DislikedI saw on the rookie thread that many beginners complain and wish that they get only 5 or 10 pips. They'll be happy. I myself have problem holding on to 100 to 200 pips a week. The feeling of losing so much money isn't going to cut it for me. How do you guys handle such delayed gratification. There is an experiment conducted on the marshmallow test. And what they found out is those participants who manage to get 2 marshmallow actually do pretty well in their later part of life. Their success attribute to ignoring the obvious. So what do you guys...Ignored
I think you've hit on one of the big headaches of trading because there are no hard and fast rules to apply, it depends on the circumstances of each individual trade and so is ultimately a subjective call on the part of the trader. However, most trend following approaches to letting profits run are based on employing a trailing stop of some sort to let profits grow whilst limiting the opportunity loss if it reverses.
That said, simply waiting and exiting on an expansion move or as price approaches an obvious technical barrier are not bad ways of booking profits either.
The important thing is not to unduly worry about what you leave on the table, you'll rarely exit at the extreme of a move. As long as you followed your plan and took a good chunk out of what was on offer, that's great.
Equally, don't fret about a trade reversing on you and open profits vanishing before your eyes. It's going to happen all the time, focus on not losing too much if it does and then get on with looking for the next good opportunity.
That way you'll establish a mixed pattern of some nice winners, some scratches, and some small losers. That will do you very nicely over time.
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