Beginner's question - when to stop?

Discussion in 'Professional Trading' started by Johnny37, May 7, 2012.

  1. Johnny37

    Johnny37

    Hi everyone, I'm new to Forex trading (about 2 months), so I'm apologize if this quesiton is at the wrong forum.
    Anyway, what I'm asking about is how do you know when to stop?
    The threads about the 90% losers were very worrying..
     
  2. Johnny,

    What do you mean..? (At least to me) your title makes it seem as though you have a lost a fair amount of your acct. and are wondering "when" you should stop. But then by saying "90% lose is very wrong" it makes it seem as though you schooled the game aka the market. unless you're saying the percentage should be higher.

    Just help us out a bit, elaborate.
     
  3. Every trader is different, but I personally busted a couple of accounts while learning. For my daily trade I stop for the day if I hit a loss equal to the amount of my target. For example, loose $200, I stop for day. Loose almost $200 and make most/all of it back (break even) I stop for the day. Make $200 I stop for the day. I loose about one day a week. If I try to exceed my profit target on any day I usually give about 50% of it back - know from experience - so I stop. I don't reduce the stop loss target because I find that I need more wiggle room than less for my system. So, one days loss takes one day to recover (break even) then the remaining three days are profit. Those are not actual dollar amounts but representative of my system and it doesn't always work out that way. Even if I had two loosing days, I would have 2 makeup days and one profitable day. The point is, by weeks end the goal is to close at a profit. Some traders will measure profitability at months end and so on. My system setup is very specific to my trading so it might not work for you.
     
  4. Good job at reviving a month old thread.
    There's not clear answer to the OPs original question without him investing some serious time in trading and research. It's not black and white, it's white, gray, more gray, and some black. It's clever to make it black and white but that requires experiences. Why not let everyone learn? Money is theirs to loose, ours to gain.
     
  5. If that's a serious question, here's a serious answer: you may as well not even try.
     
  6. like the man told me, if you're a gambler (trader) no matter what, even if you have to drive a cab for a while, you will come up with a new stash.

    Either they will get you or you will get them

    and yes, the odds are they will get you

    but most crap shooters are willing to roll against the odds

    the older you get, the better the odds, because they have less time to get you
     
  7. ramack

    ramack

    Spider, just curious if trading is you second job? (asked by a newbie)
     
  8. SMI

    SMI ET Sponsor

    haha - I think I'm going to use this as my email signature...
     
  9. never give up on it. eventually someone will give you the info you need
     
    murray t turtle likes this.
  10. Can i just say if you don't have a target you should not even be trading with real money. when you start a trade there should be an area where the trade fails (your stop) you only let the market have this if the trade has failed. you need a target and i mean a target that you have precisely worked on as your measured move.
     
    #10     Jun 11, 2012