This is normal execution experience. A stopp loss trigger isn't yet an order on the exchange in the order book, and often it resides with your broker who then automatically issues an order when the trigger conditions are met, so takes some time to even reach the exchange. However, whenever you want to sell something, price might zoom past your worst selling price anyways, and suddenly you're too expensive for the market. This is especially a problem if your order is too large or price too high for the current liquidity and volatility of the instrument you're trading. This is a kind of experience and learning you best learn when doing real trades and experiencing for yourself how the execution mechanics works, on small sizes you can bear to lose. There's really no guarantee you'll be able to get a fill, but in today's markets it's really less of a problem than before. Just need to adjust your expectations of what the market can provide you. ie. whatever you assume is a guarantee, is probably not, except the costs.. To prevent it you need to plan ahead that this might happen and try to minimize the damage via your trading rules. Afterwards, there's less you can do. Some people wait, or add to their losers, however, this bears some risk of even more losses, so should only be done by the highly skilled and experienced traders (already consistently profitable). Hedging may also be an option, but is outside my own studies for now. For an EOD type of system, I see no problem waiting for a day for a fill though, since that's the base period of the system. However, the opposite is also true: Price might zoom past your buy-trigger/order, and you might get much better price for your order. Especially at the market open, there's often wild swings of price that might skew your executions.
The most important aspect of learning how to trade is to learn how to mentally take a lost. A jealous man can't work and a scared man can't trade.
Read My posts in thebthread called Regardig the macd line as well as the other posts, it coukd accelerate your learning curve drastically i believe
Today's trades. Using 15. min chart GLD made $2(long) XLF made $23(short) /CL MADE $2138(long) The /CL was stupid in the sense that I meant to put on 1 contract(my plan is to trade 1 contract) on huge leverage. I messed up and changed it to 10. I was right on direction although it moved up and down for a min and I was -$400 at one point but it changed quickly so i let it ride. I went back later after closing that position, and made one for 1 contract and managed it to +$200 or so. I placed a trailing stop(to close) on the smaller contract and then placed a limit stop to protect. The trailing stop was hit right after I placed the limit stop (to close). Needless to say my exit strategy sucked. I'm looking to make $100 to $200 a trade and no more( unless it takes off then I would trail stop) and risk no more than $25-$50 a trade as I know i will have a smaller account when I start. (The above is what i want to do, get in, make a couple hundred and GTFO!, not trying to be greedy here, looking supplement income) Made fake money, but learned very little. Think I make make some after hour trades just to gain some experience in entry/exit strategy. Need to learn the difference in -1, and -100, and what that means. Identify target price and exit price before entry. Identify more symbols that will be geared more toward my risk $50 to make $100 style, and make sure I have stops in to keep from getting killed. I also realized I can't manage more than one position at a time.
You got lucky. Don't make that mistake again. You made another mistake by getting back in, after you made a 10ct entry mistake. Yes, you learned very little. If your trading plan tells you to trade 1 ct, and you mess up and trade 10ct and get out with profit? Shut your trading machine down and muse upon your mistake. That could have been VERY expensive. BELIEVE me, I have been there. A mistake that big means you are not in a proper trading mindset on that trading day. Just...don't...DO it. Tomorrow is always there. Don't try to correct everything TODAY.
I don't understand how to use stops. In my brief experience, if you don't post them wide then you're automatic to get stopped out. You have to be almost perfect on when you enter to use a tight stop and not get hit. Traded 1 CL contract today(long) was wrong on direction and was stopped quick as I can't risk much. I got back in with 1 contract long (GTC) (no stop) and it really went south on me, but now in over night I'm back even and it looks like I'm gonna turn a profit. If this was real cash I would have shit my pants. Have to figure out these stops and how to use them. I also understand what the black lines really mean sticking out from the body of the candlesticks. A trade was made in that whole range.
Do you use stops? I recall in a thread this was a topic of discussion. There were varying opinions. I assume people with large accounts don't use them that much. What can a person with a small account do? It's like a mine field out there!
Before I can answer that question for you, you're just going to have to go back out into the minefield and test test test. Never take a single person's answer as sacrosanct and act upon it. YOU have to put in the work to see how it works for YOU. P.S. Listen to a lot of this sort of thing to settle your mind. Trust me, it will help in the long run.
Can you answer me this.....in the over night......why do the charts look choppy and scattered. Is it because there is low volume?