Daytrading Selling 25% of Price Target Buy 150 Target 152 60% chance Target 155 40% chance Target 158 20% chance (if it hits 158, hits 155) have to hold all day. Actual ( It hit 159.45) I'm looking at every bar being green, up up up, everything is up. I chicken out set a stop loss and i'm out 152.60 . Did I chicken out? How could I avoid taking the winner too early. I suppose I should've waited for a red candle (154) . Part of the difficulty is that I was in this stock, overnight short, so my bias is short from last night.
Find 1000 trades like that. Run a simulation for each of your targets. Pick whichever combines equity you like the most.
Also to the point, for day trading, a single trade is not really what you are trying to figure out. The question you want to ask is what happens over 100 trades, or even 25? Sometimes you will take the certainty and a smaller gain, sometimes you will go for a larger gain. It is not all or none. Plug in a ratio of starting with 75% go for certainty, and 15% less certainty, and 10% even less. These parameters are sort of "meta" controls over your win-loss estimates. Adjust as needed to get it to mesh with the rest of your setup. Also it not a static situation after entry. It can be a static decision, but it does not have to be. You can take into account information after the trade to help you decide what to go for, with a set of choices, and even staying roughly within your ratios mentioned above. Lastly, it is OK to start with a lot of low certainty or scratch trades as part of control risk, assuming you don't take large losses that offset them and more. Often you will BE, but then you get more larger gains, as you get better, that make the P/L positive, all the while with "bread and butter" high certainty trade covering the base P/L. It all depends on how your system parts mesh together. Hope that helps.