I keep cutting my winners

[syswizard]

You must statistically profile your exits and determine exactly how much money you are leaving on the table by taking an early exit.
Then consider using a trailing stop that varies depending on current open position profit. This is a known as a rachet stop and usually works pretty well. Of course, you will be giving up some profits with this approach.

 

[Sprout]

This helped me as well as many others:

This is pairing well with "Atomic Habits" and identity-based durable change.

 

[DevBru]

Guys I have a severe problem and it's driving me crazy.

As soon as I get a good entry and everything looks like it's about to explode, I can't stay in. I would be so rich by now if I could just set a trailing stop and turn off the computer.

Can anyone help me keep from sabotaging my own success?

Any tricks, special chairs or mouse wheel, anything to get my mind off those delicious (but small) profits I can't stand leaving open?

I think I got this bad habit learning to trade on long options and very volatile small cap stocks, that give you about 30 seconds of opportunity to get out alive......

What should I do?

Keep a record of were your initial take profit would have been before you exit the trade prematurely, that way you have a record of what you actually missed out on and you might get more trust in your initial setup and maybe intervene less or at the least later.

Sometimes you will avoid a losing trade by exiting prematurely and you are probably happy you exited early, sometimes you will miss a big win by exiting prematurely and you will be mad you exited early, the only way to know what to do and to gain trust in your system are statistics.

Also, walk away when you are in a trade. Set your SL and TP and get out of your chair, take a few minutes to get away from your screen so you can't intervene too fast.

 

[SunTrader]

First rule: Ignore whoever tells to let your winners run.
Second rule: Take profits by setting up trailing stops. Never ever close a trade by yourself.

Second rule does what rule one says to ignore.

confusedtrader is better handle.

 

[VEGASDESERT]

. I would be so rich by now if I could just set a trailing stop and turn off the computer.

you would not which is why you don't do it.

you're aware on some level that your profit will evaporate many times if you "let it run" , you cant figure out where to take profits.

so anyway, your system/strategy is incomplete.

 

[murray t turtle]

Rules based trading or By the Seat of your Pants trading.

If trading by the seat of your pants then you might nearly always have regrets about taking profit too early.

Rules based, you followed your predefined rules, eg trailing stop or profit target etc. No regrets, you followed your rules and booked a decent enough profit in accordance with those rules, if it continues to run a-lot after, who cares, that is expected to happen sometimes. Just move onto the next trade..

%%
Good Plan;
owning more than 1 set of pants can work well also. That would also mean, in that plan, you own more than one seat of pants
And if the pants dealer or Mom offers you another set of free pants, take them LOL/true
And if you cant exchange those pants that dont fit; give[distribute] them...............

 

[deaddog]

No, because "letting your winners run" is a vague sentence that does not set any specific value. Run for how long? A day? A week? A month?

But in order to set a trailing stop you must set a range, a very specific one that will be triggered once it is reached, and that will force you to have a plan.

The main problem that OP has is that there isn't a plan in place to take profits. A trailing stop will force one to appear.

Let you winners run!! For how long? Until they hit the trailing stop.
It's not a time based rule it's a price action rule.
It's how you manage your trade. You don't necessarily have to trail your stop at a very specific range. You can use trend lines, MAs or price action to exit a trade.
Personally I scale out and the further price gets from my entry the wider my stop. I'll hold stocks for years if they continue to perform.

 

[tomkat22]

%%
Good Plan;
owning more than 1 set of pants can work well also. That would also mean, in that plan, you own more than one seat of pants
And if the pants dealer or Mom offers you another set of free pants, take them LOL/true
And if you cant exchange those pants that dont fit; give[distribute] them...............

And try not to poop in those pants when a trade moves violently against you.

 

[murray t turtle]

Second rule does what rule one says to ignore.

confusedtrader is better handle.

%%
THAT may have made angryTrader ,angry
Also ,angTrader may have disliked the fog, in the vague statement ''let winners run'' How long, he asks ....... a month? No\ not a month in a down\trending bear market.
No sense do ing a ruin on a good set of pants or good seat of your pants

 

[guest_trader_1]

%%
THAT may have made angryTrader ,angry
Also ,angTrader may have disliked the fog, in the vague statement ''let winners run'' How long, he asks ....... a month? No\ not a month in a down\trending bear market.
No sense do ing a ruin on a good set of pants or good seat of your pants

nah, Florida man cannot make anyone angry, he keeps trying to poke my eye, but nah, don't feel anything