Exit strategies?

I hear a lot about entry strategies, but as I get better I realize that exiting the trade well ends up being more important than entering well. Which brings the question...

What kind of successful exits have people used?

Obviously a set TP is one way. Another is a trailing stop. The turtles PDF exits when you drop below a 10 day low.

So I'd like to start a thread based on exit strategies. It's a scarcely-mentioned subject it seems.

For my discretionary trading I am a big believer in trailing my stops(not fixed TS). I use a combination of Bar counts/SuppRes/Volatility etc when trailing my trades. The reason I like to trail my trades is it fits in with my beliefs of cutting losses and riding winners. I might not have the highest batting avg, but my slugging % is pretty good :

Andrews Pitchfork (Median Line)
you can check this blog http://mapthemarket.blogspot.com for more information on median line.
You can use what strategy you want for entry and your exit to be at median line or upper/lower median line target 2

I believe your exit strategy strongly depends on the trading system you are using. The vegas daily and 4h tunnel system has some of the clearest defined exit strategies I have found, and, with a little research, I think you can apply some of Vegas' principles to any system. (His system looks to take profits and exit at fib levels from a moving average). You should be able to find his stuff with a quick search around here.

Tyler

Shalom my great Rabi,

Good morning. I learned from Phil McGrew saying let the trade run till it wants to turn. He said: Use 2 MA crossing. So backtest and see which 2 MA suites for each different pairs and time frame.

Have a nice day

The best is actually doing both, in medio stat virtus.

Personally I do like this:

1- Profit case:
Set a TP, and exit with "1/2" capital at it, at that point set a trailing stop at B/E for the other "1/2".

2- Loss case:
My SL strategy is a 1 time averaging, entry with "1" and average with another "1" if goes toward me, if I still lose, I don't average a second time, just set an overall SL about 50 pips far away below/above (short/long) a 00 or a 50 level. If I recover after the average, close at B/E.

This MM is one of the best ever experimented from me because it's the middle way to go...

Always attaching a trailing stop may give you the gut feel you are letting profit runs, but how many times it went in your direction and then turned back on you stopping you out at B/E or even in loss... that's it... there are 3 roads, take the middle one and you'll never be completely wrong.

Why do I average a loss position? well that psicologically means one thing, I could be wrong on first entry point, but if I am also wrong on the second entry point of my strategy which is actually more below or above the first one (depending on short/long strategy), then I was for sure wrong on the first entry, then it's time to set an overall SL.