Insurance and Credit

Currency prices in the forex markets are always jumping up and down. Forex markets are volatile most of the time. In the short term, you will only find noise in the intra day forex market. This makes it difficult for new day traders to know how to put a stop loss. Most of the time, prices in forex markets jump 10-20 pips for no apparent reason.

The noise in the intraday market keeps on frustrating new day traders. They constantly find their stop losses being tripped even when the rates are going in the anticipated direction.

A static 10-20 pip stop loss is an arbitrary choice many traders make. Many new traders also use Trailing Stop Loss. Place your trailing stop loss too close and you will find your stop hit too early. Place it too far and you will have to forgo potential profits if the price retraces.

Many professional forex traders do use stop loss but mostly place it on their computers hiding them from their brokers. Best way to place a stop loss is using a dynamic level.

Stop hunting is something the brokers are continuously doing. If a broker finds many stop losses at a particular price level on his price feed; he can easily trip them using a momentary blip in the price. You cant even complain. The momentary spike happened due to a sudden large transaction in the market.

Do you know this many professional forex traders only use a stop loss in their mind. They plan entry/exit for each position. Keep on monitoring it changing, the stop loss in their mind as the rate fluctuates. When they reach the desired outcome, they close the position. With experience, you will also learn to do the same.

Moving Averages, Bollinger Bands, SARs etc can be easily used as dynamic stop losses by you. It is a good way to manage your risk while letting the currency markets to do what it wants.

The more experience you will develop as a forex trader the more you are going to understand that placing fixed stop losses actually hurts more. Using fixed stop losses can hurt you more emotionally, psychologically and profit wise than help you.

You should not try to trade before or after a major economic news release. You should not try to place stop loss close to or at round numbers. And you should also not try to trade in times of thin liquidity in the currency markets.

You should understand that your broker can and will use stop hunting to take out your positions using noise in the market as an excuse. Forex trading and casinos have many things in common. You should learn how to beat the markets and the brokers only then you will become a successful forex trader.