So I trade the NFP because it usually has volume. My normal is to scalp back and forth with price action however today I placed block trades to catch the PA coming toward me and any potentially big whipsaws. When the action today was a little week I closed what I had green and scalped back and forth for a bit. Total time is this NFP trade was 30 Minutes. Main pairs traded were the EURUSD, XAUUSD with a minor USDJPY. All trades were at .02 Lot with a very side stop. Total pips earned was about 150 and net of 100 pips. I closed that last group of -40 to be done with the setup
your correct each trade was $0.02, I am learning to be risk averse this year or until I am confident enough with my consistency to increase that to $0.05, maybe when I pass 10K.
no it is a micro lot, our platform doesn’t have nano’s.
Using the EURUSD as a fixed example
$0.10 is $1.00
$0.05 is $0.50
$0.01 is $0.10
so my .02 is $0.20 or in th3e case of the news trade above 2 micro lots.
Lots are the way we measure our position size, or how much we’re trading in the currencies market. It’s like “shares” for stocks, or “contracts” for futures.
1.00 = Standard lot
0.10 = Mini lot (1/10th of a standard lot)
0.01 = Micro lot (1/100th of a standard lot)
@midwest
If you traded 0.02 lots only, then 100.9 pips would give $20.18 and your image suggest that’s 0.14% of your account, so Bacon calculated the total balance to be $14,414.29
But since you said it’s under 10k that means you evidently were not trading 0.02 lots consistently.
Ok, Because Bacon’s post confused me when he said…
2 nano lots would be 0.002 of a standard lot and 0.02 would be 2 micro lots. So I was taking it that Bacon was implying you were trading nano’s rather than micro’s. But it does sound like you were trading micro’s.
Bacan did, I am, NP, I will bump it it a bit once I pass 10K, I have learned to take care of my equity and let the growth on it own for now, I am a very hard headed 18 month old trader. Blew it once already and I do not want to repeat with over gambling issues.
I fully agree and endorse that sentiment. You won’t find anyone on BP that hammers harder than me about risking very low percentages of capital, aggressively defending capital, and growing your account via consistent winning rather than gambling on YOLO trades.
I now consider 1% account risked on a single trade at the very top end of acceptable risk, and 0.5% at about the right spot. If a trader truly has a long-term profitable edge they won’t need to risk more than that to achieve comfortable returns, and their account volatility/sharpe ratio/risk-of-ruin will be much, much better.
Most people that dismiss that advice are likely not trading with a significant amount of money, but play money. So I would say my advice rings true the most with real traders trading with real money.
I only hit my 1% if I have to many positions placed.
If I have looser getting close to my stops I will close the trade without any hesitation or remorse. I am not responsible for what the market does, only what I do and how I manage the trade.
