Profit taking (exit strategy)

[minx]

I started to build a chart of how far offside my winning trades went before going on to win and found, in the case of €/$ futures, that I could catch 96% with a 7 tick stop, I then did the same with my winners over 10 ticks and found that 10/11 were the magic numbers. Not a great risk-reward but the method was 70% successful so was more than profitable.
Basically I'm saying that research and record keeping is how YOU will find out how to place profit/loss orders to match YOUR trading style.........
just takes a lot of research and work

 

[darktone]

Whichever method you finally decide on i think its important to be consistent ie you play for the larger moves or the smaller moves (whichever you find that best suits your head). Ive found its best not to try and mix the 2 as you more often than not get out of synch with the price action, ie(fold when you should hold and vice versa)

 

[TheBramble]

Minx - I tried that some time ago - attempting to tweak those extra few cents out of my winning (and losing!) trades.

While the specific initial intent of that exercise turned out to be pointless, I was rewarded with the realisation that my current trade(s) are in no way related to any previous trades. Only the system and methodology remain the same.

 

[minx]

What I learned from it was a 7 tick stop provided almost the same number of winning trades as a 10-tick stop, thereby saving me 30% on my losing trades. Over time I found optimising the winning trades wasnt particularly successful as I just over optimised and missed out on the big winners.... I ended up with 'fat-tails' on the distribution curve which felt bad as I was missing out on some really sweet winners, for stops it worked out well though.