Time/Leverage/Price action = Pips

My 2 cents worth. I have been trading FX for 1 yr now and have found ff to be a gold mine of info. I have noticed too many people focusing on systems and too few on money management or leverage. I have a simple suggestion. Do not trade greater than 5,000 currencies and 50:1 leverage until you're account is over $2,000 USD. You will be in the game longer and you have proven to yourself that you have some dicipline if you can take a mini account ($250 ish) to $2,000.
Also, adjust your profit taking to match your time frame. If you trade a 5 minute chart, be happy with a 10 to 20 pip gain. Usually hanging on to a profitable trade too long will net you a loss. I've lost count of the trades I was up 10+ pips only to watch them fade back and hit my stop loss for a loss. A higher time frame of 1hr or more will allow you to go for larger pips of 50+. Don't be greedy! Every now and then you may run away with a profit of 100+ pips but thats not the norm.
Try putting one indicator on a chart and watch for price reversals. You will say to yourself " I can see that, why didn't I just wait". Overtrading empties your account. Wait for something you can see, don't just enter a trade because a system tell you to. I use support/resistance and 50/100 levels to trade. You will increase you're winnings after you adjust you're profit taking based on you're time frame and waiting to enter a trade until you can "see it" based on the price action (phew, long sentence). It took me a while to learn this, I hope it helps you make money.

just my two cents

I switched from short term to long term trading because on short term the noise will kill your probablility of profit cause of cost of trading (brokers always love scalpers).

Now i'm targeting at least hundres of pips on my trades in the time of frame of three to four weeks.

i am very aggresive and don't use stoploss and i maximize leverage to 200:1

may I throw in my 2 cents as well? http://www.forexfactory.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I've recently begun noticing that lower timeframes are actually better for position trading. for example, one of my systems require a 200 points SL if traded on 4hr. but when I switched to 30 minute timeframe, SL was reduced to 100 points, and the result was more or less the same. I haven't tested even lower timeframes yet, I suspect that if I'd done so, SL could be further reduced, but the number of trades would dramatically increase, to the point that it no longer was possible to manually follow such a system.

and the other thing I've been realising is that. there is only one trend, and that is the monthly/weekly overall trend. forget about following trends on smaller timeframes, in the long run, it doesn't worth it.

Is that a trailing stop? it sounds huge for the time frame unless it's a trailing for something like GBP. With support and resistance levels it's fairly easy to get hard stops under 25-35 for an hour chart, 40-50 on the 4h. I generally don't even get my hard stops over 30 on the 4h charts. But then I'm of the frame of mind if it doesn't do what my system expects, there is little point in trying to make the trade work. There are plenty of trades that will work, so there is little point in wasting my time on a trade that doesn't conform to my system, it's just asking for trouble. But then no system is perfect and it's up to us to understand it's limitations.

Happy trading.

I dont have two cents as i dont live in USA..



. Just Kidding...