Home Watching the screen

Forex markets wait for no man. If you pop out for just a few seconds, you could quite easily miss a big move. If you have an open position, that could result in a substantial loss, particularly if you don’t have any stop loss in the market.

It’s therefore crucial for day traders to keep an eye on the markets at all times. And that means not leaving your desk with an open position unless you have some form or risk protection or exit strategy in place.

If you do need to leave your desk it’s important to go knowing that the market may move in your absence. Obviously, it’s important to pick your moments as you do not want to be away from your desk when an important news release or economic event is about to break.

The most basic option is to simply put a stop loss order into the market and hope that it doesn’t get hit. You can also place a limit order so that if the currency spikes higher you will take a profit. It’s always nice to come back from a break to find that you’ve actually made money.

A Guest Post by  FXTM

Another way to guard against this problem is to ask someone to watch over your trade whilst you are away. You can then instruct them to act according to your directions so that nothing untoward will happen to your trade while you are gone. This is a sensible approach to take and benefits since a human trader will be able to react better to events while you’re gone than a robot.

However, if there is no-one else available then a robot is a better choice for protecting your position. Simply, set the robot up and have it trade for you while you’re away. This is the equivalent of putting your trading system on autopilot, so that when you come back, there has been limited damage done to your account.

If the robot is sophisticated enough it may even be able to perform just as well as if you had been trading yourself. This is the holy grail and means profits can be gathered from the markets in a passive and consistent way.

Of course, achieving the holy grail is difficult and most traders will never be able to manage this kind of success. Even if a robot does show promise, it may fail at any given moment.

Some successful systems have been known to work for months before suddenly blowing up. This is a major issue for system designers which means if you do have a robot it must be tested at regular intervals to make sure it is up to performance.

See how to avoid the scammers on social media