Manually Closing Trades Before the ASIAN Handover.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, historically, I've placed a trade and let it complete one way or the other (otherwise known as ‘set and forget’). Some trades took a few hours to complet, some trades took one or two days. It's my preferred way of trading, it requires minimal maintenance and the bottom line is, it maximises the benefit of using a higher risk reward ratio per trade. Plus, I know that if I place (x) trades per week, with (x) risk reward ratio, and a 50% win rate, on the January 1st, I can (roughly) calculate my projected profit for the year. All of that is out of the window if I'm manually closing trades before the Asian hand-over. So why am I doing it? Why am I closing trades early? Thinking back, it was probably around the time of President Trump's tariff announcement in April 2025, we had a period when sentiment seemed to change on a session by session basis, according to the latest positive or negative headline. I'd go to sleep with a trade well on its way to the profit target, only to wake up to find it had stopped out. Obviously losing trades is part and parcel of trading, I have a losing trade almost every week. But when sentiment was changing so frequently, it was getting a bit much. It wasn't just sentiment changing from NORTH AMERICA to ASIA, it was also from ASIA to EUROPE and from EUROPE to NORTH AMERICA. So I made the decision to temporarily trade on a session by session basis. Fortunately, that session by session choppy sentiment has passed, we are now (in the main) back to sentiment for a particular narrative being carried over into the next session. But I still feel the need to close a trade before the AISAN handover, why? At the moment, it boils down to two things, which are intrinsically liked. Firstly, I started to notice that during the ASIAN handover, there would often be a sharp drop of 10 / 15 pips, sometimes more. It's particularly noticeable in CHF pairs but It can also happen on JPY and USD pairs. This volatility is rarely, if ever, caused by a headline. And it almost always reverses. Here is an example on the most recent chart I've placed a trade on, GBP CHF:

The two red dots are ‘handover candles’. Both gapped lower, continued down for a bit, but then reversed. Noticing these handover candles coincided with a period where I naturally found myself placing trades with 20 pip stop losses, sometimes 15 pips or even 10 pips. Historically, 30 pips has been my baseline minimum stop loss, sometimes it would be 40 pips, maybe even 50 pips. Why has my stop loss distance shortened? Honestly, there isn't a deep, complicated reason. I can only put it down to a slight dwindling of volume, causing ATR’s to slightly dwindle. I place a stop loss at a point I think invalidates the trade, if that's 15 pips, so be it (my next article will be about finding peace with a stop loss). The bottom line is, if we are getting these volatile handover candles, I don't feel comfortable holding a 20 pip (or less) stop loss during the handover. It's not ideal, like I say, it messes with the mathematics of a higher risk reward ratio. But my reasoning is that if I'm trading with what I believe to be the underlying fundamentals, the trade ‘should’ be closed in some sort of profit more than half of the time. What about my preference for ‘set and forget' because it's low maintenance? For me, living in the UK, it's not too bad. Market close is at 10pm, an hour or so before the close, if the trade is ongoing, regardless of whether it's in profit or a loss, I'll close the trade. It only takes ten seconds to open the platform and exit the the trade. And because it's getting late in the evening, I'll go to bed and reassess the next day. But what if I lived in a different timezone, when market close is in the afternoon or in the morning? I think it's a valid idea to wait an hour for the spreads to narrow, possibly wait another hour for liquidity to pick up again. And if nothing has changed, you're still confident the original profit target can be hit, it is an option to re-enter the trade. I don't mean place a fresh trade, I mean use the original profit target and stop loss. Here are some screenshots I've taken to explain (using yesterdays trade as an example). Original entry:

I closed the trade before the handover for a profit of +0.8..

I then fell asleep on the sofa, got shouted at by Michelle for snoring, and before I went to bed I had a look at the chart with this article in mind. To be clear, I didn’t place this trade, I just put the lines on to demonstrate what I mean about potentially re-entering.

Interesting to note the volatile handover candle. But Price was very close to the area I closed the original trade. You ‘could’ re-enter the trade at this point, keeping the original profit target and stop loss. Therefore, over the two trades, you are still only risking the original 1% (or whatever your chosen risk amount is). And you aren't asking for a big rise up, just a few pips to complete the original trade. In this case the original trade was: 15 pip stop loss 20 pip profit target. That's a 1.3 risk reward. I closed the original trade 13 pips in profit. That's +0.8. (15 pip stop loss ÷ 13 pip profit). So, by re-entering, I would have been asking for that extra +0.5. whilst still only risking the original 1% Please get in touch if that doesn't make sense. For the record, ‘if’ I had re-entered, the chart did move up to the original profit target:

You may have closed a trade for a small loss before the handover, but still believe the chart will go in your direction. The same principle applies, you can re-enter the trade, keeping the original stop loss and profit target. I do have a strong word of warning though. Because re-entering does come with the risk of getting messy. Which could lead you down an emotional path. What happens if you've closed a trade in profit, re-enter and it ultimately stops out? You'll start kicking yourself and if you're not careful it's a road full of emotional spiders webs. You might just prefer to keep it clean, close the trade and move on. I just wanted to show the idea. I do hope that soon, I'll once again feel comfortable leaving trades to run through the handover, I think it'll take a return of the 30 / 40 pip stop losses for that to happen. Weekly Review to follow, and next week I'll try to cover: Finding peace with a stop loss.

For now, I'll wish you a lovely weekend.