(binned per thread starter's request) What to do if my system

Hi everybody, currently developing a system with nice results, here's the problem:

My system works on 1 minute chart, so after confirming my hypothesis about edge/entry/... I begin the backtest in order to collect data and then understand what's the best management and stop positioning for the system.

So here's the results:
1) Taking the stop to breakeven doesn't save me from loosing trades and cut out some very profitable trades.
2) Having a target is cutting a lot of my potential profits.
3) All the exit methods I've tried are cutting a lot of profits. The best exit method is to close all positions at a fixed hour.

Here on ForexFactory I learned a lot, and it is thank's to this forum if I was able to develop this critical thinking and the knowledge for my researches. But here I've always read, from multiple respected members, these things:

- exit is the most difficult part to develop for your strategy --> I just need to close all my trades at a given hour based on the volatility of the pair.
- you need to take your stop to breakeven or do trailing stop in order to protect your trades --> Basically from my results it's all the opposite

I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or what. All the suggestion that I took from this forum was from people who I considered very smart, in fact they was right in a lot of things that I test personally, so I'm just a bit worried because basically my datas are telling me the opposite of what I've learned.

Thank's for reading my mental diarrhea, lol. Hope to receive different point of views from you guys.

Entry is easy it's the exit that's the problem in automated systems. To many variables. I have suffered this for years.

Please note that I'm not building an automated system, it's just my strategy that will be executed by me.

Even you are saying that exit is the most difficult part... To me was the easiest part to come up with, I just close my trades at 14:00 and usually I caught most of the move by that time.

My exits are 1/2 at the first large potential resistance (if long) but the 2nd half is the projection of the initial strong move that caused me to consider entry in the first place.

Closing @14:00 is your decision and that is all that really matters. Its a bit crude but if it works that's good. Trying to optimise the exit, as I said, is difficult. Do I, don't I, is always the question. I am working on a strategy at the moment which involves taking only trades with a > 1:1 return and assuming >50% win rate. I believe both are doable. The other is a compounding strategy which buys /sells every x pips, then closes.
Just a final thought, have a look at Demark's sequential setup. 9 is the magic number for exhaustion. Close any trades there as well. I use that for a number of reasons.

Trading FX is a process whether manual or automated. At some stage a manual process should be able to be automated but may be easier said than done. The better defined and more repeatable the better the results. An old saying a "fool is someone who constantly does the same thing and expects different results" or something like that.


Wish you well and good luck.

In my opinion, you would use the 1M chart to gain precision on entry/exits from a higher chart. The higher chart range should match the 1M chart entries/exits. This way, if the frequencies differ, you have a reasonable way to determine if the 1M exit signal is real or not. That would mean you are really trading the 5M range signals, but getting a slightly better price than by waiting on a 5M candle signal. You can also quickly see if the 5M chart signal was a head fake. Comparing the price cycles against each other is actually quite consistent.

Could you please list your exit methods?

Btw closing at exact hour is gambling, you can be in profit 5 min before and in loss at that exact hour. Pure magic.

It's true that what you're talking about is a common problem, but I'm a little short on your individual parameters to fully appreciate the situation. Classically, traders put a stop loss in the opposite direction from the take profit at 50% of the take profit. This often works really well because it suits traditional level work.
But you can try something more extreme, of course. You should probably really switch to longer timeframes, it will give you a calmer and more confident market position so you're less fussy and free to back up your market position.
In any case, I wish you a lot of success.

The first thing that comes to mind after seeing your problem is the wrong choice of timeframe, maybe. Because you're obviously holding your positions for more than 1 minute, while analyzing on the smallest timeframe - and that's very difficult. Depending on what period you want to open your order - for example for 1 hour, you can analyze the timeframes for 1 hour, plus the closest on each side - for example 30 minutes and 2 hours - this will be more productive in terms of classical technical analysis, and of course provided that you have considered everything related to the fundamental analysis for the trading session. I hope that my advice will help you, at least you can at least analyze or try it.

Sorry guys, reading all these only now. Thanks everyone for their input, and thanks dk for not deleting it lol
since I made this post I learned quite a lot so these things doesn’t bother me anymore.

Thanks again to everyone

Wait for price action clarity!

KP

if you'd done your back-testing you should have known by then what the answer to ur question is.

Reading Al Brooks he recommends exiting a trade as soon as you see your idea is not happening. Say you went long at a support level aiming for a target up above, say 2:1, but price starts ranging in a tight consolidation ... he would get out at break even.

But, other resources i've read recommend leaving the trade because even if you were not right on the next bar..it might come good in a few bars time. The idea that levels are magnets for price but the path to the level is a bit random. Some even advocate putting on the trade and then stop watching it until either you are stopped out, or take profit is hit.

Interested to know what most people are doing. To me it seems more consistent to put the trade in and leave it.