Comment by Gill on June 10, 2012 at 4:35am

Thanks Trae - that is very useful

Comment by raj patel on June 10, 2012 at 8:32am

If you care to look at my summation LIFE OF A FOREX TRADER you will see how traders hang on to various trades in hope. Hope is no way of trading. Hope is also a collection of toughts gleen from comfort that a trader reads from sources. Too much collection of ideas and trade copying is also a delaying mind set that traders suffer. Ever trade must have a stop loss  and do not trade till stop loss is part and parcel of the trade no matter how promising it looks.Learn from your mistakes and better yourself.

Comment by Peter jcp on June 10, 2012 at 10:38am

Have to agree with Janos and Raj - both traders who are experienced and got the "t shirt".

Ideally and I appreciate if you are nor around its not always going to be possible - you don't want to let a positive trade go negative.

Going back many years ago I Iet an experienced trader ( over 5 yrs in business) trade a good proportion of my currency capital - whilst I was learning and still part time.

It was a classic - "fixed methodology in a dynamic market".

His targets were always 50 pips and his stops were always 30 pips. Fixed in stone - good discipline he use to tell me - and me being the novice then.

So he traded daily and some days - perfect - he would win with 50 pips and the move might have lasted say 53 pips or 60 pips - and I use to think he was great.

Then we he lost - he was out at 30 pips as the pair would drop 40-60 and even 100 pips - and i would think this guy is good ( me being a novice again)

However over the months the main results were only approx 50% win and 50% loses - not bad  -as he still made me a profit - but being an ex accountant and keen on stats - i started looking at his results in depth.

He was having loads of trades making 20 - to say 35 pips - and then going the wrong way and stop out at 30 pip loss. I would say to him - why did you not take some profit  - even part of it - ie lock some in . He would reply - that.s my method - but admitted that by playing golf 4 times a week he was not about to always available to monitor what was going on.

As you can imagine after 6 months I moved on - I got frustrated seeing wins on $30 per pip going to $800 or so ( but not making his $1500 target) and then 2 hrs later seeing we were stopped out and i had lost $900.

It totally different for me when I am scalping (80% of my trading). With a 5-7 pip stop if I go into profit by 5 - 10 pips - i will make sure - I come out with a profit - simple as that.

If i enter and i get stopped out in say under 5 mins - but I think it will still happen - i will re- enter.

Everyday there will be at least one scalp that "rolls" and become later a swing - and on a small amount of occasions a long term position trade.

One "edge" I like is watching trades and being available to adjust to the flow and the market.

For longer term swing trading you cannot do that - ie monitor 24 hrs a day - so you have to accept the stats - but with clever MM - you can improve you results - its just that nobody really tells traders how to do it.

Remember this is a "numbers" game of probabilities and you need to think "smart" to stay in the game and improve your results

Comment by Trae on June 10, 2012 at 11:48pm

Lol. Max I appreciate your reply. I do have rules that I use that work for me not saying its the holy grail it just works for me hope this helps thanks again.

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