I'm wondering if anybody uses time stops for intraday trades. For example, I've been trading continuation patterns (ie bull flags) on the ES, with entries when price moves out of the pullback/ consolidation to resume the primary trend. As with most types of trading, the best trades are always the ones that move immediately, versus the ones that chop around your entry price, which sometimes even stop you out just before resumption of the trend you were trying to catch. Therefore, it seems if the trade doesn't start to work immediately (the next 5min bar or two), then there is a higher likelihood of whipsaw so its best to get out with a small gain or loss versus swallowing a larger loss on what turned out to be a false start of breaking out of a bull flag for example. While patience can be a virtue in allowing a trade to work out, I'm wondering what strategies or criteria people use with respect to time stops to get out of trades that don't work out immediately. Upon trade entry, I oftentimes feel like an eternal optimist that the trade will work out. Therefore, it would be great to hear how people deal with exiting a dead trade that may be showing only a small loss or gain. Thanks for any input. jbob
i used to but i dont anymore after realizing how much money my impatience was leaving on the table. the best thing for you to do is look back at the trades you have made and figure it out yourself. what works for one persons system could be murder for anothers.
if you daytrade (like intraday) morning I have found trades that last beyond 8 minutes from entry exponentially (from that point) increase in probability that price will go to my stop point, so sometimes I reverse, but I dont day trade nemore much. This assumes you are looking at price action and are looking for fast movement within the next few minutes (obviously this doesn't apply to bigger timeframe trades).