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You make some good points and perhaps I should not quibble with a recently anointed "Elite Member", but I will. <b>You Are Right: Entries Are Important:</b> I do agree with the need for "surgical, precise entries, taken for reasons." I will admit that I could be over stating the issue in that many traders use entry methods that are more sophisticated than their exit methods. Creating a set of rules that reliably spots setups with adequate risk-adjusted positive expectancy is nontrivial. Creating the metarules that signal when to actually use the rules is also tricky (e.g., avoid trading the trend in a choppy market or picking the right stock out of 5000). In contrast, many people rely on exit methods that are simple profit and loss targets. <b>Intraday Trading: Entry Rules Pick Good Days</b> I'll also admit that I'm talking about swing trading on multiday and multiweek timescales when I speak of the importance of exits. In contrast, I can see how intraday trading would be more entry-intensive and how it could rely on simple profit/loss targets for the exit. An intraday entry method has the responsibility for spotting the good days to trade (e.g., picking nice trending days vs. aimless choppy days). For intraday trading, the entry picks the day of the exit too. Thus the entry really has a high degree of control over the trade's outcome because overall market character won't be that different by the time the exit is reached a few minutes or hours later. <b>Multiday Trading: Exit Rules Pick Overnight Holds</b> But for non-daytrades, the entry only gets the process started. Each day, after entry, the EOD trader must employ some sort of trading logic that decides to "exit now" or to "hold overnight." This decision must be made against the backdrop of shifting market moods (e.g., do you exit a good stock because the market had a bad day?) Identifying the end of the swing or trend is quite important and comes a long time after the entry. For multiday and multiweek trades,-- it is the exit that determines if you get jiggled out about a 3% retracement and miss a 50% move. Thus, for longer-term trader, the exit strategy cannot just ride the coattails of the entry rules, the exit strategy needs to be of similar or greater sophistication. <b>Entry Strategies Can be Picky, Exit Strategies Must Cope:</b> An entry strategy can be picky and wait for a "pocket of clarity." This is because when you are in cash, you have the right, but not the obligation, to trade. In contrast, when you are in a position, you are much more obligated to trade. Thus, the exit strategy has no choice but to cope with the fog of war in the markets. This is just another reason why the exit strategy has a greater onus on it than does the entry strategy. <b>Randomized Entries vs. Randomized Exits:</b> Finally, I'd like to paraphrase dereksas and "Derek's Monkey Theory" from another thread. Which would you prefer: a monkey making random entries for you or a monkey making random exits for you? I'd bet that most traders would prefer having control over their exits to having control over their entries. This is why I believe that exits are so important, especially for EOD traders. Wishing everyone good exits, Traden4Alpha