If you have done your homework you will know the general range of moves and what percentage of the time the markets moves say 5 point in your favor for the particular time frame and set up you are using. Each trader must do this homework if they are using profit targets. Again, I am a trailing stop trader and do manage to get huge wins that way.
The markets don't trade outside reaction highs/lows very much without obvious reversal occurring. The intraday spike downward recently in Yen futures and the recent overnight spike up in ES were both in the direction of the dominant trend. This is why it pays to watch the weeklies.
oh my god anyhow, if you admit that you use trailing stops, then your 'profit targets' don't mean anything anyway. It is a bit weird that you waited until the 700th post here to tell us this - I may be wrong, maybe you mentioned that you use trailing stops earlier in this thread. I am still calculating a better than 70/30 probability that you are still at the paper trading stage
Obvious reversals occur all of the time and are easily seen. It doesn't matter whether it is intraday or long term. I always defer to the recent reaction high/low first until I see obvious reversal.
look, again he is extrapolating from his (narrow) experience and (narrow) methodology into the theory that this is the optimal way to trade all setups, all time frames, all markets, etc. mathematically he is wrong, statistically he is wrong, etc. generally speaking, anytime ANYBODY makes this kind of generalized statement "doing X is always wrong" etc. they are arrogant, ignorant, and ego traders. either that, or he is just trolling. regardless, it doesn't matter. i come here to learn from others, and to share ideas. this person is not interested in learning, and his "ideas" are just his ego speaking, not his brain. this reminds me of the thread were some nimrod was claiming that futures weren't zero sum (sans commissions). no amout of evidence would convince him otherwise. trolls are trolls.
Experience Narrow? No Methodology Narrow--Perhaps Mathematically wrong -No way--If your setup is to take 5 pts profit, you're wrong to let all of your testing and experience go out the window and get out at 4 pts unless there is obvious reversal. The math is right. Trolling --No way Can you make money scaling out?--Yes Is scaling out inferior to letting the trade run to maturity--Without question.
For me it's divergences. I have particular favorite types that over the years have yielded longer running moves. I also use "Grails" both long and short that I have already presented here at ET.