"Scaling out" is inferior behavior
- Thread starter Buy1Sell2
- Start date
Buy1, I ment to ask you. When you say you "let your winners run", does that mean you hold through a fed meeting, or earnings, or any other market condition that could really f--k you over?... a perfect example is TZOO on daily charts.
Like I said before, I dont scale out, but one should exit BEFORE the inevitable happens.
cm69
Like I said before, I dont scale out, but one should exit BEFORE the inevitable happens.
cm69
What you did was scale out at 9 points which was half the position. You are in agreement with me. The math says it all. My point is that if your profit target is 9--let it run to 9 . If your profit target is 18 , let it run to 18. If you are using a trailing stop, you are better off letting the whole trade run to get stopped out by the trailing stop rather than scaling out. That's the whole point.
If you are in a trade long term, Fed meetings show up more as blips etc. If you are daytrading, they are a big deal. For example and this is an extreme example of course, but 401K holders aren't paying any attention to Fed meetings at all. It all depends on the timeframe you are trading and your leverage. Overleveraged--big attention must be paid. Underleveraged like myself--take a nap.
Right, i am in agreement there. Then what I did is let half the trade run farther than it would have if i sold it all at 9. exiting all at once would have made you less money than scaling out. simple as that. you keep arguing that if you scale out, your profit target is too low if the trade went higher. I'm not really sure how else to put this, but you are totally missing my point.
TNG
Each trader defines his profit taking point. Regardless of whether or not that profit taking point is wrong has nothing to do with it. You come out better by not scaling out. The idea of letting the trade run with trailing stops, which is what I do in general, is an entirely different subject.
I was talking about the same trader, with the same profit point using two different methods. Whether or not your profit point is wrong has everything to do with it, because when I point out that in that trade scaling out would have made more money you tell me my profit point was wrong! You are right about one thing though, the math sure doesn't lie. You would have made more money scaling out, hands down.
TNG