Just keep trading until you can't trade no more or don't wish to trade anymore for that day. If you can execute that feat providing sound risk management skills followed by a pll (personal loss limit/day), then more power to you. Is it worth? Trading does not have to be a 9 to 5 job or a 16 hr/day job. When it comes to exits, you gotta have a plan. Exits can be ratios eg 1:1,1:2...,. Quotas for the day like "I wish to make $500 everyday" etc. On the technical side of it exits can be candlestick formation, trendline breaks/countertrendline breaks, a pattern is completed, s/r etc. Or just combine them all . This is an idea of how I trade minus the quota. Try jumping out of a plane without any parachute. Your parachute is your StopLoss as well as your Exit, GoodLuck.
Tom, we are similar traders. I believe you can do a bit better on exits however. Surely you know when you are at the top of a trending trading range (e.g. Early Feb in the ES)? A couple of things to think about- 1) You can stay nominally in the position. Let's say you have 3 contracts out there. You're at the top, drop a contract. You still have 2. 2) When your TL that got you this high gets broken, drop another contract. You're still long though - 1 contract. 3) re-up at your next ladder spot AND increase by laddering. You're buying those 2 sold contracts back at discount prices. Play around with that stuff. I think you can do better, and you're leaving a lot on the table. You don't have to get out. I like to think about it like driving a speed boat. I'm not going to be full throttle the whole time. In practice it's clumsier than I wrote, but what in life isn't? Surely it's worth working on?
This is correct. In fact I closed my multiple US stock index longs in late January. But this was manually done, based on worsening TA that suggested the uptrend was ending, not on stop-losses being hit. I do take the risk of leaving money on the table, but I don't mind that. The thing I do mind is losing capital from the trading account.
%% That works; BUT sounds like someone needs to add the rule''never let a profit turn into a loss'' I mean a net profit,........ as far as a swing or position trade. You know its a tough business when so many bragg about a gross profit LOL .And you could try scaleing out, as earlier suggested; i seldom do that= I seldom sell early+ no sense adding comissions if i dont have to
%% Thanks; I meant original poster, [Speedo]should never let a profit turn into a loss I figured you were profitable whatever your time frame/ exits. And a profit accidently turning into a loss is better than an ordinary loss....................................................................................
Breakeven are in fact a losing trade because you need to pay the commissions on the trade (cost of entry, cost of exit, cost of missing other trade opportunities while allowing a profitable trade to retrace back to breakeven and costs associated with other business aspects of each trade). Therefore, to eliminate those costs associated with the trade...as soon as you reach a profitable price above all those calculated costs...that's where you trail your stop. I trade Emini ES futures too. To pay for the commissions alone...as soon as I reach a designated profit (not my profit target to exit the trade but a profit to tell me to adjust my initial stop into a stop to pay all the costs associated with that trade)... The commissions will be cover with a 1 tick profit. Therefore, at the minimum, I need a 1 tick profitable trail stop. Yet, that in itself doesn't cover the rest of my other business costs associated with a trade. To cover "all costs of doing business for a single trade"...I must use a 2 tick trail stop as soon as I reach the designated profitable price to cover "all costs" beyond just the commission costs. This is important because lets pretend you exit every trade at a 1 tick profit. Yet, in reality "all the costs" associated with the trade...you needed a 2 tick profit. That means at the end of the day...you still lost money. Treat your trading like a business because breakeven traders are really just losing traders. wrbtrader