2024-04-11 04:00:24
[Don’t use a fixed position size, do this instead…]
Most traders are fascinated with technical analysis, candlestick patterns, trading indicators, etc.
When you see “something” nice, you quickly hit the buy button without giving much thought to your position size—which is a big mistake.
Why?
Because without proper position sizing, your wins and losses are erratic.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say you buy 1 standard lot of EUR/USD with a stop loss of 20 pips.
How much could you lose?
Well, it’s a potential loss of $200 (20 x $10/pip).
Now, what if you have 100 pips stop loss?
It’s a potential loss of $1000 (100 x $10/pip).
You might be thinking:
“My stop loss in terms of pips will be the same.”
“This way, I can keep my losses constant on each trade.”
That is possible but…
What if you trade a different timeframe where it doesn’t make sense to use the same number of pips as your stop loss? (E.g. A 20 pips stop loss might work on the 5-minutes timeframe but not on the daily.)
Or what if you trade a different currency pair with a different pip value?
Do you see my point?
So the lesson is this…
The size of your losses should be the same for each trade.
But your position size should be adjusted according to the size of your stop loss.
A tighter stop loss allows you to increase your position size.
A wider stop loss requires a smaller position size.
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