Ideas on not selling too soon for swingtrading?

[KCalhoun]

It's a challenge-- I always sell winners too soon. Any tips or suggestions?

For example I've overtraded in and out of pot stocks lately alot. I knew post election TLRY ACB etc would be great but didn't buy and hold, leaving $ on the table.

I am notoriously impatient, often daytrading 50+ trades daily. Hard to hold swings more than a few days.

2 best swings coming up are cannabis continuations and inverses UVXY SQQQ SDOW if markets crash, imo.

I want to hold steady vs constantly scaling in and out.... any ideas? thx

 

[deaddog]

Well tell us the exit strategy you use now and maybe we can refine it for you.

 

[tradeking007yahoo]

no offense but do you teach? or sell a room or classes? there are hundreds of ways to do this amd improve.

1. size down
2. re enter after you sell early!
3. leave the screen
4. set a profit target and a break even stop loss
5. use a longer term chart for exit.

i mean come on ismt this the stuff you are suppossed to know?

 

[VicBee]

no offense but do you teach? or sell a room or classes? there are hundreds of ways to do this amd improve.

1. size down
2. re enter after you sell early!
3. leave the screen
4. set a profit target and a break even stop loss
5. use a longer term chart for exit.

i mean come on ismt this the stuff you are suppossed to know?

Thanks for the info!

 

[BeautifulStranger]

It's a challenge-- I always sell winners too soon. Any tips or suggestions?

For example I've overtraded in and out of pot stocks lately alot. I knew post election TLRY ACB etc would be great but didn't buy and hold, leaving $ on the table.

I am notoriously impatient, often daytrading 50+ trades daily. Hard to hold swings more than a few days.

2 best swings coming up are cannabis continuations and inverses UVXY SQQQ SDOW if markets crash, imo.

I want to hold steady vs constantly scaling in and out.... any ideas? thx

Some very basic ideas:

1. The good stocks of the world don’t spend much time below their weekly lows or long term moving averages. Therefore, until one of your stocks stops acting like a good stock, hold on! For reference, check the weekly charts on some of the big winners last year such as TSLA, FSLR, ZM, PTON, CVNA, DOCU, etc.

2. Enter when the price action is mild; exit when it it wild, aka weekly expansion bar. Try exiting, perhaps a portion or more of your position on the widest or second widest bar as compared to the previous 13 weekly bars, not including earnings week. Linda Raschke has spent time researching this subject.

3. Have a definite reason to exit position. If you feel the issue will outperform the market over time, but are concerned about a general market selloff, consider shorting the market as a hedge instead of liquidating a good stock that could gap up big on any given day.

4. Since we really can’t predict the future, it seems scaling in and out with partial positions is a fundamental part of swing trade management.

I suspect you already know the above and more, but your swing trading skills may be a little rusty with you focusing mainly on intraday lately.

If you want to read about my advanced trading techniques, subscribe to my exclusive, limited membership chatroom.




Just kidding!

 

[maxinger]

There is no way to predict whether the trade will be successful or not.
If the price is moving in our favor, there is absolutely no way to predict how far the price will go.

Let's say you are trading 3000 lots.

I'd divide it into 3 batches;

first batch of 1000 lots, take a decent profit of say Reward : risk ratio of 3:1

2nd batch of1000 lots, target RR > 3:1

3rd batch of 1000 lots, hold it for very long (weeks/months ...)

You can adjust the above parameters to suit you.

 

[KCalhoun]

Thanks; excellent ideas... you all make perfect sense. I like the idea of using longer term charts for exits;; normally I scale in at 2day highs and out at 2day lows..... I'll try using weekly charts instead.. plus keeping breakeven SL on 1/3 position. Thx much; good insights.

Knowing what to do is one thing; having the discipline to not scalp small profits is my challenge.

Eg I sold TLRY @ 15.2 because nice win, then it ran to 19 yesterday. I really like your idea of partial position breakeven stops, and the other tips you guys have posted; thanks!

 

[danielc1]

Thanks; excellent ideas... you all make perfect sense. I like the idea of using longer term charts for exits;; normally I scale in at 2day highs and out at 2day lows..... I'll try using weekly charts instead.. plus keeping breakeven SL on 1/3 position. Thx much; good insights.

Knowing what to do is one thing; having the discipline to not scalp small profits is my challenge.

Eg I sold TLRY @ 15.2 because nice win, then it ran to 19 yesterday. I really like your idea of partial position breakeven stops, and the other tips you guys have posted; thanks!

If you are scalping and take small profits when it is your plan to go for the larger targets you need to look into your mindset.

Need to be right, or fear of a loss are the two most common things when people are scalping or taking small winners.

To overcome this, you need to be willing to give up every profit you make on your trade when you are in it. Set alert levels at R levels you want to take profit and only take action on those levels or even go see at the chart at those levels.

Running a trading room does not help, you have eyes on you for every move and maybe people give opinions on why you would not take the profit when you had a chance. You need to have a well-written guideline of taking profits, that protect you from your mindset and that from your followers in the middle of the heat.

 

[Money Trust]

I have this same problem at times but I realize that I have a sort of "all or nothing" trade management system. Meaning that, when a move worked in my favor and I feared losing some of my gains, I'd exit the entire position. What I've started doing is exiting a portion of my position after that initial move and moving my S/L to break-even. That way, even if the move does reverse, I can't get hurt. But, if the move continues in my favor, that's even better.

 

[Scataphagos]

It's a challenge-- I always sell winners too soon. Any tips or suggestions?

For example I've overtraded in and out of pot stocks lately alot. I knew post election TLRY ACB etc would be great but didn't buy and hold, leaving $ on the table.

I am notoriously impatient, often daytrading 50+ trades daily. Hard to hold swings more than a few days.

2 best swings coming up are cannabis continuations and inverses UVXY SQQQ SDOW if markets crash, imo.

I want to hold steady vs constantly scaling in and out.... any ideas? thx

Hanging on for a big gain is difficult. The market will give you every opportunity to turn a potentially large gain into a small one.

The key to making large gains is dealing with "counters".... moves against your position and/or against the trend. You have to decide about "riding out" counters with the assumption that the "apparent counter" is actually a counter and not a change in trend. When you get it wrong, you kick yourself in the butt for hanging on too long. There is no correct answer... it's an art and some fortunate guessing just like placing stops. Trendlines/channels can help as can range indicators.... but they leave you riding out a counter move which often times is large enough to be uncomfortable (and that's when the ride-out was the correct play). When the ride-out parameter gets broken, you're left with a bigger loss or bigger give back of profits that you hoped to avoid. Like I said.... no correct answer.