When to exit?

I mainly trade crude. I get 80% of my entry correct. However, I always exit way too early, missing the extra 50 or more point. I have set a rule to not exit for at least 20 minutes, but I am still out too early.

Should I set a stop, Limit and just leave it until one or the other get hit? How do you more experienced traders decide how long to stay in and exit?

It took me about 6 months to work on getting the entry right, I am now very frustrated with my bad exit taking in max loss allowed but not even half the profit I could have.

Thank you very much for the help!!!

Taking profits are actually the hardest part,lol.
Most people spend years trying to figure out how to enter but not how to actually exit.
It's the exit that puts money in the bank.
There are as many exits as there are entries. You need to find what suites you and stick to that.

you can:
1) Scale out of your positon as the market moves in your direction. Start with 2,3 or 4 lots and scale out as the market moves in your direction. When it hits resistance (if long) take some money off.
2) base your exit on some resistance/support area that you've targeted on a higher timeframe.
3) use fibs, either fib extensions or fib retracements in the opposite direction of the price swing you got in on.The 127% fib extension works wonders!
4) use confluences in the market to decide where you want to take profits, i.e if you get in at a confluence area of support (maybe support line, fib, pivot, trendline, moving average lining up at one spot together) you can use the same thing to get out i.e a confluence area of resistance on the way up (resistance line, fib extension/retracement, pivot etc)
5) If you trade patterns, flags, triangles, rectangles etc. you can look for exits when leg 1 = leg 2
6) You can trail your stop using a moving average, placing your stop just behind the moving average.
7) You can use fractals. I find these work really nicely! you know exactly when to move your stop and can follow the market down as it moves.

Remember no-one can pick tops and bottoms on a regular basis so you need to decide BEFORE you place your trade what your risk/reward is and if it's worth taking the trade.

I know this is very general but I'm not sure how you trade.

Thank you very much! This is very helpful, I have never tried trailing my stop using the moving avaerage, shall give that a try.

I will also do some more research on fractals.

Thanks!

gilligullu said:

I mainly trade crude. I get 80% of my entry correct. However, I always exit way too early, missing the extra 50 or more point. I have set a rule to not exit for at least 20 minutes, but I am still out too early.

Should I set a stop, Limit and just leave it until one or the other get hit? How do you more experienced traders decide how long to stay in and exit?

It took me about 6 months to work on getting the entry right, I am now very frustrated with my bad exit taking in max loss allowed but not even half the profit I could have.

Thank you very much for the help!!!

Click to expand...

You are not the only one who is experiencing such issues.
You should optimize your trading strategy, that’s right. Try creating a trade log and right down the reasons each time you exit a trade. Have a weekly and a monthly one and maybe a yearly one


When you finish the monthly one you would have a pattern of your trades... therefore you will be able to mortify your strategy to maximize returns.


Maybe use S/L in half of your trades or take profits in 25% ... only you can find out what wrong with you. When you have everything down on paper, you will see what you are doing right and what wrong.

Cheers

Surely you will know where the exit is when you place the trade... if you dont know what your aiming at then how will you hit the target ???

Knowing the exit is like predicting. It cant be done. And setting a target restricts the profits from running. I myself never think about where to exit when placing a trade except for the stop loss.
Thats just my inexperienced opinion.

teojh said:

Knowing the exit is like predicting. It cant be done. And setting a target restricts the profits from running. I myself never think about where to exit when placing a trade except for the stop loss.
Thats just my inexperienced opinion.

Click to expand...

This is true depending on how you trade and if this is working for you then great.. only because this is a beginners thread I would suggest a pre determined exit.

I think emotionally it is VERY difficult and many beginners who are often caught up in the problem of knowing when to exit and a thing called sods law, when you try to let it run it goes against you, when you exit it goes much further your way. Until you can know for sure when to let it run or when to get out, you have the exit point which takes much stress out of the game, and lets you concerntrate on your entry which is the most important thing.

normbeef said:

This is true depending on how you trade and if this is working for you then great.. only because this is a beginners thread I would suggest a pre determined exit.

I think emotionally it is VERY difficult and many beginners who are often caught up in the problem of knowing when to exit and a thing called sods law, when you try to let it run it goes against you, when you exit it goes much further your way. Until you can know for sure when to let it run or when to get out, you have the exit point which takes much stress out of the game, and lets you concerntrate on your entry which is the most important thing.

Click to expand...

That is very much what is happening to me at the moment. When ever I set a limit and just let it run, I get stop out. But when I exit manually, it moves another 40 to 50 points. Very very fustrating. I am now just trying a 25 points stop and 50 points limit and try and wait at least 20 minutes before closing out.

I shall report on how this is working as my PnL builds up a bit more from this method.

Thanks for all the ideas guys!

what you are suffering from my dear man is GREED,lol.
It's what drives the market.
Seriously though,you will never pick the top or the bottom. We're not investing here. We are traders. Your job is to identify a trade set up, this should include 1. where to enter 2. where to place your stop and 3. where are you going to take profits?

As long as your risk/ reward is good take the trade. If it gets to ur target get out. You made money and you went about it professionally. Letting the market run and hoping for the best is an ameteur approach and will not get you where you want to be. i.e consistently building capital.

Be happy that you made money and that it's alot more then you risked
Do the same thing for 30 trades and then see what your figures are like.

Best of luck

forex99 said:

It's the exit that puts money in the bank.

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To paraphrase Forex99, it's easy to fly an airplane during take-off and mid-flight. The tricky part is making a comfortably controlled landing ... which is almost always needed to have an enjoyable journey.

Forex99 has offered several good ideas to explore for helping find exit strategies that might work for you. My personal preference is to use technical-based exits that are symmetrical with my entries. For example, my strategies might use resistance to exit when they used support for entry (with trailing stop-losses to accommodate positions turning lower before reaching resistance). Naturally, mine is but one method among many.