I hear you. A move from 50 to 51 would never motivate me to "take profits"... for me to buy at 50, I'd have to see a chart potential of maybe 54-60+ and try to give the market breathing room to get there.... then as the market went my way, raise a traling stop. Even that's an artful guess. The market will give you every opportunity to turn a potential big gain into a small one... coping with that is always an ordeal.
Ok, thanks, that does help. I think I suffer from the half of the classic backwards noob thinking which says 'Fear losing a small profit (sell a winner) and hope a loser turns into a winner (hold your losers)'. I have the first part of the disease, but at least I now understand that you don't see a 2% move in the value of the stock as being a satisfactory return on a swing trade. That helps. Yes... I realize that I haven't seen enough stocks confirm my initial call then retrace almost to the entry point before taking off. It's that retrace that is gut wrenching for me now, as I feel a need to make up some $$ that I lose in noob mistakes.
Would you say successful trading is more about avoiding trades than to be proactively seeking trades?
Sometimes they retrace, sometimes they just BLAST... you never know about THIS one until it's in the works.
This is a big issue in my view.... 1. Cherry Pick the best trades, trying to avoid potential loss situations, or 2. Trade EVERYTHING reasonable and let stops control losses. If you're thinking "#1" the market is pretty good at leaving you in the dust. If you're thinking "#2", you will sometimes get wrung through the Veg-O-Matic when you'd have been better off to just sit on your hands. I think you have to play this by ear. Both are good and bad at times.