I have been trying to tell people that risk/reward ratio is key, but some people just don't understand, in a perfect life you get more than 50% of your tradings right and you end up making profit, but this is not a perfect world ,so chances are you are going to make more losing than winning trades, but the key to remain profitable is to use a proper risk reward ratio entries, for example if you are aiming for 100$ you should not risk more than 50$, any trade that doesn't have at least 1:2 risk to reward ratio is a bad trade to begin with.
i usually go with 1:3 , some times 1:5 , rarely 1:2 and never 1:1.
and the only way to get those trades is by trading at near major support and resistance lines, where your SL is below support or above resistance. never enter a trade in nobody's land because then your SL will be meaningless and only based on your emotions.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.postimg.cc%2F9fhH4Jmk%2Fratio.jpg&t=665&c=0ljX13LZGcE0xA)
This an example of current BTCUSD 4h chart, plain and simple,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5071613.msg48868678#msg48868678 in this post , i closed my short position, and entered long positions at 3600-3700, as that was a great support area, i risked about 1.3% for 7% and 14% ( two different targets).
this is a simple example of a perfect set up that can't go wrong even if you were to lose the trade.
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ok forget about the past, look at the future, we are approaching a major residence area ( marked in red), there are 2 potential great set ups.
1- short with a SL above the red area
2- long with a SL below the red area ( if we manage to break it )
always keep in mind that price usually goes the easier way, the easier way at our next station is down, it takes less market "effort" for price to retrace down from resistance than to break it, however we have a H&S formation which suggest a break to the upside but that's a whole different topic.
long story short, whatever indicators or methods you use to enter your trades, if you are not sticking to a good SL - TP ratio chances are you are not making any profit in the long run, you might get lucky a few times but i am willing to bet the house that nobody is successful in trading without a proper risk/reward ratio applied.
I talked about this in another topic but i think many people have difficulties applying a good SL-TP ratio due to their wrong entries.
guys i can't stress enough on this topic, there is a lot of profit to be made in trading,don't bother about those who say TA is bullshit, they are just to lazy to learn.
if you have any questions regarding TA, feel free to ask, i am not a pro by any means but i have been trading for a long time and i am willing to share all the knowledge at my disposal, if you are a hodler from 20k or a newbie waiting for 100$ per BTC go hang around the off-topic board.