I like them for really wild days. Made a lot of money trading eur.chf on the peg by using trailing stops to both enter and exit I've never found any use for them at all for long term trend trading. They have always hurt me and never helped. I like them for entering with the trend
I never use them for long term or day trading. Long term they stay at breakeven, sometimes 4.5 years been the longest, and in day trading, once I get to breakeven plus a tick, either make target, get out on market stalling or hits stops. All my testing shows I miss out hugely long term with trailing stops and in day trading ES, too often cheat myself out of ticks. I find I get lazy and waiting for stops to hit then just taking more.
I prefer managing my trades manually rather than using an automatic trailing stop. For example, if I scalp out half my position at 1 point anduring let the rest run, I am going to be managing that last half manually. I don't think trailing stops are at all beneficial to me.
I tried the idea of trailing stops before. It doesn't work if you're using a systematic trailing stop. It's really easy for the market to trigger your stop and then instantly reverse.
yeah, it looks good on paper, and nobody likes to have to actually make a trading decision, so it seems like an easy answer. I keep looking for that free lunch, but they always get you some way.