I trade using stats have formulated through the years. Moving stops goes against the stats, otherwise I would have stats that allowed. One loss I remember, was short one Tbond, instead of taking $300 loss, I kept moving the stops, I allowed it to wipe out my account and losing $10,000. It is the only trade I remember clearly losing huge sum on a one lot. I stopped trading for six months. It wasn't the money that upset me, it was me failing me. Every trade I use hard stops.
Per the NYSE floor trader, the time to get in is when the stop loss is hit and it is going down. Makes perfect sense. If I am just trying to get into a pullback, I get in cheap. Set a mental stop. It goes back up then, I am already in a good position. If my mental stop is now hit, I exit the trade and move on to another trade. Shares are flushed out of weak hands so, the chances of it going higher is pretty good. Not going to say 100% because nothing is certain.
The way I understood it, targets are just that. Does not mean you have to exit when it hits the target. What if it blows out the target and goes higher? Per the Momentum Masters book, they use moving averages, trendlines, candlesticks, support and resistance to exit their trades. Just seeking the best practices of top traders to use in my trading. Most times, I exit too late or too soon.
Have always used hard stop losses on my trades until now. I am trying to see if there is a better, more efficient way of handling stop losses.
%% Good shots; i seldom sh0ot just one shot in business. so to speak or fun. But I do like different size guns + shoot safe, .22 short, .22long rifle. ,38-.357. 12 gauge , 1 oz of lead, has about 777 lead pellets in it ............................................... I like different moving averages al$0 They used to make a .22 long\ seldom see that one now; .22 long rifle hollow point = much more common,
That doesn't make any sense at all. If you have a stop loss I have to assume that you are already in the trade. At that point you should take you loss, especially if it is going down. If you are not in the trade and waiting for a pullback to support of one kind or an other as your entry, then placing a mental stop loss that you are going to honor is going to cost you in the long run as you will hesitate to take the loss the first time it hits, then the decision making process becomes stressful. When do you capitulate???
If it does not work out, I get out. Have no problem selling although, I no longer use hard stop losses. I have my stop loss on my trading log and in front of my computer. David Ryan, Dan Zanger does not use hard stop losses which I am trying to emulate.
%% GOOD\ the best trends\very best trends will NOT hit a hard stop loss\ sideways slop= chop, hill hit most anything LOL, including profit stop. I lost a lot of %%\ $$$$$ one JAN\ SPXL using a real wide/time stop, which can make good sense, good bucks/ with a good trend, Hi probability trade -invest. BUT when the main trend changes = SPXL never clears$ 150\real bad idea LOL.[NOt funny then] Unfortunately, it most likely would have profited \but main trend changed \50 week ma. ONE modification i did + do; include SH,SPY or sso............................... I seldom use broker stop losses ; but like profit stops [+ written stop losses] +some +cash positions , cash ETFs, money market $ some.I do some SPXL but its real easy to get overloaded-overleveraged on SPXL+ ES....