How a stop loss can work against you in Forex trading.

Proper money management in forex trading is essential for long term successful trades. This usually means among other things, setting a stop loss to control losses. The tricky part is how much of a stop loss should you set? If you set too much of a stop loss you are exposing yourself to excessive risk and the possibility of losing a large amount if the trade reverses. On the other hand if you set too narrow a stop loss you run the risk of being stopped out of the trade if the temporary retracement goes beyond your stop loss and then resumes the original direction.
I learned the need for this on a trade I did today. The trade signals were strong and an entry signal was triggered. I entered the trade, set my take profit level, and set a narrow stop loss of about 15 pips. It was a long trade and it was going well and strongly moving in the direction that I wanted it to.
Then a correction came which always comes and usually is not a problem, however, being overcautious and conservative,it worked against me and the reversal was more than my stop loss. I was stopped out of the trade with a 14 pip loss. The trade then shortly reversed again and continued in the original direction. If my stop loss had been set at say 25 or 30 I would have been able to meet my profit objective on the trade.
Lesson learned: Set a wider stop loss. On the EUR/USD this should probably be at least 30 pips since most of the retracements are within this range.
The reason I set such a narrow stop loss is because of the fear of losing more than I was comfortable with. Remember, in a previous article I told you that this is one of the things that kills long term success. Here is a real life situation.
Of course, a wider stop loss is recommended in the Forex Trading Machine which is the system I am using. I thought I could do better by being more conservative. Then I realized that Avi Frister, the author, knows what he is talking about.
To read more about Avi Frister's Forex Trading Machine go to:
www.myforextradingstrategies.com