Hello traders.
This is my first post. I’ve been trading demo accounts now for 3 weeks, not too well I have to say.
From advice I’ve seen here and other sites I tried to stick with daily charts and 4hr charts but it seems very slow waiting for certain signals to enter the trade. Then when you think you see an opportunity the trend would change and you have to start waiting again.
Today, I started looking at 30 min charts. I enjoyed these as there was a lot of movement and I felt I could act on signals quicker.
Is this showing that I’m too eager to trade? maybe I should be more patient.
I also found this morning, when I saw a certain break out I would sell with the trade and give myself a stop of about 30 pips and close of around -60 pips. a 2r risk. Before I knew it the price went straight back past my stop and left me out of the trade. This happened 3 times already?
My question is, are these normal characteristics for 30 min chart trading? Should I have a bigger stop/loss? As a newbie should I stick with daily charts?
Sorry for my nievety.
Bigger is not better. Are you placing your stop at logical points? At the very least, your stop should be placed 1-5 pips beyond the extremum of the entry candle (high or low, depending on trade direction). Ideally, though, you want to place your stops around S/R levels.
i think it pays to put the SLs on sensible points, what might not be the same pip number all the time, ie. a rigid 30 pips, or 50 pip, etc.
just because some suggests to have larger timeframes as a newbie, it doesnt have to be a one size fits all thing.
while this suggestion is there mainly, in my understanding, that some traders/newbies might has also difficulty to make decisions swiftly…on a 5 min chart you dont have 10-15 min to think over an entry, even a minute can change the look of the chart enough to miss the right entry. Thus someone needs to practise and get used to make fast trading decisions, and to adjust with the faster pace.
how i see, and that true for both bigger and smaller timeframes: once you decide what signals you need to enter, you wait for them. sure on a daily this might mean sometimes even week/s of waiting. but patience is a major key.
If you dont feel to wait idle days or weeks even, change for somewhat smaller timeframes, maybe 1H would be a good alternative half way between scalping and trading on daily?
In the end forex is nothing like ppl tell you what it should be for you, but about finding the way/style you are the most confortable with, for your personality, risk tolerance, time to imput for it, etc, etc.
Here is an example of something to try for short term tradeing. Demo this, this is meant to give you something to toy with that will show you through practice where a good SL should be placed.
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Open up a 1H chart
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Open up a 15M chart
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OPen up a D1 chart
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Determmine if there is a trend in D1 & 1H, at the least 1H. Once the trend is determined, only take trades in that direction. (If it’s in a trend it will be obvious.)
Here is the sensible SL part.
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Draw a fibo retractment on the 1H, from the most recent swing high and low.
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Look for price to pass through or bounce of off a fibo level, in the direction of the trend.
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Switch to 15M and wait for RSI or your Overbought/oversold occilator of choice, to hit overbought/oversold, AND then go back to neutral. This is when you place the trade when it’s neutral, NOT when it’s overbought/oversold.
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The Stop goes above the most recent high (or below the most recent low) and the last fibo that was pierced or bounced off of. This is based on the 1H. If we were wrong and it rallies were out, dont move the stop.
The take profit is the same as you risk in pips. I recommend not making the risk bigger than 3%.
This way we put 3 probabilities in our favor: the bigger trend, the fibo level, and the occilator returning to neutral.