Falling confidence and rising fuel costs fill the headlines. How do you keep them from changing your risk per trade?

The Conference Board said US consumer confidence fell to 81.9 in September, with references to prices and to oil and gas prices in particular rising to new highs in its survey comments (report). OPEC+ held its quotas on 4 October (report), euro area producer prices rose 8.2% on the year (report) and inflation is up in Germany and France.

Bad news in volume does something to a trader. When every headline sounds worse than the last, the size of the "right" bet seems to change: some people cut size and stop trading, others raise size to catch the move they believe the news implies. Neither response comes from the plan; both come from the mood.

A fixed risk per trade, a percentage of your account that you do not change with the news, is one way to separate the two. It does not make the trades better, but it makes the damage from a bad one predictable. Another is to decide in advance how many trades you will take on a day with heavy news.

We would like members to be honest:

• Does the tone of the news change the size of your trades, or the number you take? How do you know?
• Do you have a risk rule that stays fixed whatever the headlines say?
• What do you do on a day when the news feels overwhelming?
• Have you changed your risk after a run of bad headlines, and did it help?

Position sizing and risk per trade and how to size forex trades cover the mechanics.

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