I still don't understand what you are saying. Trail it? I never heard that term before and I can't find it in a trading glossary. Where did this word come from? Where can I find a definition online? This word makes no sense to me. I have never heard of that word before when speaking about daytrading. I only heard of bulls and bears. What is turtle? I heard of a trading system called turtle. But that's it. Not the turtle 'trail it' like is being talked about here. I don't understand what is meant by turtle.
K-Rock: I did. Didn't you read my message? It said I searched and searched and came up with nothing. Therefore, why don't you do a search instead of being lazy and telling people to search for themselves. K-Rock, Why don't you like to help people? Why are you lazy? Laziness will not help you beat the stock market. But being aggressive and not lazy will help you become a better trader. So K-Rock. Why don't you do your good deed for the day, and try to beat that lazy attitude of yours and you do a search instead of telling others to do a search. If you don't like that idea, you can keep up your lazy attitude and lose at whatever ventures you do in life. Not just the stock market but you will be a life long loser. GUARANTEED.
you can do this in many ways, and there is no one way to do it. there are specific "trailing stop" orders that allow you to specify how you would like to trail the current price. in its simplest form, a trailing stop simply follows the price as it advances/declines, moving the stop with it, until eventually being triggered. you could also mentally trail a position by following the price action and adjusting your stops accordingingly (using the low of an inflection point, consolidation, etc..). it depends on what you are comfortable with and how you decide to play it in advance. if and when you decide to implement this form of an exit, the most important element is HOW you design it to work with your system. and a lot of that depends on your personality... i mentally trail my positions, after setting an initial mental stop loss. nothing complicated. feel free to pm me for ideas, etc... jm
Thank you. I always use trailing stops(well...Almost always....but that's another story I don't want to remember. lol ). But he said a trailing stop is a turtle? That's what confused me. I never heard a trailing stop called a turtle. Maybe I read it wrong. Who knows. I did a search on turtle and all I could come up with was the "trading method called "turtle". Maybe that's what he was talking about? The trend traders? Back to trailing stops. I usually put a 3 point trailing stop on my trades, but it seems I get stopped out alot. I'm thinking of putting my stops to 5 points instead. Because when I put the 3 point stop on, then I get stopped out and the contract goes right back up or down to my profit price. If I had a 5 point stop, then I would not have gotten stopped out. Maybe.
For what it's worth I was not trying to be cute. All your questions has been discussed on other threads. I was just encouraging you to learn how to fish.
When to exit? When your strategy tells you to. PS: If it can't do this yet, you are not ready to trade. Old wives tales and ET dopey wisecrack doesn't help.
After getting margin calls today, I think I have to exit all my trades very soon, without needing any strategies.
One of the best answers I've ever seen posted on any of these threads. OK, this one gets framed. Best, Jimmy