I have Demo-traded a few times over the last couple of days. Each time, the market has moved in the other direction than my trade. I cannot even get a 2 pip Take profit order - but the SL order gets done kept 20 pips away ( I know I should let the winners run and cut the losers short, but here I was just trying to get a winning trade in after losing a few.)
I am not sure what the question is that I want to ask. Just putting this here because I am astounded at how the market has been turning the other way as soon as I enter - so much so that even a two pip profit target (excluding a 1 pip spread) is not getting done !!
Two pieces of advice that helped my mindset with trading when I first started. I also struggled with knowing when to enter a trade, what TP/SL levels to shoot for, how to manage position size, etc. This is what I found:
1.) Adjust your position size to the lowest allowable lot size - .01
2.) Place trades in a variety of timeframes (1D, 4H, 1H, etc.) and forget about your gut, what you think you know, or what might happen. Just place trades for the sake of learning, with no emotional attachment to the results.
When you have a decent amount of trades you should be able to go back and analyze them to find out a variety of information that will help you start to understand when to enter and exit a trade.
It happens when you start trading in your real account. Beginnings are tough. You must be entering in the market on your gut feeling, stop that immediately and try to follow a good strategy for entering trade setups.