Time stops on gold: tools to enforce them

[FXS London Scalper]

On XAUUSD, good scalps often work quickly. If a trade is still sitting near entry after several minutes, it's worth asking whether it's turning into a loser. A time stop answers that mechanically.

How to choose the time: from your journal, look at the holding time of your winning trades. If the bulk hit target inside 4 minutes and trades still open at 8 minutes are mostly losers, 8 minutes is a sensible limit. Your own data should set it.

Ways to enforce it, since willpower is unreliable:

• A small script showing a countdown next to the open position, changing colour at the two thresholds.
• A sound alert at the limit. Closing manually keeps you in control, for example if you're already moving the stop.
• For manual testing sessions, a phone timer. Low tech, works.

How to judge it: compare trades closed by the time stop with how similar trades ended before you used it. A worked example: if long-running trades used to average −0.6R and time-stopped ones average −0.2R, the rule saves 0.4R on each, simply by not waiting for the full stop.

Does anyone use time stops on other pairs? The right number is probably different for EURUSD.