I have been experimenting with different types of trailing stops.When I use Parabolic trailing stops I seem to be exiting some trades before the trend has finished,when I use a trailing stop based on ATR I end up leaving a lot of profit on the table and if I use a trailing stop based on a set dollar amount I am not taking the volatility of the market into account.Can anyone recommend any alternatives to the methods I have been using.
Use stop type 11 or 9. 11 gets you into the channel as trade progresses. So it is better for volatility, parabolic and your early exit problem. If you get 11 down cold then you can also focus on the 9 but use it more as an exit tstrategy on the left side of the channel instead of just a portective stop. There are about a dozen general trading methods that can be correlated with various stop methods. Your method is a little weak on the exits since you go out when you do. I group the 80 edges I track in subsets for the exit traps they seem to produce. The general major sets the subsets ocupy would put you in the "too early" major set. You gravitated to this by not being aware of how increasing volatility (which you do not recognize because of your screen set up) means that you either need to work hard on recognizing pace and volatility. When you see this, then you will understand that the end of a trade is moving away from present price and you can reset your stops to account for two things: staying in the trade and being sure you do not get scalped out by a person knows he can take you out to better position his scalp. 11 handles all of this.
Here is something that I work with called volatility stops. It workd well in my opinion. http://www.trade-ideas.com/Help.html#alert_filter_TSPU