My main concern is stop loss tampering. Stops are used first and foremost for protection and invalidation levels. Most retail traders fail because of stop loss tampering. Why not leave your stops where the trade is actually invalidated. If the trade is to take you out let it do. Have a level that says if a trade crosses that level then you can be rest assured that its going to go to your stop. Then there you can cut your losses early before a full stop out. Eg. The famous SFP simple and logical area for stops is maybe 5 pips above the high and a close above the high if it's bearish then close the trade coz its actually invalidated. The issue is a trade moves 15 pips in profits and immediately you move your stop to break even. Why do that? How many times do you see it come back and move another 15 pips in loss then turn and goes 200 pips in profits. From there we chase the trade using max leverage. Sad Let me know your opinions. To leave the stop or move it (tampering).
What's your target? 5 pips above a high is way too close, the stop will be hunted. There is a point when you can move to break even but it depends on volatility.
If you are going to use stop losses, you have to accept the fact that market makers and the wall street sharks (hedge funds, mutual funds, banks, brokers) will be gunning for your stop losses. Anyone who knows how to trade understands where they are located. That said, as a retail trader, your job will be to set your stop losses far enough that it does not get hit on market noise. Yet, not too loose as to cause you large losses. Once, it is set and on a GTC (good till cancelled) period should NEVER be moved down and only trailed upwards as your position becomes profitable. The stop loss is there to give you a measure of protection for your capital. Use it wisely.
Actually i used the example of an sfp. Sfps happen coz stops are raided and we get a failure of a swing to be broken. Price has no business going up there to hunt for stops again coz the liquidity is already neutralized. That's why good swing failures results into massive moves away from the zones. My stops always never get hunted and if i get stopped out then i was actually wrong on the trade. This example is in relation to the sfp Remember an sfp can be sfped again. Retested so use other ways of invalidation.
See this as an example. See the quick response in price. No business whatsoever. I have numerous examples. But its not the holy grail sometimes the Stars need to lime up and if they do you crack the whip and keep cracking till yhe very end. This are usually trend changing
Moving generally ends up being hit, if the market puts in a higher low then I might move the SL under that if I'm thinking a longer hold. But these days, too many times it's got to +15 then hit SL 5mins later, so I pretty much take the +15 on it stalling and just look for another trade with a good risk to reward ratio.
Titan how many times are your stop losses getting falsely triggered? Now out of all the times they are falsely triggered how much worse, (or better) do you think not having a stop loss would be? Would 1 big loss be worth the 15 false stop loss triggers? Is there another way you can be alerted when a price is hit? These are things you have to think about if you are going to be a professional trader. Think outside the box and look at the big picture. There is money to be made and the markets are trying to make you fail, what are you going to do about it? I hope this helps, and remember, stay safe. I was in your shoes 30 years ago, and if you keep trying you eventually will succeed.
Weird stuff here.. are you advocating for not using a stop loss. Jeez can't even wrap my head around that. Actually the stops are what you should pay more attention to. Preservation of capital is essential to success in trading. Even the big guys use it. So i stick to my plan and trade my plan. Backtested results work wonders. More people should try it.
My SL gets adjusted on any trade if that trade is an averaged down trade and sometimes on trades that aren’t averaged down. I enter on an initial “hard SL” that appears at the time to be a logical place to place a PA SL. However, as the trade unfolds the dynamics of that unfolding can alter my SL. If price dynamics is slow and grinding I may tighten the “hard” SL. If volatility picks up I may widen it. If a PA pattern forms that wasn’t there when I first placed my trade that too can alter my “hard SL. So, I have an initial hard SL based on my best guess as to where a logical place to place it ought to be and that decision is founded upon the PA, at the time of entry. But since I cannot know “how” the trade will dynamically unfold depending on the dynamics I may or may not adjust that SL. If I average down it will most likely get adjusted. Finally, I have mental a SL point (that I eventually make “hard” if price moves alot against me where I scrap the trade entirely and go the other way. Usually doubled or tripled up in the other direction. My original premise is wrong and I just get out. I suppose I could just use the last SL and make it a “hard one” i.e. the point where I would double or triple up I suppose, but I just prefer doing it the way I do it. I prefer being taken out on a “Hard” dynamic SL (one based upon the dynamics as the trade unfolds after entry) than executing a mental catastrophic SL or ”premise wrong” SL in the event of a sudden spike up or down that some algo generated. In others words, I am kinda protecting myself from a larger mental SL that results from some algo that suddenly spikes thru my dynamic SL taking me out before my trade premise is proven wrong or before I can adjust my “hard SL” to my mental SL on the DOM. In such a case I would be taken out on the dynamic hard SL and suffer a lessor loss. In summary, my initial hard SL gets adjusted to a dynamic hard SL (sometimes it stays the same) and then I have a mental SL point where my hard SL will finally get adjusted to, if necessary, and that won’t change. It maybe a screwed up way of looking at SL’s but it seems to work for me. And it keeps me in a trade until it can work in my favor.