Thanks for clicking! I'm a new trader, as you can probably guess from my handle. I'm not looking for any FOREX holy grail or anything..I know that not every trade is going to be profitable..and hell...most probably aren't. I just have questions for you senior members if you can spare a few minutes to enlighten me. The set up that I have decided to proceed with (on a demo account at first) is this:

1 hour chart, with Heinkin Ashi and alligator. Alligator acting as the filter. I figure that's so simple that I don't need to post a picture but if I do just let me know. I am going to be using EUR/USD exclusively as I prescribe to the theory that traders who "get to know" one specific currency pair do better over time.

My question is: I see all kinds of options for Stop Loss and Take profit points but don't have a clue which one is profitable. At first I was thinking of using a stop loss of 20 and a take profit of 25 but that seems way too narrow based on this week's volatility. Can anyone help me? I'm pretty sure that this simple set up can be profitable I just need to know optimal SL and TP parameters.

I considered using the heinkin ashi as my stop loss..but I don't know if that's viable or not. What i mean is...if the alligator is in buy mode and a buy signal comes up on the HA then I buy..and I close if the HA signal reverts to sell by the end of the hour. The problem with that is that I could potentially lose 100 pips that way...but I could also make 100 pips..so im sooooo confused.

Can someone help me? Let's get a good discussion started here...I'm sure someone else is in the same boat.