Scaling: In/Out. Winning/Losing

Why wouldn't the first half of your trade get the same benefit? Wouldn't you make twice as much money by holding the whole thing?

From a MM Point. Say that u use 2% per trade. Do u enter the first at a full 2%. Then on the retrace enter another 2% - since it is a 'new' trade.
Should the retrace continue, do you close both positions at the SL of the new trade, or keep trade 1?

In my opinion, I do not find that scaling in/out or averaging down/up is dumb or stupid if you dictate it in the first place. When you scale out or average down without planning it first, you'd be doing it out of emotions like fear and greed. However, if you had planned with total objectivity in the first place, there's no reason why you should let any person on the forum affect your style and way of trading.

Speaking for myself I am not implying that anyone is stupid. I have studied the subject in the past and made numerous spreadsheets comparing the methods. In each of my runs, scaling out lost. I am open to the idea but I have yet to see anyone legitimately compare the two ideas and conclusively show that for them, scaling out was more profitable. If you scale out because it is pleasing psycholigically then just come out and say so. No one can argue that. But, if you are suggesting that you do it to improve profit then there should be some amount of proof that you offer up.

Again, I'm not calling anyone stupid but in general, if you plan to do something stupid and then you execute it flawlessly, it's still stupid.

I am not refuting or against anything you said, in fact, I agree with you that scaling out is less profitable than exiting at a solid lot. But sometimes, scaling out has its uses and I do not preach that one should scale out every single trade, but to scale out when the need to arises.

Hi again,

In my case, upon running some statistical results on my trades spreadsheets, I came to the conclusion that market usually moves "swifter" or more "effortlessly" to previous swing high/lows than when it had to breach beyond that point and thus scoring new highs/lows within the trend. It's like market participants were more relunctant to enter as the swing wore on past previous highs/lows. Moreover, pullbacks at new heights in the trend were more violent, as if profit takings were happening at an exponential rate, giving me short time to react. As a response, I decided to implement a two-exit strategy in order to minimize my exposure to such event.

This is just according to my own analysis of my own spreadsheet. I do not imply that my findings are valid for every trader or for every trading methodology. As far as *my* methodology goes, I found the first target being generally met faster and more trouble-free than the second, and thus I decided to dessign my in-trade management around this fact.