I am interested in any tangible tips and tricks you may use. By tangible i mean actual stategies for a particular situation, ie. reducing a ‘locked in’ loss or maximising the profit from a winning trade etc. but not common sense tips like “Don’t trade with more than you can lose.” or “learn to master your emotions.”, and “Don’t eat yellow snow.” etc.
My tip for attempting to maximise profit.
You have a Buy and it is 200 points up, your trailing it at 100 pips.
It begins to head down.
You may normally wait and hope for it to head up again or hit the stop but instead put a pending order Sell in at 150 points up (mid way between your SL and where it is now.)
Advantage… When the stop loss is hit hit you still have an order in profit and it’s already heading in the right direction.
Disadvantage… If the trade bounces off the 150 point mark and heads up again you’re stuck with a 150 points (Unless you have another Buystop waiting in the wings).
You might think that this is basic stuff but i’m sure a lot of new traders might find these tips useful.
If you have a suggestion to improve my tip then please post.
We’ll first off your saying its up 200 points which is 20 pips (10 points = 1 pip) with a 100 pip stop loss but i take it you meant up by 200 pips…!
2nd i would say it depends on why it’s coming down ? Do you believe it’s a retracement or the end of a distribution phase.? Depends on your market analysis.
3rd surely if it’s up 200 pips you would move your stop up to 150 pips or the nearest swing low then just take that when it hits and re evaluate at least your 150 pips in profit and out of an uncertain trade…!
Set your rules and stick to then…!!!
Regardless of the terminology, my tip was about taking more from the combined trades … when the sl is hit at 100 pips you still have a horse in the race with 50 pips and it’s moving in the direction of the trend.
There is a very experienced trader on here who uses the same method to recover a loss and i was reading a post recently that said most traders fail because they are too quick to take a profit and too slow to cancel a loss … so anything that might ‘tip the scales’ would be worth a try wouldn’t it?
I understand what your saying and i have done this myself and i suppose it all depends on how long you want keep trades on aswell. As i like to close my trades by the end of the day it would not be as effective.
But like you said it may take your long stop out then go back up and take the short stop out so you would only make 50pips minus spread and commissions.
You are quite right but if it does carry on through the original sl of the buy you can get another trailing stop on it and see where it goes. My own experience is that because it’s moving in a profitable direction to start with then the odds are in your favour. It’s a possible edge and worth playing about with for anyone who likes to experiment.
I am amazed that after a month not a single idea has been suggested on this topic.
Many years ago I had to tile my kitchen and so attended a course during which a host of professional tips and tricks were given, like how to use that infernal silicon so that it didn’t appear as though an angry chimp had applied it and how to tile a floor and still being able to stand erect afterward etc. I can’t believe that the members here aren’t able to share any new or novel ideas.
Here’s another idea and would like some feedback on it … Good or bad.
It’s very relevant to other conversations going on here at the moment in regard to the use of stop losses. Although my own trading system has no use for them I know that a lot of people wouldn’t trade without them so my idea is that instead of placing a stop loss, being stopped out and then seeing the price move back where you wanted it to go, why not use an opposite stop order at the same place you would have put your stop loss which has it’s own stop loss at the original entry price? … You have however lost the amount you were willing to lose but you have possibly missed the stop hunt and are still in the game.
I would like to encourage newbies too to put forward any crazy ideas and not be intimidated by being flamed, you never know, you might be holding on to the Holy Grail.
Tony.