, 6, 27 pips, then I’m in the hole for 60 pips quicker than I don’t know what and have to wait a whole day for the trade to come back. I’d rather be trading or managing a good trade then waiting for a bad one to turn around. When they do turn around though, they are the most profitable ones, but they don’t count because those trades are out of my control as I leave them to do whatever they are going to do. I’d rather cut them as loses, but they careen into the negative so far and fast, it makes more sense to give them a chance to come back instead of wiping out the last 4 trades worth of profit. Hence the title of my post.
I think today I made the best trade ever for 35 pips. I calculated a reasonable s/l and t/p even though the trade continued on for double of what I took. It was a 3:1 trade. First trade using a stop loss that didn’t get stopped out. All my other trades use stops that are really just emergency stops if things get way, way out of hand.
I should stop posting, because yes, these posts are out of total frustration.
Aren’t tops and bottoms really just the reversals that we look for to make good trades? Does anyone ever jump into the middle of a minor trend and hope it doesn’t run out of steam?
Thats probably really good advice that I should use. Sometimes even settling for a few pips takes a lot out of me it seems.
Heres a prime example with usd/chf. IB candle closed, stochs where high and starting to hook. Waiting for a confirmation candle and entered short. Not even 5 minutes I’m 15+ pips in the hole and counting.
I have had the same issues myself the only difference is I can ussually tell why it was wrong. But same thing it moves against you fast and you don’t want to take the loss. This is the greatest challenge of Forex as I see it. the people who are successfull at this know one thing you and I are now learning. TO WHEN AT THIS IS NOT THE WINNING IT IS LEARNING HOW TO LOSE. He who loses the least wins. I can pick winning trades way better than 50% but if I let one take the profit of 4 or 5 I will still lose. You need to set a stop loss and stick to it. On the chart you posted you should have got out at the break of the prevoius candle then started looking for a re-entry later. You then have less to make up and will be in profit sooner and with more.
I had the same thing yesterday Got in with signal at the 50% FIB for a short but it decide to go to 61% first, I did close for a profit but stood to lose more and would have taken more profit if I would have entered higher up… Always remember all it cost to get back in is the spread if your down 50 or 60 pips what is the logic in that… Those type stops are not for day traders . If you trade positions then you have to wait for a long peroid of time for a new direction to develop which could take days… Then your stops can be huge to allow the same swings we see on smaller time frames…
Anyway good luck and think about it . Cheaper to re-enter and if it just keeps going like it has latelly it can cost you everything.
Learning to lose, definatly. My bad trade from yesterday is now 320 pips in the hole!
In light of that, I’m going to start using stop loses again, even though I hate them! I’ve been watching usd/jpy kinda skate sideways for a good part of the day. It finally broke and price went down, then up. So I set up a buy limit order at line I thought was important. 12 pip s/l, 35 pip t/p.
Take a peak, not open yet. A minute later, peak, not open yet. Another minute later, I’m stopped out and trade is over. where is price now? The candle that stopped me out peaked just above my t/p.
I don’t know which causes more anger. Getting stopped out all the time, or waiting for trades to return from the depths of wherever.
I need something in between mega draw downs and never winning. I’ve used stop loses before, but I get stopped out 98% of the time. If I never cut my loses, I’m winning over 60% of the time. So what would you do? I would think go with the plan that makes more money. If I go the stop loss route I will drain my account for sure.
In the current market condition, really anything can happen. So don’t be too hard on yourself.
Personally I use stochs as well, but in a somewhat different way. I find that when price goes into and oversold / overbought condition, I would buy or sell in the same direction. Depending on the angle of the stoch in the overbought / oversold area, cause typically there is still some more room to go before the reversal.
Again, somthing to remember, trade with the trend!! Considering the EUR/USD and USD/CHF are so closely related, and the EURO is doing nothing but dropping against the USD (EUR/USD down = USD/CHF up typically), I would not have thought to short the USD/CHF, more like be looking to go long.
Basically, you could have more pips than you could count if you had done the following over the past week:
Wait for a retrace on the (these are the only currencies i trade):
EUR/USD - LL + 100pip, zoom into the 5 min chart and start watching for a good entry
GBP/USD - LL + 200:250pip
GBP/JPY - LL + 300:600pip
(the values i use are just a personal method, not suggesting to go by that exactly, and i spend alot of time watching the charts, so when a retracement is comming close to those values, i start to watch it closely to get a feel if it will contiune or start to reverse)
And than short the heck out of it.
I primarily focused on the GBP/JPY this week as its more bang for the buck, and banked more pips this week than i have really in the last 6 months of trading.
Edacsac dont be so hard on yourself. Take a step back and try to see why you are giving all your profit back. Why? Are you over trading? Are you greedy? Are you picking tops?
Maybe you need more confirmation before you enter a trade. Personally I dont use stops either but it can be a very risky thing to do. Kenneth Lee is right it is much cheaper and less stressfull to close a positon out then reneter the market when it comes back this way you are not booking a loss. That is exactly what I do. I used to have a 200 pip threshhold and that worked fine but it is sooooooo risky!!! Expecting price to return to a median level can blow your whole account!!! It is alot less risky to close the positon and reenter. There is alot of peole that give up don’t be one of them you can make it just don’t give up.
john
Have you all seen the market today, I don�t understand how the dollar is recovering after all that has happened this week. Can someone explain to me!
Clark LOL!!! The USA is not alone the whole world is screwed except fx hehehehhe.
Seriously everybody is crashing especially Europe. Heres the thing The USA has a Federal government and we have monatary policy however Europe is made up of 15??? or so soverign nations and there is no central monatary policy per se. The USA is better able to handle this crisis based on that one fact. So the $ will be stronger in the midterm and even long term I think.
The markets were so bad the prime minister of Italy suggested to close all finacial markets LOL!!! What a dummy hehehehehe.
Although Russia and China closed there markets.
Just be careful anything can happen in these markets!!!
Thanks for all the good advice. I don’t really know what I’m doing anymore. the more I take in, and all the different advice and opinions from all the different traders, I’m just ready to explode. I think I might just leave this aside as a failed endeavor and just a second job at home depot or something.
Sunday night, first trade of the week! Taking advice right form this thread, and not hunting for tops or bottoms. USD/JPY is on a strong downtrend and I open my charts to see a small retracement that is turning around. Heck ya this perfect, I jump in since W1, D1, H4 and H1 are all in agreement on a downtrend. I was shooting for 10 pips. Once price reached 10 pips, I figured that I would let it ride. So many folks think I’m wasting time trying to take just 10 pips, so I let it ride. I fumble around to put a stop in to lock my profit and get an error message. Hmmm, price has already moved against me just trying to put in a stop. I guess I’ll just watch it. Within the 1/2 hour I’m 30 pips in the hole. This morning I’m 100 pips in the hole.
I can’t take every trade going against me. Why can’t I ever get on a 100 pips positive? maybe even 25? Hardcore downtrend with a tiny reversal. Looked like a retracement to me. The constant failure is going to make me hurt myself.
Thanks everyone for listening to me ***** and whine, and giving me advice. I don’t have what it takes. I need a success once in awhile to keep my going.
Correct me if I’m wrong but it sounds to me like you are still trying to figure out a system. I wouldn’t get discouraged at this point - if you can perservere then you have what it takes. It’s the same in any field of endeavour.
You’ve probably heard that Edison went through thousands of attempts before he got the lightbulb to work. We’d all be in the dark if he gave up.
