My goodness! Do you even trade currencies???
A 100 pip move can happen in a matter of minutes in this business, let along a 10 pip move. Completely random? This just goes to show that you don't understand the market about which you speak with such authority. Mathematically, you can prove just as much predictable structure to this market, as you can numerical randomness. I have found a boat load of repeatable Structures within the currency markets and so have many other technicians in this business. Even in the face of hard-core Fundamental news breaking on a currency, there are still very predictable Patterns that contain high probabilities within those types of moves.
Your inability to see the predictable patterns that make up the price action of this market, is proof positive that you don't yet understand what's going on here. There is a high degree of mathematical structure INSIDE what appears to be "total randomness" to you. If you had taken the time to study the data that makes up the currency markets, then the markets Structure would fly off your computer screen and slap you in the face with a wake-up call. This is what I mean by EDUCATION being the problem and not leverage.
You don't even understand that these markets have structure and that singular fact ALONE speaks volumes.
This is just flat out silly and even more proof that you do not have a solitary clue about the things for which you speak with such authority.
It is not the Stop that's at issue here, it is the entry into your position that matters most. This is WHY knowing that the market has structure and knowing WHERE those higher probability structures are taking shape and most likely to push price, is so important to the size and position of the stop itself. If you are using higher leverage, higher cost basis (per trade) and targeting larger Limit levels for profit, THEN you CAN use small stops and actually gets stopped out MORE THAN you strike your Limits and STILL turn a profit IF you remain consistent at what you are doing AND you know where the current price is located with the overall Structure of price. But, you don't understand any of this, do you? Or, why it makes your comment about not being able to use a 10 pip Stop, so incredibly telling about your skill level, do you?
I'm not going to give away my specific trade techniques and/or my trade system, but I can promise you that a 10 pip stop (the way I trade) is FAR superior to a 100 pip stop any day of the week. It retains more of my available capital and it allows me to come to market consistently with high cost basis trades, which allows me to make larger profits per trade, than using a 100 pip stop ever could or ever would, mathematically.
You need to do more homework.
Silly. The edge is NOT inside the stop. The edge is inside your HEAD.
That's pathetic and sad. And, you call yourself a trader?
I've been trading currencies since 2004 and equity options since 2002. The reason I made the switch is precisely because of the unwarranted exposure to individual stock price manipulation and the better price structures found in the currency markets relative to the dollar per unit relationship. In the stock market, a customer can slip, fall and sue a company, causing news of a lawsuit to tweak the price structure at the most unexpected times. In the currency markets, Central Bank Interest Rate decisions OR the Expectation of FUTURE Central Bank Rate decisions, is what moves the pair/spot/option.
In the stock market, I had to make sure that my trade signal for the underlying stock, was inline with the trade signal for its parent Exchange where it was traded. If not, the stock's price structure would invariably be conflicted by the weight of an Exchange moving in the opposite direction. In the currency market, I simply need to understand what market's interpretation of any Economic Report will have on the Central Bank's decision about rates - no worries about uncorrelated Exchanges, whatsoever.
Am I profitable?
Probably one of the most profitable individual traders you've ever met online - if not the most profitable you've ever met online, then certain one of the most you've met online, thus far. What do I call profitable? Turning $9,000 into over 8 figures in less than 2 years. By most standards, that would be considered, profitable.
Am I going to post my bank statements for you to examine my work? No, so don't bother asking. But, I will tell you this, if you believe that 100:1 is over-leveraged, then you don't yet fully understand why the currency markets exist, or how to profit from them, consistently. That much is abundantly clear.
If I could do in the equity derivatives markets, what I have done in the currency markets AND without high risk associated, then I would have stayed in the equity options business. Can I still trade equity options and remain profitable? Yes, but the underlying conditions in equities would not allow me to grow my capital at the same rate of speed and FX Leverage is what enables me to do exactly that.
You have a lot to learn about how this business truly works and I would strongly suggest that you start by correcting your mistake when you declared that a 10 pip move is purely random. There is more "structure" in a 10 pip move, then you are currently aware of at this moment.
Here's another freebie thought for you: Did you know that in the currency markets, you can turn a 10 pip Stop into a 20 pip Stop, actually LOWER risk and INCREASE net gains, all at the same time? I guaranteed you that you did not know that as a fact.
Yet, it is true. It can be done, but NOT without and education in how this business works.