"let your winners ride and cut losers quickly".....always great advice, but the reality is that unless you have insider info or are psychic there is no way to know how long your winner will keep on being a winner.
the solution to this problem came to me via some advice that my father gave me (he's a retired broker and active trader), what he told me was that for most people (non-insiders) there are really only two ways to exit a stock - you're either too late or too early.
getting out too late means you let your winner turn into a loser or at least less of a winner; and getting out to early means you left money on the table. my preference, and the prefererence of long-term, consistently profitable traders is to error on the side of getting out too early. yes, its painful to look at a chart and realize that you could of held longer, but to me its even more painful to look at the chart and realize that my greed caused me to hold too long.
a common problem for struggling traders (i've had this problem myself, but have mostly overcome it now) is that the fear of missing out over-powers the fear of losing money. once you get past this ego problem of 'needing of be right', you will start to make money.
to make consistent money in the long-term (i.e. a year or longer) you need to sweep profits out of your trading account on a regualr basis, maintaining the approximate same level over time.
