great traders can smash their fingers and drive the nail in at the same time, sometimes right through their hand if necessary, to make a trade work out, as a sacrifice to minimise a serious loss. minimising a loss, or taking a brutal loss to move into something else that is profitable, is all part of the game. the key is balancing your reactions to both positive (profit) and negative (loss) as the sum of the whole.
Letting profits ride is a recipe for disaster? what about those tricky folks who add to winners, are they doomed?
i digress. letting winners ride isn't a "bad" thing, but it depends when you got in and how much you have in the trade as a total of your buying power. let's see you predict when a winner is going to head south, especially with guys like me adding to short positions on the way up waiting and forcing the drop off the cliff. i'll make more on the short than the long, do it all the time. and if you're anywhere near 3PM, you'll probably give up most of it if you can't get out of it fast enough on limit orders, and a market order will kill you for sure. why do i need to explain this? jeez.