DislikedPaul That is a great question. I have come to realize that this is BY FAR my biggest obstacle. For me, it comes down to two things....1) the need to be right, and 2) the fear of loss (ie prematurely exiting a trade only to watch it shoot off in the intended direction). I know Clive will get out after a few bars if the market doesn't move. He also raises his stop up to BE after say 5 pips of movement. Easy concept to understand, but really really hard to implement emotionally. Anyways, your not alone. PeterIgnored
Just lately, as I enter trades (demo) I am having this internal dialogue.."ok Paul, don't marry the trade, don't marry the trade" and yet even though its in my mind, I am looking for every reason to give it a little more room on the adverse excursion - a previous bar high or low, a perceived s/r level, a trend line ceiling or floor, so of course, the stop tends towards the higher end of 10 pips range when it goes against.
As well as the issue of needing to be right, I wonder if there is also some issue of needing to have payback/reward for the investment of effort/emotion required to get into the trade. If this is the case, I need to continue a mental shift to thinking about payback/reward for the overall profit made from a series of trades (comprising winners and tight losers).
Focusing on positive expectation from one trade, would seem to lead to all sorts of behavioural execution errors, which sort of leads me back to the point I made earlier about frequency of Clive system trade opportunities, the concept of abundance in opportunities is making it easier for me to deal with an execution behaviour change.
I have read some references to teaching a mindset that every trade is going to be a loser so the focus is on minimising the losers and risk, not sure how that plays out when it comes to managing the profit taking side of the winners but I can sense how that would help one move on quickly from trades that move against at the outset :-).
Cheers...Paul.