Tag: win rate

  • How to improve risk management in trading?

    How to improve risk management in trading?

    How to improve risk management in trading?
    Improving risk management in trading could be a life-changing factor.

    By Guy Avtalyon

    I’ll start straight to the point on how to improve risk management in trading. Risk management in trading very often stands very low on the priority list for many traders. The main concern is the entry signal or other indicators. I have to tell you this isn’t the right way. Nothing is wrong with waiting for the proper indicator, but if you don’t have decent knowledge about risk management in trading, you will not have profitable trades. The point is to know how to manage your risk, size your position for each trade, and set your orders accurately if you want to make a profit in trading.

    And you might think it is unnecessary, and it isn’t so important. If that is your case, feel free to not continue with reading this post. But I have to warn you that if you never improve risk management in trading, you’re at risk of becoming a steady loser. 

    And why should you be that if there are some tips to avoid the most common problems?

    Tips to improve risk management in trading

    If you adopt some of these tips or approaches, you’ll stop losing your hard-earned money.

    First, you must realize how you let the trade get out of your hands. Yes, it’s kind of looking back but never think about this as wasting your time. If you make a scrutinizing evaluation of your past trades that ended in losses, you’ll find the reasons behind them, and you’ll find the pattern. The main benefit of this introspection is to avoid similar behavior in the future. Knowing how and why you made mistakes, you’ll be prepared and will never repeat the same trading mistake in the future.

    Setting orders and the risk/reward ratio

    When you identify an entry signal, do you know where to set your stop-loss and take profit orders? You have to know that even before you enter the trade. How to do that? Let’s assume you know where to set the stop loss and take profit orders after determining the appropriate price levels. The next step should be to measure the risk/reward ratio.

    If you find out the risk is bigger than the reward, just skip the trade. The worst thing you can do is stretch the take profit order or squeeze your stop loss to reach a higher risk/reward ratio.

    Keep in mind; trading is mostly unpredictable, so the reward isn’t assured. The only thing you can control is the risk involved in your trades. You shouldn’t neglect that and act unreasonably. I’m a hundred percent certain that most of you determine the risk/reward ratio randomly and adjust your stops and profit orders to reach that ratio. Guys, it’s an entirely wrong way.

    Compare win rate and risk/reward ratio together

    Many traders insist that figuring out the win rate is pointless. But they miss out on a crucial point. Watching the win rate alone has no value, but if you observe win rate and risk/reward ratio together, you’ll be closer to winning trades. Having winning trades is every trader’s dream.

    I want to be clear with this, you shouldn’t necessitate an excessively high win rate. For instance, a trading strategy with a win rate of 40 percent requires a risk/reward ratio below 0.6 to be profitable.

    A win rate of 40 percent is average for the most profitable traders. Why should you want an insanely high win rate? That’s wrong and could lead you to significant losses.

    Balance win rate and risk/reward ratio

    You must find a balance between the win rate and the risk/reward ratio. For example, the high win rate could mean that the risk/reward ratio also is high. 

    Suppose you found a stock that is trading at $20, down from a recent high of $25. And you bought 50 shares because you had $1,000 for that purpose.

    If the stock price went up to $25, you can make $5 for each of your 50 shares, and in total it is $250. You paid $1,000 so you have to divide 250 by 1,000 and the result is 0.25.

    That means that your risk/reward is 0.25:1. It is a very low risk/reward ratio.

    Assume that you have made 15 trades, of which 6 were winners and 9 were losers. So, the win/loss ratio is 6/9, or 2:3. In percentages, the win/loss rate is 6/9 = 0.66. This means you are losing just over 66 percent of the time. Using your total number of trades which is 15, your win-rate would be 6/15 = 0,4×100 = 40%.

    You can be profitable with a 40 percent win rate if risk/reward is below 0.6. As can be seen from the formula for calculating the needed win rate for profitability based on the risk/reward ratio, 1/(1+ risk/reward ratio).

    The risk/reward decreases when the win rate decreases. In other words, if you have more losses, your winners must be bigger to be profitable.

    Size your position

    I’ve met many traders that size their positions randomly picking some levels of 2 percent, 4 percent, and never change that. It’s totally insane. You have to estimate the chances to win because trading is all about possibilities. It’s normal to change position sizing for every trade if it is necessary, and mostly it is. Why should you hold the same position size when you see virtually no chances of winning? 

    In trading, every strategy has a different win rate. So, the risk/reward ratio for each of your trades will vary. This is especially important if you trade using many strategies or setups.

    The point is to reduce the trades’ position size with low win rates and increase it for the trades with higher win rates.

    If you want to improve risk management in trading, you should never overlook the risk/reward ratio and money management. Otherwise, you’ll blow your account. If you take too much risk to make a quick profit, you’ll likely end up in losses. 

    You’ll go bankrupt because of a lack of knowledge about risk management. Now onwards, you have to rigorously adhere to position sizing and risk management if you want to be a profitable trader.

    Pay attention and improve risk management in trading

    You might love your trading style or some strategy, particularly, but you should consider improving it to achieve more profitable trades. After some time, everyone should jump to the next level. I know you could be impressed by indicators, waiting for the right signals to show you the right time to enter the trade. It’s so exciting and sexy, right?

