Jeff... You don't have a problem if you followed your trading plan. Meaning...what was your profit-target on the trade? If you exited at/beyond your target...its a great trade. If you exited prior to your profit-target and its a chronic problem... you may need to revise your exit strategy. If I get out of a trade at their designated profit-targets (not always but I make an effort to stick to my exit strategy) to only see the trade continue without me... for many more points. This is not a problem and I'm happy because I followed my plan. Heck...if I trade my plan and finish the day down in the red...I'm not happy...but I walk away knowing it could have been worst and glad that I had a mechanism in place to prevent such. It would be a problem if I exited prior to my profit-target and it continue without me to my profit-target. Now...if your a successful trader via the size your already using... and you find yourself missing Home Run trades like this... trying banking profits on all the contracts except for one... using that remaining one contract in an attempt to capture a home run. Make sure you move your initial stop up to 1 tick better than breakeven to pay for commissions if your wrong on that remaining 1 contract. The latter part above was in response to your questions about stops. There's no best way for stops... just find a stop method that fits your overall trading plan well. Also, some traders say they can better manage their position if its with more than 1 contract...such is only recommended if your already successful at trading with 1 contract. You also said the following... ...if I kept my original stop and moved it down right above every swing high on the 1 minute chart I would still be in the trade If that's part of your trade management...why didn't you follow your plan? If that's not part of your trade mangement...its a lot of wasted energy to be concerned about could'uv, would'uv, should'uv situations in the middle of the trading day about something you don't even use. Last of all...upon completion of that second 5min candlestick/bar... had you done what I suggested above...you would have been stopped out of that remainder at 1001.75 before it rolledover and headed south for the winter. Thus, no easy answers and hopefully someone can provide something better than what I just said about how to manage a trade after entry in a goal of catching those big moves...once in awhile...up or down. P.S. As some traders prior this post...this may be more of a psychological issue instead of a stop/loss management issue. NihabaAshi
... where was your stop? 1002.25 ?...:eek: Tip... use 5 minute bars to get in and 15 minute candles to get out, trailin ur stop on the 15 minute candle...lots of squidgy losses and one ALLMIGHTY PROFIT, like today, job done.
It looked like it wanted to rebound but it did'nt, can't you sit still and keep your hands off the effing mouse? how do I know this ??? I am guilty of the same thing so welcome to the club !
You're right.. I don't trust my strategy.. and I'm letting emotions get in the way too often.. Will work on it
You have several things to consider. You have chosen to not follow trends. Find out why. You give a very high priority to preserving profits? Find out what this priority is costing you now. Your entry was a tough decision by anyone's standards. What premise do you have that is so strong and pervasive for this type of entry? Focus very sharply. Tell me what was on the same par and standards as your entry, for the hair trigger exit you made? You think you have protection. Just what is it that you deployed as protection? When to profits come as a consequence of this specific action oriented protection that you exercised? End of event. You sidelined. Now you use your entry approach over again and this time you do NOT enter. You continue to NOT enter over and over. The same question comes up? What premise do you have that is so strong and pervasive for this type of entry? I have to ask another Q. Why did you start trading on the 5 min and then after exiting switch to the 1 minute? Think of me as a person whose interest in you is to learn for myself. I wouldn't consider asking you these Q's if I didn't have your answers in mind. All the answers lead to one thing. determining how to fix your approach. You need to fix your approach to get to a place to be able to fix your emotional difficulties. What you tell us is this: Hey it's another day. I'm going to make some money today for sure. Immediately after entry you find out one very important thing. You say to yourself: Oh shit I do not know what is going on here. You crap out. The next thing you do is leave the place you monitored to take on the trade. You do this to "seek" an answer. It take you 50 minutes to find out that your approach from A to Z is not getting you profits. You also find out from this post that the two questions you are asking are not the questions to ask. That is the only reason I made this post. I am posting to suggest to you that you are not asking the right questions. you need to learn that your name fast trader needs to stand for learning fast. Being fast at knowing what is important all the time as you monitor. I have about 8 simple suggestions for you.
sometimes if the move stalls i will trail a stop behind and if it gets taken out then so be it. what i mean by that is that if price hits that stop, usually it will not just reverse and continue. it means that if another wave is coming, then i will see the setup again. also, if price moves too fast for time, and tags the bband, i will usually consider getting out on the slightest retracement. time will always eventually absorb price as it sets up for another wave. i reentered a bunch of times... 8 trades this morning for a total of 78 cents on SPY. going to the beach now......
You have no faith in your trading method or your method is no good. There were divergences just about on everything , so signal was clearly down. Unless you are scalping you should have 2pt stop, minimum. You just need more practice if you are profitable or better method if you are not. Walter
Apply at least a 3 to 1 ratio : profit stop:loss stop Can't see you making any headway otherwise... seems as if you were worried "SH*TLESS" about the position.... try trading with a smaller amount so your heart beat is not tied to every tick movement... I've been there too :eek:
you need to have a clearer idea of what the hell you're doing -- ie. - risk/reward parameters!! Don't just trade for the sake of trading -- sounds like you're fly'in by the seat of 'yo pants! Ask yourself on each trade - "how much am I willing to risk in order to make x dollars?" Make sure you're "reward" is high enough to avoid being eaten up by slippage and commisions.