I keep cutting my winners

You must statistically profile your exits and determine exactly how much money you are leaving on the table by taking an early exit.
Then consider using a trailing stop that varies depending on current open position profit. This is a known as a rachet stop and usually works pretty well. Of course, you will be giving up some profits with this approach.

 

This is pairing well with "Atomic Habits" and identity-based durable change.

 

Keep a record of were your initial take profit would have been before you exit the trade prematurely, that way you have a record of what you actually missed out on and you might get more trust in your initial setup and maybe intervene less or at the least later.

Sometimes you will avoid a losing trade by exiting prematurely and you are probably happy you exited early, sometimes you will miss a big win by exiting prematurely and you will be mad you exited early, the only way to know what to do and to gain trust in your system are statistics.

Also, walk away when you are in a trade. Set your SL and TP and get out of your chair, take a few minutes to get away from your screen so you can't intervene too fast.

 

Second rule does what rule one says to ignore.

confusedtrader is better handle.

 

you would not which is why you don't do it.

you're aware on some level that your profit will evaporate many times if you "let it run" , you cant figure out where to take profits.

so anyway, your system/strategy is incomplete.

 

%%
Good Plan;
owning more than 1 set of pants can work well also. That would also mean, in that plan, you own more than one seat of pants
And if the pants dealer or Mom offers you another set of free pants, take them LOL/true
And if you cant exchange those pants that dont fit; give[distribute] them...............

 

Let you winners run!! For how long? Until they hit the trailing stop.
It's not a time based rule it's a price action rule.
It's how you manage your trade. You don't necessarily have to trail your stop at a very specific range. You can use trend lines, MAs or price action to exit a trade.
Personally I scale out and the further price gets from my entry the wider my stop. I'll hold stocks for years if they continue to perform.

 

And try not to poop in those pants when a trade moves violently against you.

 

%%
THAT may have made angryTrader ,angry
Also ,angTrader may have disliked the fog, in the vague statement ''let winners run'' How long, he asks ....... a month? No\ not a month in a down\trending bear market.
No sense do ing a ruin on a good set of pants or good seat of your pants

 

nah, Florida man cannot make anyone angry, he keeps trying to poke my eye, but nah, don't feel anything