Trading without Stop-Loss / Buy & Sell Limits

Hi everyone!

Thank you so much for all your replies, I’m still reading through them, but I guess I should give a bit more info about the situation since people have questioned this trader.

He is a friend of my family’s, i personally don’t know him very well but my parents do. I only started trading 2 weeks ago (I was kind of pushed into it by them, not saying its a bad thing but I feel completely unprepared and overwhelmed).

Anyway, I can’t say i particularly like his style of trading, but its the only one I know right now. He DOES do hedging (but only with more buys/sells, not with other commodities to diversify), and he is a professional who handles lots of clients multi-million dollar accounts, and he says he never uses stop loss. He primarily deals with gold (XAU/USD). I myself am only using a demo account right now and I’m very nervous about how different a demo account is going to be from a live account. I try to experiment on my own but he has basically (just the other day) told me not to buy/sell any positions without his express permission.

Just between us, I feel like most of his positions run me into negative and I just end up waiting for the market to bounce back so that I can close at a profit, whereas the ones I used to do on my own, I only opened if I was confident the market was going to go where I predicted it would. Right now I’m only trading in gold in my demo account, not yet any currencies.

I’m just hoping I can learn enough fast that I don’t need to rely on him for too long. I feel like he’s too arrogant about knowing where the market is going, he’s very proud of the fact that he can predict just by looking at the chart since he’s been doing this for so long. I can’t figure out the Fibonacci sequences or anything, so I’m very afraid of how the market moves. We generally stay up until 4 AM watching the U.S. market, then wake up a few hours later watching the other markets. I barely get any sleep because he refuses to use any stop-loss and told me not to, so the only other option is to constantly watch the chart.

I really would like to find a better way because I feel that staying up all day and night watching the chart just because you don’t want to use stop-loss is a very amateur way of trading, but hey when a professional trader who has made millions tells you to do it … who am I to argue right?

If there is no sure way to check your friend’s true results you should disregard his advice completely.
Please try using your own strategy and just compare results.

Yeah, I agree, and ask for his FXBook link.

Another huge red flag, there: real traders don’t pretend to be able to predict market direction very confidently (or need to).

That fear of how the market moves is probably a fairly healthy one. (And by the way “how the market moves” has absolutely nothing to do with Fibonacci sequences!).

Indeed!!

Lexy says it right.

lol i just spoke to him about 2 hours ago and told him i was looking into learning about stop loss and sell limits and after a bit of arguing with me he said fine, good to have knowledge, but he never uses stop-loss because…

he considers it lazy.

says he is his own stop loss limit and he doesnt respect anyone who needs to automate it.

i mean, lol? i dont even know what to say. i dont think i respect him very much anymore…

Hello Edsel…

This may be a good read for you:

Why You Shouldn’t Manage Your Friends’ Money | Investopedia

Well, just learning, a stoploss should be used. Using limits just reduces being wrong about 50% of the time… How many times do you enter a market order, just to have it go the other way within 1 second? using Limits and stops plainly sets a point of passage, rather then a shot from no mans land into the deep blue yander.

WHat kind of car does this dude drive? Just wondering.

The thing is… without a stop-loss you can’t really measure your reward-risk per trade. And if you can’t measure it how can you know if your strategy is profitable?

Hello,

Just bumping in, in my experience. I would trade smaller capital first start with 100 dollars and using micro account. I would put a high stop loss at least 100 pips to let the game moving until for a week, then its up to me to decide the accepted stop loss. If I trade without a stop loss, i would have a huge amount of money. Its like a magazine full of bullet. The best method if you don’t have a stop loss is to use martingale system which i wouldn’t recommend cause its a system to wipe the whole account of the trader. The Forex is a non sense market so i would also suggest to have fun trading, although sometimes its fun, that what i think about. Always remember to have abundance while trading with or without stop loss, its our call.

Let me know what anyone think about my thread, I am always welcome to listen.

Hi Edsel,

What i said is you are doing great by asking every single thing you don’t understand.

Most people afraid when they asking question, because they think they are dumb or anything like it.
For me, I always ask to anyone who are more experience than me.i don’t really care if they call me stupid or whatever.
I tell you what, because at the end. you gain all the knowledge and experiene you needed by asking a tons of question and doing a lot of trial.
I’m here is not to judge your friend strategy. but from my point of view sooner or later it will blow your account. but if your friend is really an expert and able to use Hedging really well. there is no need of using stop loss is you good at hedging funds.

Anyway, from your question you can visit my post: 301 Moved Permanently

This is step by step that i took to be able survive in this computerize money market. and also my mistakes, so you can read it and don’t make mistakes like i did.
This post is not a short cut to become a trader in just 1 day or 1 week or 1 month. there is no such short cut in this world. you must posses the skill and experience to become a good trader. as time goes by you will posses what you need by keep learning from mistakes.
I do a lot of stupid mistake, so don’t become like me a learn faster from people mistake.

It is a great choice you do virtual account. because sometimes people will jump straight into real account (like Me T T).
So hope you learn from my post and learn something from it.

Good Luck

Even if you are putting pending limit orders, what make you think that price will surely turn from that price? You still need a stop loss in every type of trading to avoid major loss when you are wrong, that’s what stop loss is for, its not a disgrace for trade that uses it, its a protection tool used by wise traders.

What your family’s friend told you is what he is doing and may be it works for him, but that doesn’t necessarily means that you should do it to. Since you are newbie, I suggest you to start educating your self before you go any further.

HI,

Do you still trade without stoploss?

How are you trades going?

I’ve a similar point of view about stoploss.