Hi Sawyer,
Glad to hear from you and thank you for sharing your experience it sounds like you are off to a good start.
The first thing that I think it is important to point out here is that while being able to place profitable trades when paper trading is a step in the right direction towards profitable live trading, the emotions involved with trading live money bring a whole new level to the game that it is really hard to imagine before actually trading live money.
So with this in mind, while it is good that you are trading profitably on a paper account, I would encourage you to tread lightly and start small when you do decide to go live, so you can get a feel for the emotions of trading live money on small amounts and then work your way up.
As for the stops in my opinion anything over 2% of account equity risked per trade, especially for an active strategy, is too much, however I do know that there are lots of people who risk more than that.
A question for you here would also be that if your stops are .5 to 2% which I think most would agree are prudent levels, then how can you be risking 5% per trade?
As far as recommendations for improving I would recommend going through the two free basics of trading video courses which we have here on the site if you have not done so already. You can find the links below:
InformedTrades : Learn Trading. Trading Education. | - Basics of Trading Course
InformedTrades : Learn Trading. Trading Education. | - Airelon's Beginner Trading Course
Best Regards,
Dave