I find the psychology of stating that number interesting - how each and every one of you have responded. Why has every single one of you made the assumption that I would stop at $150? To me, if you are going to set a stop loss in your plan, it is also reasonable to also have a profit limit. Having achieved your limit, it is than reasonable to have a trailing stop. Some one earlier made the point about, "giving it all back....". Why? Why are you giving it all back? Perhaps you should quit for the day when you fall back to your daily goal, a goal that I have established for myself. Better yet, set a trailing stop.
This is one for the Psychology board in and of itself. Please listen to this girl. She has been around a long time (not saying you're old, Donna), has helped me with trading the SPY like you wouldn't believe, and will save you about a years worth of pulling your own hair out of your head.
Excellent point, actually. I'm not a trailing stop guy, though, so I have a bias. Every time I have placed a trailing stop in the past, I would have been better off just getting out then and there, rather than waiting for the thing to retrace. But I know there are some reading this who make that big day with a trailing stop. To each his own.
The reason I assumed you either didn't have a plan or didn't follow one is because the definition of "confession" is: 1. A formal statement admitting that one is guilty of a crime. 2. An admission or acknowledgment that one has done something that one is ashamed or embarrassed about. "My interpretation"... "I considered...and expected..." You're trading your own bias/opinion instead of price action. Elite Trader is littered with bodies of dead and severely wounded traders who traded personal bias/opinion instead of price action. The price action following a news release tells you how the high volume professionals are interpreting the news. The opinion/bias and subsequent interpretation of the majority of market participants in your chosen trading time frame is reflected in the price footprints they leave behind. You know how annoying it is when you're a teenager and your mother keeps telling you things "for your own good"? Turns out Mother often knows what she's talking about, but you don't realize it until months or years later after you've made a lot of costly mistakes. If my posts annoy you or put you on edge, take it as a sign that maybe I'm sharing with you from the personal experience of having made far too many costly mistakes when I started out. Does your trading plan focus on trading only around news events, meaning you'll only be taking one to three trades on any given day?
I'll add a bit more about how I'm setting my +1k+ goal. First, I work from PRINCIPLES not RULES. I believe rules are too rigid to handle all market circumstances. Beginners prefer rules because rules are designed to limit, negate, and to hinder. Rules are essentially about what not to do. I prefer to focus on market opportunity. Even so I have some some specific principles that I use to guide me: * If I start to lose then I quit for the day/sequence. * I can try to make as much as possible, i.e +4k or +5k. The 1k is a goal but not a limit. However, again if I start to lose then I quit. Let's say I was up +5k and then had a losing trade. I'd be probably be done. It doesn't mean that I always quit if I have 1 loss. I'm especially keen to quit if I've been up and start to lose though. I factor in whether I'm reading the market well. I never use a trailing stop on my orders. That's just asking to get stopped out. What you are trying to do.. when you're setting a daily profit goal is to make money consistently. PS: Be careful what advice you take here. lol I've already read quite a bit of bad advice.
I haven't had much succes either with the trailing stop on the individual trade. I was suggesting more a trailing stop on your daily/weekly/monthly profits.
That was the first time I trade that CFD. I find that more often than not the US dollar does respond to news events in the way you'd expect given its reserve currecncy status. So I speculated, set a price I was willing to lose, and traded accordingly. I respect your experience, but that is open to debate. Some people prefer to trade exclusively on the price action, other don't. To me price action is very random. What criteria do you use to decide whether a particular price direction will continue? I got in becaue of few things: the news and the fact that the US dollar seemed to have stalled on its recovery. Look at the daily chart. The two up candles followed by the two down candles. That to me was very bearish as if the usdollar wanted continue its downward trend. This together with the overall relief that Greece would not be holding its referendum. I rely exclusively on candles in the charting, nothing else at this stage. By the way, I am still bearish on the USDollar, but I believe that it is appropriate to exit when the stop is hit, and only reenter after further analysis.
Morbidly horrifying and nothing more than an attempt at controlled gambling. 3. You're planning to lose money. Why plan for losing months? 4. You're planning to lose money. 5. You're planning to keep losing and drip feeding your earnings to the market - the cost of your "hobby". You should be taking money out of the market each month, not donating indefinitely. 6. How can you make a fortune if you snatch the profits (if there are any) out of your account? Bottom line: don't trade until you know exactly what to do. Or choose to be a loser. Well done NoD, you get it. Funny enough when I do it I'm called an asshole, a troll, etc and people are advised to ignore me. Notice how clspinter disappeared when he finally proved to himself he was going nowhere in his trading and didn't know his arse from his elbow. Unfortunately my telling him wasn't enough - he needed to prove it to himself by losing! cl marathon - what a disappointment - yet another premature ejaculator who lasted a few weeks.