way to go. Sometimes you can't see these things unless you have your own money riding on it. 89 for you may be something different than 89 for someone else.
Camel, ALWAYS have a daily loss limit. If you hit it... you NEED to be done for the day. Emotions are too strong and will negatively impact your thought process if you continue to trade without a max limit. Tomorrow is another day-- you need to clear your mind and walk away-- live for another day. Also-- try and avoid overtrading. Constant in and out is not the way to do it... solid setups do NOT occur constantly.... u MUST be patient and wait for the right setups. As for your stop loss distance-- the stop location needs to make sense on the chart at the point you are proven wrong.. do not just "tighten" the stop for the sake of tightening it so you can increase your size. This is defeating the purpose of high probability trading... you could be exiting at the exact point on the chart that indicates a high probability of reversal. If you want to do a tight stop-- the way you do it is to identify the location where you are proven wrong FIRST before entering a trade... then WAIT until price gets closer to this level than you wouldve previously for entry. Problem with this is you will miss many setups as price will turn well before the tight entry location. The best rule of thumb is simply position size for max loss EACH AND EVERY TRADE based on your desired entry location and distance from stop loss. Solid risk management is what will keep you in the game. It is often the most misunderstood and ignored part of trading... yet above all the most important. Anyone who tells you otherwise is giving reckless advice. Good luck brotha.
ok, whatever, when it's going bad, you are not reading the market well, and until you figure out what is going on, you might as well just tighten the stop, since you are probabaly going to get stopped out anyway. The worse thing you can do is widen the stop, thinking that is the problem. I personally don't use stops anymore, but I have a different deal going. If you have ever tried to buy the bid you know sometimes it can be darn near impossible, and the market moves and your limit will never be filled. Same thing with stops.
at anyrate, I just unloaded a whole shiltload at 2989. Got out of there just in time. I'm still long, but now at a very reduced position. Maybe I'll add to some losers, maybe I'll add to some winners. That bracket trading is a tough row to hoe. Too many things going against you. You have to be right on the stop and right on the target.
it all started for me when I had some gbp on with a stop. Back then my stops were pretty wide. About 80 pips. And I was watching it and it became apparent that I was going to be stopped out. At exactly the time I should be buying. So I just cancelled the stop and changed it to a limit buy. It's a very risky business, averaging down. When I was making good money on classical trading, a trader more knowledgeable than me warned me, "Tight stops does not a good trader make, just a slower loser."
oldtime-- think about what you are saying. If "probably' is truly the scenario in the potential trade relative to being stopped out... then you shouldn't be taking the trade in the first place. I'm not trying to argue with you or be difficult... I'm just trying to reason with you. Sit on your hands until the best of the best setups present itself. This means the probabilities of getting stopped out should be lower... not higher. I have no problem entering in a trade with a "tight stop" if the probabilities indicate the likelihood of price going for you vs against you is high. But you do NOT want to have the mentality that you will probably get stopped out. You DO however want to realize that regardless of the probabilites, uncertainty exists in every trade. This is necessary so if you do get stopped out, there is not mental anguish that follows. If there is you are admitting you didn't truly accept the risk of the trade in the first place. As for the mechanics of a stop-- you do want to make sure that the normal volatility of the instrument is taken into consideration. Widening a stop could be necessary if one is getting stopped out often due to a conflict with the volatility relative to the room you are giving a trade to work.