Ok, so I am in a trade that is profitable by 50 pips, I don't close the trade until it is only 13 pips profitable. I tell myself just take some and get out. Ok good. Next trade is up 47 pips I wait until is has gone down to 20 pips to close the trade.

I keep thinking: what if this will be more profitable and I missed out on the profits?

I have found a few solutions that I have gotten from others, that I am going to try:
-Setting a target for the week/day
-Setting a target for each trade: set the t/p to close out once the target is hit
-Use a trailing stop when needed

Anyone have similar problems? What did you do to overcome this greed?

All suggestions are welcome! Thanks

Tinaz

You are behaving the same way that 99% of new traders behave - me included. Mastering greed (and fear) is taking me a long time. I have made huge progress but still have a way to go.

My suggestion would be to read as many of the articles on the website as you can, starting with
http://www.forexoma.com/money-management-in-forex-trading-how-to-manage-your-money-in-forex/

Setting targets for each day or week is a very bad idea! If you are losing you will start trying harder, taking trades where you should have passed, maybe increase your trade sizes and inevitably end up worse off.

Setting targets for each trade, along with a Stop Loss is a very good idea! That way you will understand how much you are risking, and what the potential reward is, which means that you know the Risk/Reward ratio.

Above all, practice on a demo account until you understand what works for you. Trading Forex seems very simple but there are pitfalls that will separate you from your money very quickly if you dont understand them.

I wish you all the very best and would encourage you to read the articles and the forum and don't be afraid to post what may seem like daft questions.

Michael

As Michael has already said, setting targets per day/week is a bad idea. It will tempt you to take poor trade set-ups. This can be good as long as you are only using a demo account as it will help you to recognise the poorer signals. But with real money - a big NoNo.

The decision where to exit a trade can be much more difficult than the decision where to enter.
The best answer to your dilemma as far as I am concerned is to clearly define your stop-loss and target before you enter the trade and stick to them. With experience you may learn which trades have the possibility for better Risk:Reward ratios.

You haven't mentioned it, but I would imagine that you also suffer from the Fear aspect that makes you exit a trade too early. By this I mean for example, You have a trade with a 40 pip stop that initially goes to a 30 pip loss without hitting your stop. This makes you feel anxious and if the trade returns to hit break even, you feel relief and close it. You end up kicking yourself when you watch it go on to hit your target

I think that the 1:0.75 method of setting targets is good for building confidence. That is where target 1 is half of the stop-loss pips and target 2 is equal to the stop-loss pips. You take half of the profit when Target 1 is hit and move the stop to break-even. Close the trade at target 2.

We all have to accept that we will never be able to know where the top and bottom of the market is. We will never manage to exit trades with the maximum profit. So if we have clearly defined targets and they are hit consistently, we may not be squeezing the most that we can, but we are still doing very well.

Good Luck


Keith

Hi Tinaz,

Setting a weekly and daily target is not a good idea, because when you are behind the schedule, you push yourself to trade more and so you will not take the proper trades. But you can have TP orders for your positions. So the computer closes your position, not you.

I was thinking if I set a small goal to take say 50 pips per day just so I would force myself to take some profit even though it is small. I can see how it would be a bad idea but I meant for it to be a way for me to exit and not feel I need more. If I don't make it then that is ok.

I may try the half the stop loss then close out the trade at the full stop loss, I did read about that on this forum. I don't even know why I am having such a hard time doing this. I am really going to have to work on this to find a solution. I appreciate the input and I know exiting a trade can vary from one person to the next. I would just like to find a way that is going to work, for me.

Keith you are right, I do suffer from fear when I am to exit a trade. I really wish I didn't feel this way, as it is an uneasy feeling.

Thank you, Micheal, Keith and Vahid

Hi Tinaz
Ask yourself these questions
1 If I get out of a trade with 1/2 your stop loss and the price just keeps going against your trade, do you feel good that you got out early and saved your self a heap of $$$
2 If you get out of a winning trade early and the price keeps going and you could have made heaps of $$$ do you feel bad??
3 Now ask your self WHY do I feel good when I lost money and bad when I make money.
Every trader has had the same and what the boys above have said is what you have to do. Listen to the videos on discipline and read the posts.
It takes a long time.(for this trader anyway)

Cheers
Ian

I have to admit that most of my experience is with trading stockmarkets, but the same psychological barriers exist in Forex.
Usually when I open a trade, I will decide a level where I will move my stop to Break-even. For example with a 50 pip stop, a 50 pip move in my favour and I will move my stop to break-even although my ultimate target may be 200. I will continue to monitor the trade and try to move my stop to key resistance or support levels as they become apparent.
Once I have moved my stop so that perhaps 50 pips profit are locked in, I will only allow myself to consider that trade as 50 pips in profit. Even if it goes 120 pips in profit, I will not consider it in profit by any more than the locked in 50 pips.
This is an important frame of mind to get into because if this trade reverses and you are stopped with 50 pips profit you tend to forget that you made 50 pips profit and focus on the 70 pips that could have been. When you can train your mind to only recognise profits when they are locked in, you are on the way to beating the fear factor.
This is not easy, but it can be done.

Good luck

Keith

tinaz

This feeling is the main reason that most people why trade shares or forex end up losing and quitting. The fact that you have identified it and are asking about how to conquer it puts you well ahead of most.
There are 3 main components to being a successful trader.
1. The System which gives the entries and exits.
2. Money Management which preserves the capital.
3. Psychology of the trader.

Most people don't realise that the System is the least important of the three, not the most important!

All the best

Michael

Now I almost feel really........

I am just so frustrated wih myself I have now stopped live trading to re-evaluate my trading behaviour. I know I seriously need to figure some things out. I let a profitable +250 pip trade turn into a -415 pip loss, I even saw it go down to -76 pips and still did not get out until it went all the way back up to -415 when my stop loss was hit.

I did this 3 other times with profits of + 450-500 pips, which really makes me so frustrated. When I was doing this on a demo account, I took profits and got out, but with my live account it doesn't work the same way. I feel like I have failed and I am not sure what to do.

Now I have lost a big amount of gains that I had but I know I don't want to give up, it just feels like that right now.

Hi tinaz,
It's difficult to suggest what you may be doing wrong. It's not clear if you actually are doing anything wrong.
Maybe you should post some charts of the trades that you have taken. The problem with simply stating pips profit/loss really means very little unless it is translated into % of your bank profit/loss.
Are you working with daily charts? I guess that you are as the stops are quite large.
If not, are you widening your stop when a trade moves against you?
What is your strategy?

You say "Now I have lost a big amount of gains that I had....", so you were making profits before.
Are you doing something different now compared to when you were making gains? Have you fallen into the trap of overconfidence because you had a good winning run? Changed what you were doing because it seemed too easy and you became reckless??