First intraday trade today
Short cable 1.7308 10:30 am GMT - took half @+10 then went shopping :) - came back at 12:45 to find trade still open - trailed it on 1 min chart after that. closed @ 1.7176
If I had not gone shopping I would've been out earlier as my 1 min trail would've kicked in. - so for today just a single trade - half for +10 and half for +132
I'd like to take this time to discuss my new approach to taking half profits at +10 and today seems a good day to talk about it as its one of those days where it would have been prudent to leave it all running.
In the past ive been a staunch supporter of never closing anything early - the premise being that those trades that do run and run pay for the ones that don't.
All the great authors say you shouldn't close early because you are in effect 'cutting your winners short' and its a good point. On anything 5 min chart and above I'd agree with this but when you start to fall in love with a one minute chart things begin to change.
30 pips is a good run on a one min chart and runs larger than this don't happen too often. If you trade the one minute chart try this - make a diary of how many times you take a trade that goes to +10 and then you let it slip back to say +1 or even worse back into the negative territory. My guess is that you'll find that if you took all the +10's you had you would be making many more pips - until of course that 200 plus move comes along at which point you begin to kick yourself.
The thing is that every one of us needs to feel confident and satisfied that we are adding to our account rather than losing out on pips.
Taking +10 with half your position and then moving the stop to BE on the rest gives you a quiet serenity knowing that you wont lose on this trade whatever happens. You can then calmly trail the price with a stop on the 1 min chart peaks and troughs to its natural conclusion when the trend ends.
You see there is so much confusion in the thing you read. Every trading book you will ever come across tells you 'let your winners run' - well, in my mind any pillock can say this without justifying it - they don't answer the next question which is 'how far?' - lets face it, every trade of more than 1 pip in profit is a winner - its as much of a winner as a 100 pip trade or even a 200-300 pip trade - when do you stop and take your money?
At 200 pips in profit do you let the winner run?
the take half scenario allows you to do both things. Take some profit and let the winner run.
So the question then is where do you take profit - well to work that out decide on the timeframe you are going to trade and work out not what the average move is - but what it nearly always does. On a one minute chart and the setup I use this is about 10 pips. For your take half you need to look at your trades and see a pip value that your trade makes at least 70% of the time on a winner - don't count the losers cos they lose anyway.
Using this method a few weeks ago in a ranging market I took over 120 pips on a day that nothing was happening - just 10 at a time and let the rest run on a peak / trough trail.
I think I'll re-open the blog to comments - whilst they remain intelligent I'll let you have your say and I'd love to hear your comments on this subject.
Hope this helps.
From The Desk Of ...
Soultrader
