Quote from oldtime:
well, I think we all have had experience with our own version of "cut your losses short" it really only takes a calculator to figure out how much heat we can stand
so what is your let profits run method?
I can tell you, the one thing I tried that really destroyed a good system was entering a trailing stop on winners
fixed stops weren't much better
the thing that really made it click was trading the account
new account high? get flat
that's why we trade pairs, if one goes to hell it should probably be good for their competitor, if the market climate is good, it should probably be good for both of them, if that market climate is bad, oh well, you have the same problem as everyone else, but at least you have two out of three covered.Quote from oraclewizard77:
OK. I totally disagree.
1) The 1st rule is to find an edge. If you don't have an edge, the rest is meaningless since randomly trading will not make you money.
2) The 2nd method is to determine what you want your win% to be. Yes, with a lower win%, you need to let your winners run more. With a higher than 50% win %, you can have breakeven or sometimes negative risk to reward.
3) Scaling in or out depends on your system. If you are averaging in because you don't want to take a loss, that can be bad. If before you enter the trade, you have set stop, and plan to average in as long as the stop is not violated, and this is part of your trading plan, that can be fine.
4) If like me you use a chart to trade, then sometimes the chart of price will help determine the stops and targets.
If you trade without stops and targets and are profitable over the long run, fine. The problem of not having stops is when something goes wrong, lets say you are long a stock, and the CEO let with all the money and fled the country, your no stop is going to hurt.
Quote from failed_trad3r:
1. Find an edge
2. Don't use stops, if you need to use stops your leverage is too high
3. Average in. Nobody can predict turns but markets always mean revert
4. Don't daytrade, keep your commissions low, swingtrade or semi-buy and hold.

Quote from logic_man:
1 and 2 contradict each other. If you have an edge, you should be able to know when that edge has been disproven for a specific trade, i.e. it didn't work this time around. That's the natural place for a stop. If you think you have an edge, but your edge doesn't tell you when you are wrong, it's not an edge. An edge has to work like a scientific hypothesis, i.e. it can be disproven. Otherwise, you are just working on blind faith that things will work out.
3 is just wrong. Markets don't "always" do anything. In fact, to take an extreme example, after 9-11, the market didn't even open for business, which is probably the one thing it comes closest to "always" doing.
4 is also somewhat contradictory to 1. If my edge says to open a trade and then later that same day says to close it, commission savings is going to be the least of my worries.
Quote from failed_trad3r:
9-11 mean reverted.
If Buffet ever used stops he wouldn't be as rich as now. I hope it is clear to you one size does not fits all and in most cases stops aren't appropiate
Also, when a trade goes against you people seem to think the edge disappeared for that trade. That isn't logical. If an edge is an edge it is ever present. You just have to use common sense as to use tools which mitigate losses. in your case, you are confusing exits with edges. a stop in your case is used as an exit condition, but you seem to think it also indicates a disappearance of your edge. that is wrong.