    Well, it’s also risky if you never improve your risk management. It isn’t so exciting as watching the charts, candles, following the news, and waiting for the indicators, but it is essential for your future trades and your profits. Blinking indicators and trading strategies will benefit you for some time, but the real difference comes with improved risk management.

    Don’t be worried. A small number of traders really pay attention to this matter unless they have a series of losing trades. Then and only then. they will start thinking about how to improve risk management in trading. But you have a chance to shortcut this path. Why suffer losses if you can trade with more attention to the risk management from the beginning instead. 

    It doesn’t take too much. 

    Did I miss something? Share your opinion with me, leave a comment, ask me what else you would like to know. I’m here for you, guys.

  • Profitable Forex Trading By Using Two Approaches

    Profitable Forex Trading By Using Two Approaches

    Profitable Forex Trading By Using Two Approaches
    Forex is short for foreign exchange, but the actual asset class we are referring to is currencies.

    By Guy Avtalyon


    If you want to be a profitable forex trader and have profitable forex trading, you have to follow some rules. You have to either win more often than you lose. The must is to win more on each trade than you lose.

    Or better yet; do both.

    Doing both is truly the hallmark of a professional trader. It can be very tricky though. As you are a new trader, it is probably best to focus on one approach. See where you can go from there.

    I want to show you the ins and outs of each approach and help you decide which method suits you the best.

    What is the relationship between the win rate and reward ratio in forex trading?

    Before everything, you have to understand the relationship between a trader’s win rate, their reward ratio, and profitability. Assuming a trader risks an average of 10 pips on a trade to make 10 pips of profit. They will need to get 50% of their trades right in order to breakeven. Only if they win more than 50% of their trades, then we can speak about profitable forex trading.

    What happens if you risk 10 pips to make 20?

    You are trader forex trading with a positive reward ratio and therefore you will not have to win as many trades to breakeven or turn a profit. The opposite is true for a trader who trades with a negative reward ratio e.g. risks 10 pips to make 5. Such a trader will have to win more than 50% of their trades to breakeven and even more to turn a profit. There is an inverse relationship between a trader’s win rate and reward ratio. The larger your reward ratio, the fewer trades you have to win, and the more trades you win, the less you need to win on each trade.

    What is profitable forex trading?

    Forex trading with a positive reward ratio is a good place to start as a beginner. Why?

    Because chances are if you are just starting out, you don’t quite yet have a talent for accurately predicting markets. Say your goal is to make twice as much as you are risking on a winning trade.  We have to do some math. If you have such a goal, then your breakeven rate drops all the way down from 50% to 33% and any wins above 33% are pure profit.

    If you aim for 3 units of risk (3R) on a profitable trade, your breakeven requirement drops even further to 25%.

    This advice is offered by market makers with educational background. This advice is reliable, but what they ignore to tell new traders is that it’s actually harder to make 2 x risk (2R) than it is to make 1 x risk (1R). Anyway, this approach is still a great place to start as a new trader, we just believe in an open and honest approach to forex education.

    What is forex trading with a positive win rate?

    Trying to score profitability via a positive win rate isn’t the best idea for new traders, because you are not yet experienced enough to get the market right more than half the time. Aiming for one unit of risk in profit has a higher chance of success than aiming for two. The other option is trading with a negative reward ratio, such as aiming for less than a single unit of risk on a profitable trade.

    But there is the problem with trading forex with a negative reward ratio: the more your reward ratio drops, the more trades you need to win to turn a profit. If for example, you only aim for half a unit of risk on a winning trade, your breakeven rate rises from 50% all the way up to 66.67%. Then again, there is a higher probability of profitable forex trading and success on trades with negative reward ratios.

    Automated systems and forex signals

    When looking at automated systems and forex signals, you often see systems that appear great because they are forex trading with extreme negative reward ratios. These systems will risk a hundred pips or more in order to make 5-10 pips. This can work for a long time, but eventually, volatility picks up and the stop losses start getting hit. Every stop-loss that triggers wipes out a bunch of winning trades and you start seeing sharp declines in the system’s equity curve. The characteristic of these systems is win rates above 90%. If you see a system with a win rate that high, look a little deeper. You’ll like to examine how exactly this unbelievable win rate happens.

    Currency is known as an “active trader” opportunity. This type of opportunity suits brokers. That means they earn more due to the agility that accompanies active trading but it is also promoted as leveraged trading. Hence it is easier for a forex trader to open an account with a little money than it is required for trading stocks.

    How to use forex trading as a hedge

    You can use currency trading to hedge your stock portfolio too.

    For instance, if some trader builds a stock portfolio in a country where there is potential for the stock to increase in value. But there is a downside risk in terms of the currency. For example, you might own the stock portfolio and short the dollar against another currency such as the Swiss franc or euro.

    This means, the portfolio value will increase, and the negative effect of the declining dollar will be neutralized. This is good for those investors outside the U.S. who will eventually repatriate profits back to their own currencies.
    With this profile in mind, this suits the best day trading or swing trading.

    The other strategy of trading currencies is to understand the fundamentals and long-term benefits.

    It is useful to a trader when a currency is trending in a specific direction. That means it offers a positive interest differential. Hence, it provides a return on the investment plus an appreciation in currency value.

    This forex trading strategy is a “carry trade.”

    Good timing is the essence of profitable trading. In both cases, as in all other trading activities, the trader must know their own personal attributes. In order not to violate good trading habits with bad and impulsive behavior patterns.

Traders-Paradise