QuoteDisliked2. Most traders DO NOT know when to take profits. They look for 50-100 pip profits instead of 5-10 pip profits. The market gives you plenty of 5-10 pips profits every day, but only a few 50-100 pip profits a month. And the longer you stay in the market the bigger the chance of the market turning against you and hitting your trailing stop loss and/or stop loss. I read a thread (25-50 ema) where the originator of the system recommend that you put a 200 pip stop loss. Now that is plain silly. Profitable traders realize that playing $10 lots and only looking for 5-10 pip profits are a safer way to make money. If you can get a 5-10 pip profit every day then you can almost double your account in a year. And i still dont see the sense in entering 2 lots ($20) and then taking 1 lot ($10) profit at say 10 pips ($10x10pips=$100) and then close the rest of the trade after another 20 pips ($10x20pips=$200) or letting it run till it gets stopped put either by trailing stop or stop loss. Do you realize that when you close your trade bit by bit your profit is actually getting smaller and smaller. You made only $300 while getting 30 pips profit. When you closed your whole trade after only 20 pips you would have gotten $400 (20 pips x $20Lot=$400).
Even if I agree with most of what is written on the original point I totally disagree on this particular point.
As SeekingLight said, I think it is the other way around. Most of the beginners want to scalp the market and are afraid to lose any small profit. So they will take a lot of small profits and large losses.
In an analogy to physics I would say that they try to trade the noise instead of trading the signal. So they win small on the noise and loose big on the signal (the trend).
Of course some scalpers have very good results but it is definitely not a game for beginners.
Linked to that is the tendency to overtrade and to look very low time frames. The reason for that is the need for action and excitment of the beginner. The beginner even if he says he wants to make money doesn't really want it above all. What he wants is excitment. Then he gets it but as for any hobby you have to pay for it.
in my opinion good trading is boring and profitable!