Else you win or you lose. Just enter and wait. A good winrate and a good Avg. w/l ratio is your goal. This is a numbers game and if your set up gets you in at a favorable and probable area....then you will profit.....jump in and your trading job will soon become very boring... Michael B.
Those big winnings just destroy me......They make my small targets meaningless. I learned that I am much more comfortable with small targets with my stop loss in place, rather than holding out for that big win. It's good to track your trades after you get out to see what could have happened...this is a must for a trader. This is where the spreadsheet comes in. You can record those excursions and adjust to the changing character of the market as you go. Michael B.
I'll reply to that Q... bought 7 May 27.50 calls for .60 on ADVP recently... I have traded that stock for quite a few years... sometimes with small size and sometime larger, but not in a while. SO I hold them for a few days... and for some inexplicable reason I exit at .60 (scratch ) the trade... and they proceed to run up to what... +$5 now. Seven contracts... I will ask myself all year ... why I would worry about a risk of $420 with over 3 weeks until expiry... yet, often with overnights, I take/absorb much more... witness my ELX positions which got hammered... and I held with a large loss... didn't add... and now it's recovered to almost $23! But with thses ADVP calls somehow I convinced myself that I should exit and look to re-enter and within a few days it's up 2+... and I didn't want to chase it, and waited for re-entry.. but it kept moving higher.... and so on and so on! And I was involved with many other positions, and wasn't agile or astute enough apparently to jump back in! And this ADVP was a flyer anyway. What a "flyer"! So for me... the answer is: I HATE to miss a really juicy move... and although opportunities can be made up quicker than losses (to quote Todd Harrison)... there are some "opportunities" that stick in your gut all year. My ADVP May 27.50 calls purchased in small size for a mere SIXTY CENTS will be one of them. :eek: Any thoughts from others who have similar misses... about what you did subsequently. Did you trade better... demonstrate more patience, take larger size, wre quicker to get back into an exited position that should have been held... increased a winner? "Chased" more? etc. Ice