Oops I broke another one. Yes…I fully understand the rationale behind the rules but if i dont abide by them will the world come to an end???
Again let me state that for the record I am not teaching anything, coaching, or giving any advice. All I am doing is giving another perspective on some of the “so called” conventional wisdom of forex trading.
I dont trade with a stop loss and so what???
I dont journal my 10-40 trades per day and so what??
I DO trade on an NFP day and so what??
I dont take just one or two trades per day and so what??
Conventional wisdom dictates that as a result of my doing all of the above the outcome should be X.
Is the result you see here X?
It’s wise to trade with a SL, depending on your strategy. What if trader has a strategy that SLs ruin the trades? To each his own.
You just gotta do what you think is best for you. This is an individualistic endeavor. No one suffers the consequences of your losses, and no one else benefits from your wins.
However, it’s a good idea to learn conventional rules, then experiment to find out which ones you can break.
P.S. For you and I, M1 means something completely different! hahahaaha
Most rules concerning trading were developed by locals trading commodity futures and by the Wall Street corporate traders dealing in stocks. These were then adapted by various authors and commentators and packaged for delivery to private retail stock “traders” with holding periods of days to months. Almost all were developed in the US and therefore have nothing to say on other trading / regulatory environments.
They were not developed for day-traders and few originated from any expert traders dealing in forex. Very few have been fully adapted to private retail forex trading.
It would be amazing if a successful private retail forex trader today followed all these rules like gospel.
Technically, there are no rules in Forex, it’s the wild west. But for the new, inexperienced traders starting out, you’ve got to ask yourself one question…
If you have one trade entry system that works for you, then why would you not want a stop loss ? You would factor in and accept those losses but are confident that the majority of trades will be winners and keep you profitable.
Price can go up or down for days or even weeks … it’s not fun waiting for the tide to turn … praying that the market will turn around… plus look at the time you are wasting just sitting waiting for a reversal…
This happened to me at the end of December… it was the start of the Eurusd bull run… no stop loss and it went way up then in to the ranging period … after 3 weeks I had to close the trades and take s hit.
I did manage to get some buy trades and profit but hedging is hard… I never want to sit on losing trades again ! Learned a hard lesson … but this is the only way I learn from my own mistakes …
I was very adverse to stop losses too, I did’nt like them and thought there would always be a reversal that would save my trade…
Even many pro traders follow this mantra. IMO, it’s not a profitable approach as only one rogue trade could wipe out that day’s profit. I always close losing trades early, never letting them run further than winning trades - there is always another waiting - and NEVER, EVER add to a losing trade because you can NEVER EVER know what the market is going to throw at you.
While I hate losing trades, I hate losing larger trades more so.
@tokyotrader1 I agree with you. My biggest losses were when I was starting out and didn’t always use SL’s. But @THE_GOATE happens to have a profitable strategy that works for him, so all the power to him.
But, this is a forum for beginners, and trading this way without much experience or having a proven strategy is just reckless. I think even the OP would agree with that.
Yes totally agree, and I am guilty of adding to losing trades which is not worth it.
Do you use stop losses, abs how big are they ?
Mine are about 95 pips
I scalp currency pairs based on trend movement. If I see around 20-40 pips profit to the next resistance level, that’s where I place my T/P which is before that pivot point. Based on that, I also place a S/L at around the same risk exposure, also based on 20-40 pips.
So what normally happens is either the T/P is reached or the S/L is triggered. Maximum risk, $30 (1%) a trade. The key critical target is always the T/P which is placed at a price level before where losing traders would close their trades or get stopped out.
The S/L provides a breathing space that is wide enough to not trigger a small retracement in the price movement towards the T/P level.
