What do you all think about leaving positions open over the weekend? Is it worth the risk? There are unpredictable gaps which may or may not benefit the position…. Do you guys have a way of managing the open positions at the end of the week? I sort of see it as unnecessary risk and of course we want to reduce our risk as much as we can.
I can see that if it was a long term trade (a few weeks lets say) then you will obviously need to leave it open over the weekend in order for it to reach the stop loss or take profit. However if it was a shorter term trade with a stop of 50 pips lets say then you will probably want to close it to prevent the risk of a large gap could easily be 50 + pips.
What do you all do about open trades at the end of the week? Do you close them at a loss? Is it dependent on the size of the stop loss? How do you manage these types of trades?
I always know when I open the trade if it will run until tonight or run until price action changes. Its not a decision you should be making Friday evening.
if I am confident that price will continue in my direction, then at times I will leave the trade open over the weekend. It also depends on the pair I’m trading. Some pairs open with wide spreads once the market opens again on Sunday, but that depends on your broker. But, if I do then I just move my stop loss to breakeven or above my open price before the market closes on Friday so its a risk free trade,no worries at all
I think this is only the case sometimes. If i open a trade using the D chart with a 5-10 times daily range for the SL or TP, I will have the trade open for potentially several weeks. There could be a magnitude of factors that could creep in over the life of the position and might end up invalidating my original idea.
Perhaps partial profits have been taken, perhaps there has been an unfavorable news event or a change in risk flows. It might make sense for me to modify my SL or close my position for a loss/gain. The end of the week is maybe a good time to make adjustments based on what has occurred during the week on longer term trades.
A longer term trade is going to be subject to much more uncertainty and has a higher potential to require modification as the time elapses.
This is pretty good. I have noticed that some currencies are much more expensive to hold also, for example buying the CHF and holding from one day to the other carries a large carry charge. This is the type of currency with wider spreads in the new week and large costs of carrying that I’m more tempted to exit before the weekend begins. Especially if its sold to something like the CAD and will incur a large daily expense.
I will sometimes close winning positions and re-enter again the next week because quite often sentiment changes over the weekend then suddenly your winning position pulls back on you. Also, Friday afternoon at close and Sunday evening at open brokers increase spreads, sometimes dramatically, triggering SL’s or orders you have set. For this reason I make sure to cancel all orders around 4 pm Friday.
Otherwise, I have no problem holding positions over the weekend as most are long term trades.
Yeah I have definitely experience the nasty spread increase and the resulting stopped position. Its common for tight SL’s to experience this every day after the North American session ends. It is a interesting idea to reenter the closed positions on Friday. I’ll have to think more about that.
Hope none of you are doing this at the moment with the gaps that have been happening. Swaps would be the least of your worries. I’ve cut down my time frames to try and avoid it.
Oh its crazy these days with the massive amounts of volatility and gaps on the weekend! The market is behaving very irregularly right now in my opinion. I closed all my positions 10 mins before market close today. Who knows what might happen over the weekend.
No matter if position is a long term position or short it’s just not worth the risk to leave a position open when the market is closed. We can’t control what will happen. Any geopolitical events could cause huge gaps and wipe out your account.
I used to keep some trades open on weekends but nowadays by Thursday I already am preparing to close or will just wait one more day to do it. Just not worth keeping it open most of the time at least for me.
I advise against leaving open positions for the weekend. I used to do it myself and realized that during the weekend the market is too dynamic and very often my deals fail. So I advise you not to be greedy and close your deals on Friday.
Possible but unlikely. In any case, forex is not like stocks - in the stock market absolutely no good news happens at weekends, so its always bad for shareholders or index bulls. But we’re in forex, so its equally possible that a gap could be positive for a given position.
I think I’ve also asked about this before. Hmm. But now, as I’ve gained a little bit more experience, I’ve followed strategies with guidelines as to whether I should leave trades open over the weekends. (And for both of them, I had to close my trades every Friday. ) Personally, I think it’s also best since I love spending the weekends with my family and the last thing I want to worry about is how my open trade is going.
Every trader should know in which position he should enter the trade. If the entry in the trade is not right, then the emotion will work in the trade. And emotional trading is very harmful. I never trade on weekends because then the market is volatile. I always try to trade in the middle of the week.
Hmm. 
But now, as I’ve gained a little bit more experience, I’ve followed strategies with guidelines as to whether I should leave trades open over the weekends. (And for both of them, I had to close my trades every Friday. 
) Personally, I think it’s also best since I love spending the weekends with my family and the last thing I want to worry about is how my open trade is going.