i agree. trading should be done with full concentration. you don't want to loose the money you invested for profits.Trading should not be some sort of entertainment where you trade just out of boredom. I will wait weeks for the right setup, remember this is your capital you need to protect it.
Yes technical analysis helps but they are not 100% guaranteed. The price basically do whatever it wants. If it doesn't want to reach a price level, it just simply doesn't want to, if it wants to breakout and continue further, it will continue further.
Some people use a fixed percentage or ratio to exit when the exiting price would give the reward that's certain ratio of risk but that would result into the same problem, forgoing all the potential profit and yet not book profit when it's there.
Trailing stops would definitely help but only when the price is gradually trending down or up in stepwise fashion. but if it yoyos in between and then continue back
down/up then you would still all the profits when it continues back down/up.
There is not one best method for exiting trades I find. Each one of them has its own advantages and pitfalls. All one can do is just adopt the one that suits one's trading style, risk/reward tolerance/expectation and cost of trades the best.
Trading should not be some sort of entertainment where you trade just out of boredom. I will wait weeks for the right setup, remember this is your capital you need to protect it.
So when I wrote about this I exited a majority of my options on 10/11/18. They expired 10/19/18. Had I done nothing I would still be up more than 2x my exit points. I sold my last 1 option I was holding onto 10/19/18.
Last week, I bought more options but this time long term ones expiring in Jan 2019! The instrument I was trading has been consolidating. So it went down some and I bought more since the daily chart was still consolidating. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
Then today finally it BROKE OUT of the range in a HUGE way!!!
Learning from my mistakes I will NOT sell any on the first day of the breakout. I will it ride.
It could still be a failed breakout. But everytime I sell on the first day of the breakout I had seller regret since the continuation ran for at least a few more days.
Let's see! Kind of exciting.
And so much less stress than daytrading. And significantly more profits.
“It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! It is no trick at all to be right on the market. You always find lots of early bulls in bull markets and early bears in bear markets. I’ve known many men who were right at exactly the right time, and began buying or selling stocks when prices were at the very level which should show the greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine–that is, they made no real money out of it. Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon.” - Jesse Livermore
Set some trailing stops to lock in some profits. Good luck!
Here's the thing. On 10/11/18 I got out most of my swing trading options(it had 1.5 week to expiration) even though my TA said it should run for a little more. So I kept one contract til expiration on 10/19/18. And it was much higher than my exit points on 10/11/18.
Then I bought more much longer term options expiringi in Jan 2019. Yesterday when it broke out of its consolidating range, I said I should have gotten out but I didn't. Well, of course it came back down but still sitting at the HIGH of the old consolidating range. So bulls are still holding this up.
My point is it ALL depends on your TIMEFRAME. If I were to daytrade this I would have gotten out everything yesterday morning. Then bought it back in the afternoon. But I really can't since I work full-time now.
Also these is part of my much larger multi-month core position strategy. So I'm OK with letting it fluctuate around for a while as long as it's above the consolidating range that it broke out from. Which it has. Let's see.
And the week of 10/11/18 the intent for short-term swing trade. But I got out on te first day of profit, which is not according to plan.
Still learning and refining my strategy and thinking around holding winners.
Congratulations on making your profit but if you don't mind me saying, you still need to work on sticking to your trading plan. So far pretty much all of your profits were made by you deviating from your trading plan. If you think your trading plan is not allowing you to maximize your trading profits, then it's your trading plan that you need to change by re-evaluating your trading plan, doing more backtesting and then revise or come up with a new trading plan. You cannot change your individual trades every time you trade. One of those days, it's going to backfire on you and in the long run, it won't allow you to make consistent profit. Once you created a trading plan and made sure it's profitable, you need to stick to the plan!
Just my 2 cents.
I can't day trade because my brain works too slow whereas with swing I have the luxury of pondering over stuff in a more relaxed mind frame. Fast paced adds pressure to me and makes for too many errors.
Congratulations on making your profit but if you don't mind me saying, you still need to work on sticking to your trading plan. So far pretty much all of your profits were made by you deviating from your trading plan. If you think your trading plan is not allowing you to maximize your trading profits, then it's your trading plan that you need to change by re-evaluating your trading plan, doing more backtesting and then revise or come up with a new trading plan. You cannot change your individual trades every time you trade. One of those days, it's going to backfire on you and in the long run, it won't allow you to make consistent profit. Once you created a trading plan and made sure it's profitable, you need to stick to the plan!
Just my 2 cents.
Today I tried to daytrade on my simulator. I realize even though my signals and setups are good, I'm just TOO SLOW to daytrade. By the time I see it and act on it has already moved. And I get in a pretty bad price. And I'm too nervous and get out too soon. Even though my original pattern works and it goes where it should be going.
Not sure what I was thinking trying to daytrade these last few years. I could have saved myself a lot of headache, pain, suffering, and lost money and time. I could have just bought the QQQs or index funds. And swing trade.
Every single time I've daytrade recently I've lost. Not a lot. But a little each time. This tells me daytrading is not for me. I'm too slow for that.