Quote from optioncoach:
Jasper:
In looking at your charts think here is an idea for an exit entry risk management.
When you enter put a 1-point stop loss and exit half at 1 point profit and move the stop to even. On most days it seems you will make the point on a lot of moves and thus lock in a half or make point and the market will keep moving your way.
On bad entries you lose a point but the winners seem to outnumber the losers and you have more long runs as winners to make up for the losers.
Just test it on a few past days to see what I mean.
So enter with 1 point stop and 1 point profit target to exit half and move stop loss to entry price so you lock in half.
In my mind this sort of position management looks ideal. I had it in my mind that using two profit targets with a break even stop active when the first target is a sure-fire way to mitigate risk and lock in profit.
What I have found in my backtesting is that this is actually detrimental to net profit, profit factor, and expectancy over a prolonged period of time. I think in a way this kind of trade management cuts the profits short when the direction is chosen right.
After playing with targets, trailing stops, breakeven stops, etc., I have pretty much found that the optimal trade management is just to have a stop in place, and moving it to breakeven if the trade becomes sufficiently profitable. My backtests tell me that unless there is a reason to get out of the trade, one should stay in it. For me, that tends to be the point at which the chart is telling me to reverse the position all together.
As an aside, avoiding the use of profit targets, trails, etc. tends to remove additional parameters from the strategy, giving it a better chance of avoiding being curve-fitted specifically to the evaluation period.
Just my 2 cents.
RoughTrader