For those of you who remember me I'm finally turning my trading around to profitability. I've learned to maintain discipline, wait for good entries, learned to bail when a trade doesn't go my way but I'm still having trouble letting my winners run. As soon as I see enough profitability on the screen I'm ready to "Cash In". I can't remove my P&L from my screen either, my platform doesn't allow it for some reason. Oh well, guess I just have to train myself if I want to be successful at this. Good trading to everyone. Flash
its very tough to let a winner run in this market. that siad, oil and natural gas stocks went parabolic; wow ! what a run on GMXR .
Just exit the trade once reach target and shut down the PC..and take a rest..watch ESPN...you'll feel better after that, no matter where the market goes..
I guess this is a general problem. It would not be so bad if you exited the trade to enter another incipient opportunity. Unfortunately for me, it is simply exiting for the sake of locking in a little gain, which is not the right thing. Ideally one should let the profits run for a while (average time-frame expectation for a trade), before deciding to close.
I still have the same issue as well. the only thing that i have found to help is to cash out half the position. That way you dont feel so bad if the stock moves back to breakeven.
You know what they say, if winners never quit and quitters never win, then how can you quit while you're ahead? Yeah; whatever. Expressions and motos are a dime a dozen, find your own cave animal.
Scaling out is the best strategy there is to letting your profits run. No one knows 'exactly' how far the market will go your way. With experience you can increase your odds but never exact.
On way to let your winners run would be to simply set a trailing stop to seal off your profits. If the market turns on you fine, if not, even better.