Ideally we all want to let our profit run for as long as possible. But in the real world, there comes a point at which you need to decide if you’re going to take your profit.
Tell me if you’ve experienced this before: You have an open trade that’s making 10 pips, you wait, it reverses, now it’s 3 pips in loss, you wait some more, it goes back into profit, and round and round we go. As a matter of fact, I’m in such a trade as we speak.
I don’t think it’s necessarily a case against letting profit run, some people are very successful at scalping for a few ticks/pips here and there and cut those losers for either scratch or very little loss, it’s more a case of having a trading plan, what does you trading plan say to do, can you write your trading plan down, have you written it down so you can refer back to it. I’ve found that having a well defined plan, tested over many trades helps to overcome the draw downs, it gives you a certain kind of faith that you don’t get just entering trades and panicking when they don’t go your way.
To answer your question, yes, I think every single trader has experienced that before, and the blown accounts that go along with it, finding a plan that suits your personality is a huge turning point, maybe you’re more suited to longer term trading, maybe scalping, main point though, write a plan down, follow it.
Here’s a sample of my trading strategy, remember a good trading strategy you should be able to write down, even code it where possible:
Start the monitoring process.
Check if the tested side is <50% of the untested.
If yes, identify an untested strike (45% Delta from the tested side).
Decide if new strikes make a straddle/layered-strangle.
If not, roll the untested position to the previously identified strike.
Log premium changes.
Enter a GTC order for the new position.
If no suitable roll is found, or if the tested side is >=50%, end the monitoring process.
If a Good-Till-Canceled (GTC) order fills, log debits and close the position.
Sorry what? I have no idea what you just said. This is wayyy over my head.
honestly i make a critical point to set it and for get it , 10 pips here 15 here… i have literally watched as i put a limit buy and it went pass my limit and went above and i didn’t make a pip…
And it’s very frustrating. To me, losing a winning trade is worse than losing a trade that goes against you from the get go.
it is like they put a capp on the amout of trades they can do in a window?? so i looked at the time spectrum and it was in my time window for after hours trades , but it didnt take!!!which happended the same time like this when game stop did its circle jerk
i think setting sl and tp are what you need
you can set them and then get away from screen and let the trade work
I think one should have a clear idea where one is going to exit a trade before it is even entered. In terms of consistent profitability, each trade is not individually of any relevance. It is the overall performance over a number of trades that counts.
And I think there are two principle ways of approaching this:
To preset both SL and TP and leave it to play out (set-and-forget), or with a third option which, as @new.trader raises in another thread, if neither is hit within a reasonable duration, close it anyway. This last option also includes closure in the situation where a reverse signal is generated while the trade is still open
leave the trade without a TP and use either a manual or automated trailing stoploss. Then wait until eventually the trade is stopped out, hopefully, well into profit if you have hit a good trend!
I used to let profits run and move my stop loss in the direction of the trend. After a while I used a take profit order by a measured move. Sometimes it’s good not be greedy and take the profit when you can.
I’m not even sure if it’s greed per se. Maybe you really think the trend is going to continue and therefore it would be foolish to exit now. But then all the constant pullbacks can be nerve-racking.
It’s all about patience and discipline.
If you think about it, some of our worst trades are the ones we let run “hoping” they’ll turn in our favour. But we don’t think like that with trades that are in profit, our natural instinct is to take those profits. You need to be able to detach yourself from the trade and let it run its course.
Turn your thinking upside down and hold on to that winning trade hoping it goes against you. Now THAT’S a challenge!
Just reading your post, I already know you are gambling.
You don’t succeed at trading by “letting your profits run”. To succeed in trading, first of all, you must have a good fundamental understanding of the markets you are trading; this will give you a bias, of where price might be heading or ranging.
Once you have this clear, you need to have a technical model, where you will define where you will take your entries, profits and exits. So you dont “let your profits run”; when you take a trade, you must already know all cases you are going to exit, and be prepared for any price action behaviour.
Finally, you need to track your trades, and check if your model is working or not, in case you need to make adjustments.
People fool themselves, thinking that a purely technical system can have a high RR and high Win rate at the same time. Let me tell you! No way! 10R trades with high 60-70% win rates do not exist, unless you have a deep fundamental understanding of the market you are trading; and in FX markets, let me also tell you, not even the pros have a clue, as it’s the hardest market to model. In a purely technical system, on the long term, trades with a 1:2 RR will have about 33% win rate… 1:1 RR trades will have a 50% win rate. That’s it.
Trading FX is one of the hardest jobs that exist. 100% of IG and Youtube traders are a scam, and will never show you a long term verified track record.
I’m not gambling at all, but of course you know what I’m doing more than I do I guess.
What are your expectations on this trade of where price will go? Do you have certain levels identified where price could go, are you hoping… “price go up”? Maybe an economic event that will go in your favor?
You have to decide for yourself what is a reasonable about of success for you on this trade, at this very time, based on your amount of risk, other open trades, available margin, etc.
Also, how much time to you have to watch and adjust the trade? That could also play into how you approach this situation. But again, this is based on your overall strategy, your trade style, preferred trading time frames.
I think as others have mentioned, you might find success with trailing stops and setting TPs, at least until you get a better handle on potential price movements and more importantly, a handle on your actual strategy.