Your approach of only trading a trend seems contradictory to the idea of daily profit-taking. Do you mean taking the growth out of the trade only, and leaving the rest to run, or cashing-in in the trade completely (sounds like day-trading)? I have also done a lot of pondered over the last month or 2, and come up with a system that should give me far fewer trading triggers, but give me more successful trade and keep me in them longer. In my back-testing, it tends to generate only 5-7 trades a year for a given counter, but between 60-80% successful trades (depending on the underlying), and the ones that run really work. Most of the trades in the backtesting were between 1 and 6 weeks duration. I'm going to keep an eye on more shares this year (probably 15-20) and look for real oppontunities rather than taking any impulsive chances. I've integrated stop-loss levels and position-sizing into the system so I really don't have to think much - just take the trades and obey the stops. I've taken 3 trades so far this year (ANG, BIL, HAR) and still sitting in all of them.
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