Why you should average up, NEVER down

Quote from garfangle:

Why you should average up, NEVER down.

Buy into strength. Sell into weakness.

I generally agree with this for the simple fact that averaging up is going with the trend while averaging down is going against the trend. The only valid method of averaging down IMO is scaling into small pullbacks of a strong trend, but a very clear and objective stop loss method should be followed when doing this. This method is also more about scaling in due to large size vs averaging down.
 
There are may blow ups where people don't average down. Hence, if you are thinking of how you can blow up and thinking you are covered because some guru told you that all people that blow up average down you are wrong.
 
Quote from CaptainObvious:

Tell that to the people that bought F at 2 bucks. It all depends on whether you're building a longer term position through accumulation, or you're trading the move. If you're trading the move, then averaging up is "usually" a better play. If you're buiding a long term position then averaging down "can be" a money maker. If you don't know why you're taking a position in the first place, you're going to get your head handed to you regardless of what you do. There are no absolutes! Learned that lesson about 10 years ago. Cost me about 60K. Education, it is expensive.
A trader needs many tools in their tool box. A hammer is great for pounding nails. Not so useful for painting a wall. Once you have a few tools, know what the tools are for and their limitations, then you can decide...do I want to pound a nail today, or do I want to paint a wall? Grab the right tool and get to work. Even then, some nails will bend and some paint will streak. Enough metaphors:D

what about those that bought GM all the way down bc it would never go bankrupt?
 
Quote from jajuanm2:

There are may blow ups where people don't average down. Hence, if you are thinking of how you can blow up and thinking you are covered because some guru told you that all people that blow up average down you are wrong.


if your blowing up without ever averaging into the position, then your initial position is way to large already.......or you are referring to longer term blowups where you really suck bad at trading and never win over and over until you reach 0
 
Quote from bigb:

what about those that bought GM all the way down bc it would never go bankrupt?

Even the most basic of fundamental analysis would have told these people to stay away. If you can't read a balance sheet, you deserve to go broke.
 
Yes, the people that never win.

Quote from bigb:

if your blowing up without ever averaging into the position, then your initial position is way to large already.......or you are referring to longer term blowups where you really suck bad at trading and never win over and over until you reach 0
 
I never average down.

I always add to positions once they are winning.... you can add as much as you want decrease the size or increase whatever your strategy tell you to do.

Usually a good position is right almost straight away.. the ones which takes time to move in positive territory tend not to perform well.

I am a trend follower.. I have around 42% hit ratio and I am happy with it.
 
I'm a little late to this thread, but just to complicate things further would that make sense then to sell a percentage of your position on the way down to allow a breakeven or profit on a trade where you're losing?

I always average up and I generally have a hard stop where I sell out right away if the trade goes against me. But it makes sense to me that you'd have more breakevens than losses this way yet the same amount of winners. It would take a little adjusting of the original position size to have the same risk.

Obviously the strategy you employ is an important part for any averaging system to work. But if we're mostly in agreement on averaging up, scaling out on the way down makes sense as well.

Just curious what you all think.
 
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