Hiya WizBiz !
Bro , i fully understand your issues as i'm exactly like you 2 months back . When i set my stop loss ( usually 20 pips below my entry price ) it always hit and after hitting my stop loss the **toot** price went back up again ...
And i think the other seniors didn't answer this type of questions is because its an open ended question with many ramifications . The best that i can offer you is just my own personal tips ...
1 - You
MUST have a Money Management System (MM) !! Know how much you can risk in every single trade . This way , you can embed your own Risk / Reward Ratio and know how much you can risk in a single trade .
Example :
You have a risk capital (deposit) of USD 1,000.00 and your own MM is that you are prepared to risk 5% of your capital . If you enter a contract of 0.1 Lots ( 1 pips = 1 USD ) , that means you are prepared to risk a maximum of 50 pips .
So , lets say you're entering 0.1 Lots for Euro/USD Long at 1.4075 that means you will set your SL at 1.4025 ( 50 pips difference ) . For T.P , its the same , TP should be built-in into your MM System . For this example lets say we set a TP of 15 pips ( as recommended by Bro Zeman ) , and using the TF30 as our Main Screen . ( Using Isakas 2 as entry indi of course !! )
And because you have did your research beforehand, you know that the USD will be weak after the Fed Rates cut of 50bps and a Discount Rate cut of 50bps and after some time , you hit your TP target . The price did fluctuate but because you have set your SL a reasonable distance away ( as per your MM ) , it did not touch your SL . So a big smile with a profit of 15 USD !
This is just a simple example . You should incoporate Support and Resistance Values , Fibonacci Retracement Values and Fundamental Analysis forecast at the very least to have a good MM in place . There are so many other variables that you can put in place to make your MM as excellent as possible . I'm also still learning and the more i learn about FX , the more i realise that there is so much more to learn ....
Anyways , all the above means that
the SL and TP values is not set in stone . Its a
dynamic value and it depends on YOU and your MM to make it into a "meaningful" value ...
All the best ....