Quote from NoDoji:
Why did you pay three commissions to capture 2.5 pts when your initial entry and target gave you 3 pts with one commission?
I know I sound snotty with this post, but when you put on a trade with a target and there's no reason to exit the trade, why not hold for your target (or better)?
XXXOOO
Hey! Don`t be snotty! I already took care of this myself in my daily post-trade analysis and self-loathing ritual
Besides, where were you on Monday when I took a 0,5 point profit, just to see my original idea play out and move +5 points to where I had anticipated it would go?
In all seriousness, it is a little complicated.
As you know, I started out with a tendency cut my winners very short.
Then, after reading some of the advice BigHog gave to you in your old journal, I started relaxing through the retraces and accepting some heat on my trades, trusting my targets. The result of this was that I caught some relatively big winners. +5 points.
The flipside of this was that I started to push for profits that were not there. I saw a whole shitload of trades turn from as much as +4 points and into a breakeven or a loss. That was my last losing streak.
So, now I`m trying to find a middle ground. Trail stops should let me catch the occasional big winner, without risking winners to turn into losers. I`m also at equity lows, so I guess I`m trading a little scared and defensively.
As an example, today I was considering to cash in @ 1323,50 for +1,5 , since that was minor support, but I talked myself out of it, looking for that lower target. After some retraces, I decided that I would not risk taking a loss, so I locked in 1 point and got stopped out. Shortly after, the market went down.
The best thing would have been to take profits when I first planned to do so and then re-enter when price retraced. Alternatively, sit through the re-traces, use the original stop and trust that your target is hit.
I think that for me and at this point, it is better to ring the register and maintain some consistency. I also like the idea of getting out and re-entering, especially since the ES usually retraces.
