Taking profits is hard (unless you always take 100% profits) - How much (in terms of % of Capital) you left on the table today? You're welcome to share your daily experience and comments/ suggestions. Hope your records here can help improve your profit-taking skills and the upcoming real profits.
Taking money off the table is one thing I need to improve on. I start taking about 30% of winnings off the table when I'm about 25% up on a position.
nailed the first lows on that sob matk, well 1c off [.55]. that was a good feeelin' considerin' how fast this piece of shit waz movin'...chances of gettin' out there must be 1/10k. still, made a few horrid trades after that on palm and gave back most. good on er2 but ya out waaay too soon and hesitated too much before initiatin'; hesitation is my biggest problem.
It happens to everyone, here a couple of actual trades today in Halliburton. Bought 31.22 sold 31.28 Sold short at 31.58 about 30 minutes later bought back at 31.50 Closed at 31.47....hmmm? Oh well, LOL. Don
Shorted four-lot 6E last night at 2828, trailed out at 2788 for +40pips due to insomnia at 4:00am est. Should have taken Nyquil, trade went more than 100+ pips by 8:00am if left alone. Made $2k when it could have been $5k Short 10-lot ER this afternoon at 718.00 and trailed to 717.00 when it dropped below 716.00 Stopped out for +$1,000 on a spike, dove down below 712 for an additional $5k missed in the end. ** Net profit: $8k total today. "Missed" +$3k in FX and +$4k in ER for total of $7k unrealized. Should I be happy & content for the realized profit, or distressed over the 50% left on table? I'll be happy if my beloved Dolphins win tonight. Fan since 1971 Superbowl loss to Dallas. Talk about leaving something on the table... the Marino years!!!
Hey Bitstream, I noticed you mentioned MATK... Saw this mentioned a couple days ago on Options Slam's site about doing a straddle play, before the earnings release. They mentioned to set up a 30 Call/Put straddle, which cost a total of 3.10. I see the 30 put option closed at 8.20... That would have been a NICE profit to take off the table today.
I wouldn't believe there is a system existing that can catch all potential profits, by such as buying at the lowest selling at the highest. I think we need to have some (mechanical - probably) rules to define a reference for each trade in order to know how much left on table due to whatever reasons we didn't completely follow the pre-defined rules. Sometimes we get a gain for more than the reference, sometimes we get a loss for less. And we know we have been poorly performed when one day our accumulated losses have been far greater than the accumulated gains, according to our tracking records. Statistically I hope we might be able to improve our skills/ profits either by updating our profit-taking rules or by better ( a problem is there is always a better one better than better) judgement of market actions. Otherwise, if without a pre-defined reference, we'd have only a delusion. Just 2 cents.
Why drive yourselves nuts with this thread? It's always better to close out too soon, you'll suffer alot more holding out in effort to "maximize" gains and seeing open profits go back to 0 . . . or worse.
That exactly was my yesterday's scenario (after already taking partial profits). Because of that fear, I left too much on the table today.