exiting on the upside

[SimonPB]

nobody went broke taking a profit .. entirely true .. but also nobody made a truck load of dosh taking profit early ..

to my mind selling in profit hardest part of trading and for most of us we need to give it a lot more thought then we generally do ..

[SimonPB]

for swing traders, sellign at exit is absolutely correct .. but trend based traders need to let the winners run as much as possible .. I'll use a lower low on the underlying as exit (but only once trailing stop loss level is above entry level) ..

I am also looking at that using the previous days low .. an of course a stop loss never goes down ..

basically I only ever exit on a stop loss, trick is to put the stop loss int he right place ..

[#3]

Here here Simon. I paid plenty of school fees to learn this leasson and now I trade to my exit plan and GET OUT, NO QUESTIONS. (Occasionally I second guess myself after getting out but 80% of the time I find I did the right thing and the other 20% so what I loose a few rands, maybe I did not grab the extra few rands or percent but I have my cash+profit to trade another day.

[SimonPB]

sure, that is the point .. we spend hours planning all sorts, an then kinda wing the exit at profit .. we need to spend the hours on this as well ..

[NJ_1]

Simon, am I understanding correctly that once you're past break-even, your move your stop loss daily to the previous day's low?

[jack12]

I used to exit no question, hit mark=out. Now I lift the bar everyday and if it falls below yesterdays average H+L I shoot it, found I collect better, and I keep my profit to a maximum and most important losses to a minimum. This % game catches me and end up with less profit than I expected

[#7]

Just gone through my trades for 2009. Typically I set a stop of 2*ATR below previous day's close. Lately I have got into the habit of exiting on discretion. I found that if I had just raised the bar on each trade and let them ride, I would be up an additional 200%!!! (on the trades, not the portfolio)

[jack12]

Thats the point, treat each day separate and set up your specific targets to trade against.

[SimonPB]

no, the close of the previous red day - if long ..

[john_1]

When I traded shares my first target was alway a profit of 15% as it only takes 5 trades a year with that return to double your money.( or 2 trades like that to outperform Buffet).I was very sucsessful in that perriod as a result..prehaps as you already use break even as a inflection point of your rules a second inflection point from 15% up would kick in. So the rule goes from previous red days close to prvious days close..Somthing like that..

[sponono]

There are only two reasons a trader should take a profit: if the stock flashes a warning signal or if your stop loss triggers. Taking a profit is never a good reason to take a profit.

[#12]

Erm, if you doubled your money with the 5 trades @ 15%, does that not mean you exposed your whole amount in every trade? Unfortunately with the 2%-6% rule you need quite a couple more trades to double your account.

[HateGauteng]

Hi Simon. I've been trading the lazy way and politely ignored stop losses, ever since your trigger on the 21st Aug. Looking good so far. Please don't forget to tell your fans when your exit/short trigger activates. I'm on the lookout but a reminder helps.

[ws]

So lets see if I understand what you are saying? I bought BHP @ 19795, yesterday's low was 20450, so does that mean I set my trailing stoploss @ 20450 (all underlying prices)?

[john_1]

I think we all understand that..