Disliked{quote} Ok, that is what I believe you were doing/suggesting, but it seems to slightly contradict 'staying in' a trade, which is what longer term traders would do. --- If you are in trades A,B,C,D and price shifts back down to where D goes back to BE or less, you could take D and A to average a nice gain, but still be ready to run with B,C. If the trend has failed (or it's a rather large retrace - hard to tell which), you can decide what % of what is 'left' from the profit of C you want to take and set a limit there. This also goes for B, but you...Ignored
But losses must be taken eventually and generally it's better to take them when they are so small that one doesn't have to worry about offsetting them by taking a win off another trade. In that way trading just flows naturally and at the end of the day or week a few very small losses were taken and a some nice profits more than offset them to produce a smooth increase in the equity curve. Canceling out a large loss with a large win DOES NOT cancel out the mistake of having let a small loss grow into a large one in the first place. Anytime you have a large loss, you have already made a critical trading mistake by letting a small loss turn into a large one. Avoid that initial mistake and you wont have to spend much time worrying over how to mitigate that loss to smooth the equity curve.
Swing trading is a little different style that attempts to take advantage of the market's intrinsic volatility. It requires that the trade be held through the downswings so that it can be cashed in later on an even higher upswing. I know it works quite well for some people, but I don't subscribe to it because it doesn't allow me to cut my losses short. This is just a question of personal trading style and everyone should do what works best for them.
Best success to you.
G