yes i wish i did it 10 years back. my'coach' was Brooks....i read his books Funny, how in trading and in life, one man's poison is another man's food.
it took me 10 years to know how far the market will go....and to put proper target. not one based on risk reward. i always had a great deal of difficulty in putting a target based on the risk you are willing to take. the target should be based on what the market is doing rather than on your risk. your risk is personal. i do not think target should be personal or arbitrary or even connected to your risk I was always flabbergasted when all experts kept insisting to put the target at 2 or 3 or whatever, times risk. nothing is more absurd.
the solution is very obvious...risk management...but many times the solution is disliked. you have to look inside you and figure it out. out not go to a forum because you will get solutions not based on your requirement. I know nothing about you: your age, your income, whether married or not....all this is needed to plan. since you say you are doing it for a hobby, then trade small like i do,or shift to sim.
I understand paduatrader. I definetly understand what you mean. I am noticing in my own trading that scalping is profitable if done right. Congraulationns sir. I am happy you find profitable way to trade and that makes you comfortable. It took 12 years, but you accomplished what you been looking for. Isn't it funny, that a timeframe change made a big difference to you? Live and learn right?
padutrader, I agree with the risk reward thing. I lean more towards high probability of a win, regardless of risk vs reward.
not so funny :12 years and 100000 usd gone but happy i cracked the problem. Like Einstein said 'i am not more intelligent than others but i stay with the problem longer' i stayed with the problem and cracked it
padutrader, I agree with you again on this. Yes, that is exactly what I was doing. If my stop loss was -$200, then I blindly set my profit target to $400 to get RR>2
padutrader, I congraluate you sir to sticking to your goal of trading consistently profitable after years. You reached your goal and that is all that matters.
There are different stop levels. X amount of points. Max amount $ one is willing to risk. Catastrophic SL. SL based on PT desired. Price action SL’s. I prefer PA SL’s. If a trade with a properly placed PA SL is too big of a risk for me then simply best to pass on that trade and wait for another opportunity. This can happen multiple times on high volatility days. I know this sound backwards but BO’s require bigger SL’s. Because if they fail pb’s can be deep and stop you out before reversing back in the direction of your trade. I like to compare say a bull BO on a 5 minute chart with 1 min...15 min..30 min..60 min. A BO of say 3 bars on a 5 min chart can have a pb on the 5 min that looks like the bo is ending but spring over to a 15 minute chart or 30 min and you got a strong bull bar spike that most likely isn’t showing any selling pressure and maybe through just half of the bar time on the larger time frame, with half still to go before the bar closes and from all appearance seems likely to close in the upper end of the bar. I will have to look over my trades today and see if there is an example of some of what I am talking about here. Maybe post a chart or two to illustrate.
Just remember high probability then you probably have to settle for bigger risk or smaller reward or both. Whereas low probability trades can have smaller risks and much larger rewards if they work out. But when they don’t work out loss is smaller.