Stopped out when your stop isn't hit.

I'm trying to figure this out... I've been demo'ing for 2-3 months, and so has my friend. He has complained numerous times of getting stopped out when his stop was never hit.
I've had this happen once, but last night on my EFX MT4 demo off of a daily bar, I was stopped out.

I was going short, so the bars high came within 1 pip of my stop. Why was my stop set off? Is there lag, or micro second where it came within .4 pips of my stop and rounded? Should I just assume that I should raise stop a few pips above where I normally go?

thanks for any direction with this

firstly are you sure that the price you are looking at on the chart is correct in terms of the bid/ask for your position?

I'm not sure what you mean.

I am sure my stop (short position) was set at .6645

And I am sure the high of the day was .6644.

And I am sure I was stopped out without anything on my MT4 indicating that .6645 was reached.

The Ask-Price, which is relevant in your scenario, probably did hit 45. I dont use MT4, but i suppose it uses bid-price charts.

well - then I think it would be true to say -I understand Price Action better than I understand my trading platforms and FX terminology.

I am unfamiliar with Bid vs Ask price, and now that I think of it Sell\Buy Stops vs Sell\Buy Limits


There - I admitted it... the first step to solving the addiction. I guess its time to learn that which has been neglected

I don't know whether this will help but some brokers will quote an average price, together with a bid and an offer price.

For example if you were short on a position and the spread was 4 pips...

Let's say your stop was at .6645 as indicated. With a spread of 4 pips and the high being .6644, the bid price would be .6642 & the offer price at .6646 and that's why your position would have been stopped out.If you are short then it's the offer price that you need to be aware of. If long the bid price is the one to watch.

Of course during news the broker may widen the spread which could also stop you out if your stop loss is hit.

I hope that clarifies things for you

Kind Regards
Steve

That seems like a way to complicate things more than they need to be... why not simply have your stop\limit directly correlate with the price feed, instead of with some dynamic pip spread?

Although - if my account were live someone would've scored a quick load of cash off me. good for them!

Unfortunately that's the way it works so we have to take these things into account when setting our stop losses. Brokers make money from the spread and remember, however much we dislike it, they are in the business of making money too.

I'm no expert but hope it helps.

Kind Regards
Steve

This has nothing to do with complicating things. There are certain things about how the forex market works. Before you start trading you should make sure that you undarstand those things. In a post above you have stated that you do not know what Bid/Ask means. Yet this is a basic concept in any type of financial market. You should take the time to learn about this things. Remember, no one is out there to get you. Most of the time when it seems that your broker is screwing you it is just your ingnorance for how things work.
Bid - the price at which you sell;
Ask - the price at which you buy;
Spread - the difference between the Bid/Ask;

When you open a short position you sell at the Bid and when you close it you buy at the Ask.

Take a look at the picture bellow. You can clearly see that when i enterend my short position the price (the chart line) has not touched my entry but because of the bid/ask spread the Bid has therefore i entered short. The same thing with my stop loss. It seems that the price has never reached that level but the ask has so my position got stopped out.
So we have the bid, ask and average price. Since most of the time only one of the 3 is plotted on your chart you need to be aware of the other 2.
I hope this clears things out for you and i hope you find some time to invest in getting yourself educated about this things. It will cut down on your frustration and it will make you a better trader.

my thanks... that clears things up a bit. I think in fact I did know the difference, but it was just set up in the attic of my brain due to trader complacency.

I got into the prototypical stage of "just learning to trade on my demo and say boo hoo to everything else"... Of course before any live money I will work to straighten all this out, but again, my thanks.

My platform shows the sell price. If I have a long position and close it, it will be closed at the sell price. If I have a short position, it would be closed at the long price. Because of the difference in the buy and the sell price. The differences could make the difference of the spread if you are looking at the wrong price.

Pete