So! You've plunged into trading currencies in the Forex market. You've bought USD/JPY, and prices are skyrocketing. You're elated because the trade so far is going in your favor-- and you're wondering when to get out of the trade. When do you take your profits and run?
If you are in the situation that I just described, you've made one mistake that sooner or later is going to cost you a lot of money-- probably sooner. It is a common mistake made by newbies who are excited about getting into the Forex market and testing their skills. Think of it as by far the best way to wipe out your traing account in record time. Because the bottom line is: professional traders never begin a trade without an exit strategy firmly in place!
There is no such thing as a trading opportunity that is so exciting that you have to get in the trade right then and there or you will hate yourself forever. Remember that currency trading in the Forex markets is practically non-stop, 24/5.5 (not 24/7). Every day is filled with trading opportunities, plenty of them. If you only see the one oh-so-urgent opportunity before you, could it be that you are not quite ready to trade currencies?
Plan your exit strategy at the same time you plan your entry. Wiser words have seldom been spoken. Do no less.
For entry's sake, what kind of profits are you looking for: how many pips? 5 pips? 10 pips? 20 pips? More? You don't have to be dead-set on a specific number of pips. You can just watch and see if the pips grow in your favor. But if you know ahead of time how many pips will fill your appetite, getting out of a trade is a snap: exit when you've gotten your pips. Don't get greedy! There will be more pips on the table tomorrow.
How strong are your entry signals? Hopefully, you are not considering a trade based on just one financial indicator, as that, too, leads to financial ruin. Given then that you are using a combination of established financial indicators (MACD, RSI, Stochastics, Pivot Points, trandlines, Bollinger Bands), how often have you seen the combination that you are using succeed? How often have you seen it fail? Have you found any early-warning signs of impending failure in previous similar setups?
How many pips are you willing to risk? No, wait. That's only half the question. How many pips are you willing to risk in order to make how many pips? Will you risk 10 pips to make 10? 10 to make 20? Some say that risking 10 pips is not enough-- that if you're not willing to risk 20 pips, you should not be in a trade. Do you agree or disagree? What does that do to your goal of expecting to profit by x amount of pips in the trade?
The amount of pips that you are willing to risk in order to make x amount of pips is really just a gentle way of asking: where are you going to place your stop loss order? Trading without a stop loss order is kind of like bungee jumping without the cord. Trading currencies in the Forex is often extremely fast-paced. Without an automatic stop-loss order to protect you, you may not be able to get out of a trade in time to prevent losses from reaching disastrous levels.
Finally, here's what I have found to be the best question to ask: how much does the currency pair that you are trading spike? Some currencies (the Yen pairs come to mind) spike quite a lot. What's a spike? A spike is a short candle body with one long wick or with long wicks both top or bottom of the body.
Say price for the USD/JPY is at 120.05 when you buy-- and you're looking at the five minute chart. Price starts rising rapidly, very rapidly, and goes all the way up to 120.17. Then, alas, price starts retracing, all the way back back down to the 120.05 at which you bought. Instead of going back up, price keeps falling all the way down to 119.90. And, still within the same five minute candle, price resumes its upward trend and closes at 120.09. On the chart, the body, the solid part of the candle, is short-- from 120.05 to 120.09. The top wick rises from 120.09 to 120.17, the bottom wick falls from 120.05 to 119.90. That's spiking in both directions!
You bought at 120.05, predicting that price would go up-- and it did, five minutes later, closing 4 pips higher than the open. If your stop-loss order was 20 pips below your entry point, no problem-- you're still in the trade. If instead you placed your stop-loss order 10 pips below your entry point, here comes pain: you got stopped at 119.95, only to have price ending higher, proving your buy decision to be right.
When trading currencies in the Forex market, the bottom line on exit strategies is short and sweet. Have one or don't trade. Know how many pips you want to risk when placing your stop-loss orders. And, if you want to do yourself a favor, know if, how, when, and how often your trade's currency pair spikes.
P.K. Wells is an active trader, webmaster and a software developer. For free software that will assist you when trading the Forex currency markets, visit Forex Paper Trader, MarketOpen, Forex News Reader, Free Forex Charts Launcher - 100% Free Forex Software |
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