Support resistance exit works until it is broken as others have pointed out. Yesterday is a good example for NQ continued to make higher and higher levels break resistance numerous times. I’m gonna just keep it simple. Trailing stop set after I exceed entry by X number of points. Then the trade will dictate my exit.
How will "the trade dictate your exit" any more (or less) with a trailing stop set after achieving "x" points of profit than it would by setting any other, trailing or non-trailing, exit after achieving "x" points of profit? I believe that a trailing stop set after achieving "x" points of profit will probably, overall, be marginally less bad than one set when the trade's opened, anyway. Is the precise number of "x" points at least going to be set in proportion to the current volatility? If it will help you, I'm perfectly happy to suggest four or five other ways of setting exits for your trades, all of which are just as "simple" as what you propose above, and all of which are likely, overall, to perform better on the instruments you've mentioned than what you suggest above, but - without wanting to be rude to you (even if it comes across slightly that way) - I'm not convinced from the way the conversation's gone so far that you're really listening, or interested.
I feel more comfortable replying in the thread, John ... it's much better for you, as well, because it makes for a more open conversation in which others can offer opinions/views/heckling, and disagreement (and reasons for it), with anything I might say that they don't like (and that way I can learn something from it, too, so it's better all round, that way). On the subject of exits, in general, I can only give my own experience/results, from my own backtesting and live trading, and of course can't promise that they're going to be the same as anyone else's findings (but I do more or less believe in the fractal nature of financial instrument charts, so I suppose there might be some overlap ... for what it's worth, my observations are based on intraday trades with their entries based only on price-action parameters). Things to think about could include ... (i) Trailing a stop-loss manually just above/below the most recently formed swing-high/low (probably my best method, overall, but understandably hardest to back-test in bulk because of the near-impossibility of automation) (ii) Trailing a stop-loss manually just above/below the level of the position of a Donchian channel midline three or four bars/candles/periods before the current bar/candle/period (probably my next-best) - you can draw this more easily as a "line for closing the trade when the price closes on the wrong side if it" simply by displacing a Donchian channel 3-4 periods to the right on your chart, and displaying only the midline (I used to use 20 periods for the setting parameter) (iii) Closing trades on the occurrence of certain bar-patterns ("crescendo", "diminuendo", "congestion", "exhaustion", etc.) (I still do all of these, in conjunction with (i) above) (iv) Trailing a stop-loss manually at the level of an "x"-period Hull moving average of the typical price [(H+L+C)/3] right-displaced by "y" periods (different variables for different instruments) (v) using an ATR multiple as a stop-loss (this tends to work significantly better than SD-based stop-losses, overall, in my opinion, and at least its volatility-related) All "just my own experience" and "your mileage may vary", but automated trailing-stops of a set number of ticks/pips/points are honestly kind of "nowhere" on my list, because I've never done any serious testing of anything, over many years, in which they've actually performed well, by comparison, attractive though they sound! Be aware that whatever method you choose, there will always be times (and maybe many times) when it will turn out that "something different would have been better". That doesn't matter. What matters is what performs best, overall, over 500 or 1,000 trades, not what performs well for any individual trade. You need to decide what to test, admittedly, but you have to be able to test, in order to be able to "do more of what works and less of what doesn't work so well", and developing your trading style/system/method is all about that. Otherwise you're just guessing. And one definitely can't afford to do that, in a field with such very low success-rates.
The only way to get Xela to respond to you in PM is with decadent cookie pics. Oh yeah Xela, you KNOW you want it! Me too! *slobber* J/k! Seriously though John9999, I'll give you a real example of what I was speaking about above... 2 months ago or so I was really pissed off at my shitty 5-YO laptop. I wanted a new one. So I made the decision to just make a good trade to be able to buy a new one. I made a great trade a couple days later and made 800 bux. I shopped around and found a perfect replacement on Amazon for 600 bux. So that one trade that day allowed me to buy the new laptop for cash and have more cash left over to put into bank account for whatever use I saw fit. Savings, trading, more bills etc. If you put things into a certain perspective, trading can be very easy. If you put it into another perspective it can be hard. You just need to find your perspective of what you wish to accomplish I suppose. Take heed.
Trailing stops don't work. The market doesn't operate that way. You think you're locking in a profit but in actual fact you're guaranteeing a loss over the long run. Discretionary might be a bit different but systematically, it's certainly the case.
If trailing stops didn't work, they would not be a feature in practically every trading software package out there. Your statement is predicated on flawed thinking and methodology, not reality.
Get the same feeling. @John9999 You've received excellent advice and ideas from a number of posters. And it surely doesn't appear as though you're 'eating this stuff up' as you should be doing if you are truly interested in improving your trading. What a waste. Maybe it's the required effort that's getting in the way. But, unfortunately, such is too often the case here on ET.
Trading software packages and sold training courses and strategies are there for a reason - to help you trade profitably, there's not question about this. However, the vendors also know just as we do that most purchasers will not trade profitably using this package. Features like trailing stops are inserted as a spurious risk/money management feature to ensure that the losses are taken slowly, so that there is ample safety distance between the package purchase and the day when the account gets to zero. For most purchasers, these are not get rich quick schemes, they are get poor slow schemes.