The London open brings liquidity and direction, but the first minutes are often noisy.
A simple improvement is to have the calculator display the risk in money and the stop distance in pips next to the lot size before sending the order. Seeing all three together catches most input errors.
Typical behaviour:
Spreads tighten from Asian levels, but a few seconds of wide prints are common.
False breakouts of the Asian range are frequent in the first 5–10 minutes.
A clearer direction often appears after 15–30 minutes.
Approaches:
Wait for the first M5 candle to close before acting.
Trade the retest of the broken Asian range level rather than the break itself.
Use smaller size for any trade in the first five minutes.
Do you trade the very first minutes of London, or wait for the dust to settle?
I do not send size in the first five minutes of London anymore. Spreads can print wide for a few seconds and Asian range breaks reverse often enough that my early win rate sat under 40 percent.
Waiting for the first M5 close is the filter that stuck. If that close is outside the Asian range I look for a retest rather than chasing the break candle itself.
Half size until 08:20 is the compromise when the level is clean and I refuse to miss it entirely. Full size waits for the clearer push that often shows after fifteen to thirty minutes.
False breaks of Asia high on EURUSD have been the main trap. I now require the retest to hold for one full M1 turn before entry, which skips a lot of noise.
Do you allow any trade before the first M5 close, or is that your hard line every session? It is a hard line for me unless I am only flattening risk.
