Proper way to scale trade and trailing stop

[redmond007]

I’ve been demo trading for about a month now - so far the majority of my trades have just been market orders with a stop loss and take profit. I usually set position size to only risk 1% of my available equity and 2:1 RR.

I’d like to start taking more advanced trades. I follow traders online that make use of trailing stops and also scale their orders. I tried doing these things a couple of times but I seem to have screwed them up. I’d like to clarify the correct way to do these things.
My broker is Oanda and I usually make trades through their mobile app.

-for trailing stops
Let’s say I’m long usdjpy for 2000 units, SL set for 50 pips TP set for 100 pips. I check my trade and price has moved in my favor by 60 pips. To take a trailing stop - I move my SL to break even which means moving it up to my original buy price, then delete my take profit and set a trailing stop for say 5 pips? Is that the right way and what is a good size for trailing stops?

-to scale trades
Let’s say I’m long usdjpy for 2000 units, SL set for 50 pips TP set for 100 pips.

If I had wanted to scale this trade properly I would have taken 3 trades - each for roughly 1/3 of original position size - and same SL and TP? Then as the price moves in my favor, I can close out the trades every 1/3 of the way until I hit my TP w the last trade? I’m pretty confused about this one. Especially what position size to trade and when to close trades to lock in profits.

Thanks for any advice on this.

[anon98339083]

Trailing a stop-loss manually according to swings high and low of the price (usually just beyond them) can be very beneficial.

Automated trailing stops set to a fixed number if pips are a very bad idea, though they can appear like a good idea.

Do nothing without testing it (over a large number of trades) and analysing the results with and without it, properly and carefully.

Here are a few posts about trailing stops which will help you (just click on the green links in each, below):-

On combining trailing stops and take profits for stop loss , maximising profits

One doesn't: it requires very careful, methodical, statistically significant testing. There isn't an overall "best approach". My own opinion is that in general, for most systems, most of the time, trailing stops lose money. I have several different reasons for believing this … (i) When I tested my own five little systems, only one of them gained from a trailing stop: the others all lost; (ii) In other forums, when I've occasionally made this comment, I've always had some "Good heavens …

Trailing stop loss question

Respectfully, Adam, that may eventually be suicidal for your account. Nobody can realistically afford position-sizes up to 10% of their bankroll. It's extremely unlikely that it can be sensible for you to expose more than 2% of your account to risk on any individual trade. On that basis, if you want a 100-pip stop-loss, then with an account of £1,000, you need 100 pips to represent a maximum of £20, which in turn means that your appropriate position-sizes should be a maximum of 20p (not £1!)…

Trailing SL at specific point

You're not making quite the right comparison, there. You're comparing "closing the trade with your target hit" and "letting it run with a trailing stop but not risking the target you've already hit". What you ought to be comparing is "letting it run with a trailing stop but not risking the target you've already hit" with "letting it run with a non-trailing stop but not risking the target you've already hit". In other words, you're still making guesses and assumptions rather than learning…

Trailing SL at specific point

It depends entirely on what software you're using. If you use something sensible and flexible, like Sierra Chart or NinjaTrader, you can set it to move down "x" pips every time the price moves down "x" pips, where "x" is any number you like (including 100, if you want). In some platforms, it will automatically move down 1 pip every time the price moves down 1 pip, as a default setting. (With worse overall results, typically.) Your trading platform will do whatever you tell it to do, with y…

[Kreg]

A wise trader soes not trade too much at a time as he waits for the perfect opportunity. Many traders lose their parience at the center and it causes huge damages to their account. This is a place for wise and calm people. Are you a wise trader or aggressive one?