Fear of giving back gains

I know it’s something all new traders and experienced traders have to deal with but it’s honestly one of the hardest things ever. It’s so much easier to sit and hold a -50 pip trade than it is to sit and hold a +50 pip trade?

The obvious answer is because we fear losing our gains with winning trades and with losing trades we hope they’ll come back into profit. I wonder what mental tip you have to control this emotion?

I absolutely hate seeing a trade +40 pips and then 3 hours later it’s +5 pips, or even worse, in the negative. It’s so hard not to pull the trigger and cash out “while you still have the chance” kinda thing.

If you’re taking trend-following positions there’s no reason why you should regard the gains so far as the last gains from this pair in this set-up. On the first sign of weakness in the trend, close the position. On the return of strength, open another position in the same trend. Keep doing this.

Do not accept blindly without evidence the advice to run your winners and always use a r:r of at least 1:3.

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That’s all well and good but sometimes a trend can temporarily reverse or move sideways for weeks or months at a time before pushing lower. I’m not in a trade to make hundreds of pips, I much prefer staying in a trade for a few hours to a day and bagging 30 - 50 pips or something.

However when I’m at 20 or 30 pips I feel this uncontrollable urge to cash in the gains, especially when I see it starting to retrace, I think it’s going to retrace all the way back to my entry -_-

A simple fix is to switch off your P&L and simply trade the chart without watching the pips. I did a vid on this that might help

Kind Regards

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Hmm that’s actually not a bad idea.

Do you have a link to the video?

If the trend weakens you get out with the profits but if it never resumes, naturally you don’t go back in, you just move on to the next one. If you wait until you’re sure its starting to range or even reverse you’ll have lost all the unrealised gains and missed an opportunity on another pair: you might even be tempted to hold too long and make your winner a loser as it gets topped out.

Sure , hope it helps

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My strategy utilises trail stop effectively. So it is either I get stopped out in small loss, small profit or big profit (when the strategy successful ride the trend to the end). I never stop myself out, trail stop do the job of getting me out. Then I get in when my setup resumes. So I fear nothing and my trades can run for weeks. The fact that I can never have a big loss keep me on check. So I advice you find a way to install trail stop into your system.

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Thanks.

You seem like a sound guy, I love that you do actual live trades and analysis with a timelapse. No trying to sell courses or signals or any of that scammy BS. Crazy seeing a trade with £800 on the table! I’m usually risking £10 max per trade and making £30 would be a good trade for me lol.

Notice that, in the video, he had a premise as to where price was going. Figure out what level price is reaching for and then trail your stop.

Hi :grinning: I use EA in trading, I thoroughly test strategies and compare results with backtests, so I know exactly when the strategy begins to lose and when I need to replace it with a new, profitable one. Regards Greg

Many thanks , just love what I do and after nearly 20 years still get a thrill

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@Lang15 Couldn’t view the Video? Kindly check the link. Thanks.

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And more than often that is what happens.

Once i ran an account for about a year. I took profit when it was offered and the account grew over 10 months - it seemed unstoppable.

Then either complacency or greed or likely a combination of both crept into my thinking - instead of taking what was offered I sought to focus on ‘what might have been’ - what was left after taking the profit - the account went back to the starting point in 3 months.

Someone once told me to think of it this way - you eat your fill at the picnic, but there are leftovers. The birds come down and eat those - the leftovers are theirs and not yours.

No leftovers so no birds - either way you have your fill :slight_smile: