Let's imagine that I am your broker and I am taking the other side of all your trades. What do you think I would want you to do?
This would be my thought process: If I'm LONG, I would ask myself: "would I buy at this level? if so, where would I set the stop (or how much would I risk)?" - if the answer is yes, I will move a stop to where it would be as if i enter a new trade. if no, just get out.
I can really relate Top and bottom pickers get so caught up in the science of trend exhaustion we lose touch with other aspects of market dynamics Knowing where the market will hit resistance and knowing where it might go too are 2 different skill sets Net result = when we are in a trade every sec is just pure pain I know it is all in the head as in the end all stop methods end up being about equal yet even knowing that I still canât find one I am happy with completely lucky for me I am good enough in my entries that this problem is not killing me Though I am really considering getting a partner who can manage the trade once I give entry call with tight stop
The theory is simple. I have a similar strategy that can pick tops and bottoms effectively with a decent percentage. Just think like this: If you're long, don't exit until you'd want to short. If you're short, don't exit until you'd want to go long. Theory is simple. The execution is the last step to becoming wildly profitable (if you can indeed pick tops and bottoms).
Put a stop in and walk away. Put a limit order that will take half off at a nice profit target and half off at an insane profit, and see what happens when you get back.
No offense, but you have no business taking on a new position without your exit strategy already in place. Good Lord.
I think you can't change an order to a trail stop if it was executed already. So unless you want to start playing around with this order type use the "take half off strategy- My question is how to scale in a winning trade? Psychologically I can't do it. I don't want to bring up my average cost. Any ideas?
Have all your rules for every possible outcome planned out ahead of time. Then just follow them. If you break your rules, you have emotional issues as a trader. If you follow your rules and lose money, then you need to reevaluate your rules.
The only way it's easy to deal with psychologically is if your initial position is larger than the rest. Starting with 1 and adding 1 after price goes in your favor = increasing your chances of losing money because break even becomes so much closer to the current price. But if you start with like 5 and then add in 1 later, that's nothing, who cares. Of course if you have the funds to initiate trades with 5 contracts then you are probably doing well in the first place and don't need to change your strategy that much Or use mini contracts (http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=157736) and adjust your size accordingly.
Aloha mate, yu have expalined exactly the problems i have with it holding traders for much profit ever. I specialise in only trading reversals, and so im great at getting extremely safe entries, but as soon as it spikes into 50 t 60ticks profit (crude oil) i want out of that trade instantly! I always choose decent targets just above support before i enter the trade, use all the timeframes from the weekly to the 1min chart to see all S&R levels, but once im in that trade i just want out after 60. As when you get 60ticks drop, after an upmove of a few dollars (can take hours t days before the move is over), but when you get teh 1st drop of upto 60ticks, theres always gna be a fast pullback (takes a few seconds) of atleast 20ticks. Sometimes more, and then instead of just breaking back lower than before it will just float sideways. I can only currently afford to trade 1contract, so cant cut size after 1st big drop, have a minimum allowed stoploss size of 40ticks so cant move to break even until i clear the trade by 40ticks, (and if i do that and i get stopped for b/e ive just missed 60ticks cos of greed, when thats half of what i need each each week). So i always cash in after 60 t 80ticks max, and then miss out on about 60 t 200ticks more than where my target was. And i only enter trades after extremely elongatred movements when the trend is totally exhausted, but so this is normally 500 t 900ticks movements (over about 3-4days). And so i always want to hold for atleast a few hundred of those, instead of taking 80 from each end, and missing the 600 inbetween each week. But its just way way too stressful and risky holding for so long, which really puts me off and makes me not enjoy trading at all. I so sooo much miss the 6montsh from june t december when teh market moved 100 t 200ticks in a few seconds/minutes, and the reversed and re-did that sorta movement 30 t 50x per day, as it wa so sooo ridiculously easy to make money back then.