"Amateurs go broke taking large losses, professionals go broke taking small profits."
- Bill Eckhardt
Cutting Winners Problem
- Thread starter truber
- Start date
"Amateurs go broke taking large losses, professionals go broke taking small profits."
- Bill Eckhardt
Cutting winners short is an emotional response to a psychological problem. In your case you don't either have a process or don't trust your process. Keep your process simple, set your exit target before you enter a trade, just like your stop. To mitigate value of money think of winners and losers in terms of %, things we do well is things we do out of habit IE repetition. To create a habit, you must be intentional. Best of luck!
Most seasoned traders layer in & out of positions. When they are wrong they have on their smallest size, when they are in a winning trade right their position size will increase 2-4 times larger. This is an important aspect of risk/trade mgmt. It allows you to ring the register along the way while still allowing the winners to run.
When you are trading the right size in relation to your capital and follow a rules based strategy than letting profits run will become routine. So many traders these days trade so over leveraged they end up taking tiny profits and much larger loses - I doubt many of them ever had a big winner before - if they had they would not be playing for crumbs.
When you are trading the right size in relation to your capital and follow a rules based strategy than letting profits run will become routine. So many traders these days trade so over leveraged they end up taking tiny profits and much larger loses - I doubt many of them ever had a big winner before - if they had they would not be playing for crumbs.
While it is true that most successful traders layer, it's hard to layer in a day trade especially in short time frames.
Until I got stuck with a big loser and couldn't scalp out of it and just held over night. That's when I saw OH so That's how they make money!
A trader gets stuck with a big loser because they did not do the right thing and accept the small initial loss. Losses are part of the business. Constancy of purpose is what builds wealth IE finding what works and repeating that until it doesn't. Do not trade for an outcome, trade the process. Trading the process will take the emotion out of the business and allow you to make the right decision.
I seldom trail stops, really doesn't test out well for me. For me it was better to study enough charts and build patterns when more likely a reverse would happen and tested those, then build better exits for either partial profits or exit entirely or even reverse but based on swing distance or completion of Elliott. All is based on percentages.
LOL "feel"? those who are good traders who can "feel" are anticipating and have better memory they rely on, but majority "feel" are lost causes due to not enough testing and memorizing results. I can't feel except with my fingers and toes, so I use automation.
LOL "feel"? those who are good traders who can "feel" are anticipating and have better memory they rely on, but majority "feel" are lost causes due to not enough testing and memorizing results. I can't feel except with my fingers and toes, so I use automation.