Hm...the best way to avoid losing is not to play at all,m so why are you here? Risk is part an parcel, but there's smart risk, and undue risk, and I'm trying to pick the former. Just what does money management come down to? how much time should you give before cutting your losses?
Hi Noitartst
I have not commented so far - as I dont think my Intraday FX method would be suitable for you - mainly due to all the comments you have mentioned with regards to yourself
But let me explain how I look upon it.
Yes any trader will have losses.
With my Intraday method - I do have a few days a month when I have no losses -at all. However most days I have between 1 and 3 losses and really bad days - 3-5 losses - based on me taking normally between 10 and 20 trades.
A really bad loss for me is between 4 and 7 pips. My stop is normally under 5 pips - including the spread ( not a hard stop - soft mental scalper's stop on a one click in and out method).
So - somedays - I might take say 14 trades - of which 3 are losers. But those losers might be just 2 pips or 3 pips or even really bad 5 pips.
Result - 3 losses of lets say 2+3+5 = 10 pips.
My winning trades - ie 14 -3 = 11 - might be something like this
5 pips + 6 pips + 11pips + 4 pips + 17 pips + 6 pips + 24 pips + 7 pips + 5 pips - 8 pips + in the batch of 11 trades a 45 pipper with 35 pips of that only on 30% stake
Lets add them up - 114 pips - ( taking approx a third on the 35 pips at 30% stake)
Result 114 winning pips minus 11 losing pips - net result 103 pips.
My daily target is 50 pips - therefore the 14 trades with 3 losses have resulted in me doubling my daily target
I am full time and I cover approx 10 hr window most days - from European open to after London close ( for me thats over 70% of normal 24 hr activity )
Out of the 10 hrs - I will have at least 3 breaks of up to 2 hrs - and normally will be at screens for 10 -20 mins every hr - so on 8 hrs - only really 2 hrs of screen watching and trading - hardly hard work .
I would be over trading if I tried to take say 40 or more trades a day.
If I have a really good action packed busy day - yes I might take 21 or 23 trades and make more money. Similar if I have a bad day and a run of losses - I might need to take 19 trades to even get to my daily target.
I have flexibility - every day is normally different - and I dont even have losing days - that would required me to have say 10 or more losses in a row - very very rare for an experienced intraday trader - but of course it can happen.
The trick is the number of trades you take - if you have 5 good trades in a row and I am over target - I can stop if I want - day done under a hour or so.
If I have 5 losses in a row - I might lose between 15 and 25 pips - normally I can recover those losses in anything from 3 to 7 trades.
Also - never have fixed target - this is a dynamic market - what you thinke might be a 15 pip move might stop at 9 pips or make 26 pips - all within 30 mins.
But cuts your losses ASAP - dont except time and money in 40 or 100 pips negative positions.
The down side of my method is it takes time to be good at it.
It might take 18 months or 3 years or in some cases longer to be there - or 6 -9 months if you already have basic trading knowledge and have already been trading for a couple of years.
Hope that helps and good luck on your journey.
Also one other point - a 16 pips winner on say the Eur/ Usd with a 5 pip stop is a trade with a RR of 3. That is equivalent of a trade with a 40 pip stop having to make 120 pips for same result. My type of trades take say 5 -30 mins - the other type of swing trades take say 2 - 10 hrs.
Guess which method produces the largest percentage increases on your capital account - yes short term intraday trading - by a large margin
All the best
Regards
F
