I had begun to write a fairly lengthy reply and near the end pressed the wrong button and sent the computer to sleep, losing the connection.
Oh well. At least it wasn't a trade entry.
Anyway. Wins71. Sorry to hear about your loss. It is a gut wrenching feeling to turn on the screen and see you have been wiped out.
And all because you didn't have a simple stop in place. This is what hurts you the most right now.
Should you change order size etc. I would say no because you seem to have been using something that appears to have been working for you. But it all depends on how deep your pockets are. If this is a minor hicup you can stand and the only thing that hurts is your ego, keep it as it is, but if you have suffered in the pocket, then yes. This is because you have been doing it right you see.
But I would change one thing and use that stop without any shadow of a doubt. Even if you use it as an emergency stop.
It would have been better to lose 1k rather than 2K.
Agree with the daily market fluctuations. You know how it works so I won't go into detail. But by placing your stop outside the market action will keep you in the game. (Most of the time.)
You may have to look at a chart and go back 1,2,3,4 or 5 days to see where the market has been and place your stop outside of this. If you watched the screen all day you could move the stop as and when you wanted, but seeing as you 'go about your daily business' you have to find a comprimise. I often don't use a stop on early trades, prefering to use a mental stop to start with then use a placed stop as the trade progresses, But I'm one of the sad gits who sit in front of a screen all day.
"my question how do you set a stop loss per trade and what trade size would that be for the equivalent stop loss. Hope i havent confused everyone. i ask this because i feel that intraday volatility always tend to take out your stop before your profit target is reached."
Well that has confused me, But I will asume this. You trade at £5 per point, your stop is for £5 per point, placed wherever you want it.
You may find it better to 'swing' over a couple of days or so.
The open move is good to trade but you really have to be there. Even better if you want to close out at a projected profit is something like a bracket order that IB do. This is from their site:
"Create Bracket Orders
Bracket orders are designed to limit your loss and lock in a profit by "bracketing" an order with two opposite-side orders. A BUY order is bracketed by a high-side sell limit order and a low-side sell stop order. A SELL order is bracketed by a high-side buy stop order and a low side buy limit order. For example, if you create an order to buy 100 shares of ABC at $50.00/share and then select Create Bracket Orders, TWS creates both a sell limit order for $51.00, and a sell stop order for $49.00.
The order quantity for the high and low side bracket orders is the same of the quantity of the original order. By default, the amount off the current price to which a bracket order is set is 1.0. This offset amount can be manually changed on the order management line for a specific order, or you can modify the default offset amount using the Default Order Settings box.
To create a bracket order
Click the "Ask" or "Bid" price of an asset to create an Order Management line.
Click the Ask Price to create a Buy order.
Click the Bid Price to create a Sell order.
On the right-click menu, select Create Bracket Orders.
Verify that the order parameters are correct.
Transmit the order.
NOTE: Bracket orders are considered one transaction. When you transmit one of the orders, all three orders are transmitted."
Oh, and don't make the mistake of thinking that the ftse always follows what the Dow does for the most part yes, but as you have found to your cost, it does have it's own mind sometimes. In fact the dow often duplicates what the ftse has done when it opens in the afternoon and then takes over.
good fortune.
