How to Manage Your Forex Trades Like a Pro
It
is important to distinguish the four main phases of a Forex trade –
this way, you can test your skills on each phase and understand what
needs more work and what does not. The 4 phases are:To get more news
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Trade identification: your setup conditions.
Trade execution: your entry trigger.
Trade
management: what you do when your trade is “live”. Having a plan that
considers the various scenarios that can materialise once your trade is
live is essential to maintain a sense of control over your trading. It
also allows you to respond to the various curve balls the market will
throw at you. I will cover several plan components within the remainder
of this article. At a very basic level, Forex trade management must give
you the answers to the following questions:
1. What do I do if the trade reaches my profit objective quickly?
2. What do I do in case of reversal right after entry?
3. What do I do in case of an intra-trade drawdown?
4. What do I do in case the trade moves steadily in my favour (but without reaching the target) and then reverses?
5. What do I do if the market posts a reversal pattern?
Trade Exit: the decision to completely close the trade and wait for the next opportunity.
Why is Forex Trade Management Important?
Trade
Management is essential to your survival as a trader. To explain why,
consider the most important equation you will ever see in your trading
career:
Expectancy = Average Win * Win% - Average Loss * Loss%
Average
Win and Average Loss are calculated in “R-terms”, meaning units of
return by risk. For example, if your stop loss is 50 pips from your
entry, and you exit with 50 pips of profit, you made a profit of 1R (50
pips of profit / 50 pips of risk).
To understand what the “R” of a
trade is, simply divide your profit by your risk per trade. Since
trading is all about being a good risk manager, and delivering superior
risk-adjusted rewards, you should now understand why thinking about
trade results in “R-terms” is better than thinking in money terms.
Going
back to the expectancy equation, reaching the objective of a
consistently positive expectancy is challenging, but the formula tells
you exactly what you need to do:
Keep the Average Win/Average Loss
Ratio as high as possible (you are doing well if your average win is at
least twice the size as your average loss)
Keep the Win Percentage
as high as possible (but over time, this will probably average close to
50%, which means that the key to profitability is averaging losses that
are much smaller than your average win)
Trade management is
essential because without having a clear plan, you will be more prone to
making hasty, emotional decisions. If you do not average at least 1R on
your winning trades, you will probably lose money over time.
Another
thing to consider is that, by keeping your losses small compared to
your wins, you will be in a much more relaxed place because the minimum
win rate to ensure you do not lose money will become smaller. Here is
the supporting math:
The Wall