Should I Hold Longer Or Close With Profits....?
Hello Traders 🙋♂️
I wanted to go over a valuable lesson in market psychology that I have learned repeatedly in my own experience. This is not an 'end all be all' strategy , advice, or lesson but perhaps an idea that you can take and make it what you want in your trading analysis.
Its really easy to theorize about markets and what they should do, wether its a pattern your following, indicator, or institutional concepts. We can all look at charts and spot gigantic moves and think "WOW! Imagine those profits you could have had!" , in fact we can see this daily in our pursuit of our trading goals.
But the reality is that in the exact moment of being in profits nothing is guaranteed! How many times have you said to yourself "Self - I'm holding this trade till the end of time" when your up 20 pips, only to have to smash back down and either stop you out at break even, or even worse, go negative and hit your stop loss? My guess is that if your reading this (or writing this) then the answer is all too often 🤣
So here is a solution...
Psychology
1) Just agree with yourself that consistent and steady profits is better then "what if"
2) Find your signature exit for how you trade - "When do I know for certain I should close all positions"
Practice & Reality
Since its pretty easy to catch 20 pips in the FX world you should capitalize on this and take it over and over and over , compounding your profits, and minizing your losses (assuming your strategy is profitably) and to satisfy our greed and "what if" then leave a small partial open to see what happens, which leads me to the third and final part of this solution....
3) Close 90% of your position at 15-20 pips - Move stop loss to break even & Leave 10% open for "What If" and to satisfy our greedy side.
Making this agreement with yourself can and will increase your profits!
I have written this statement 1) as a note to self after this week I "Could have had" 65+ pips , and 2) as an idea to myself others that its ok to make a living picking and chipping away at the huge mountain of gold in front of us piece by piece, rather then all at once
I hope you find this useful, if you do please give a thumbs up and follow for more!
I wanted to go over a valuable lesson in market psychology that I have learned repeatedly in my own experience. This is not an 'end all be all' strategy , advice, or lesson but perhaps an idea that you can take and make it what you want in your trading analysis.
Its really easy to theorize about markets and what they should do, wether its a pattern your following, indicator, or institutional concepts. We can all look at charts and spot gigantic moves and think "WOW! Imagine those profits you could have had!" , in fact we can see this daily in our pursuit of our trading goals.
But the reality is that in the exact moment of being in profits nothing is guaranteed! How many times have you said to yourself "Self - I'm holding this trade till the end of time" when your up 20 pips, only to have to smash back down and either stop you out at break even, or even worse, go negative and hit your stop loss? My guess is that if your reading this (or writing this) then the answer is all too often 🤣
So here is a solution...
Psychology
1) Just agree with yourself that consistent and steady profits is better then "what if"
2) Find your signature exit for how you trade - "When do I know for certain I should close all positions"
Practice & Reality
Since its pretty easy to catch 20 pips in the FX world you should capitalize on this and take it over and over and over , compounding your profits, and minizing your losses (assuming your strategy is profitably) and to satisfy our greed and "what if" then leave a small partial open to see what happens, which leads me to the third and final part of this solution....
3) Close 90% of your position at 15-20 pips - Move stop loss to break even & Leave 10% open for "What If" and to satisfy our greedy side.
Making this agreement with yourself can and will increase your profits!
I have written this statement 1) as a note to self after this week I "Could have had" 65+ pips , and 2) as an idea to myself others that its ok to make a living picking and chipping away at the huge mountain of gold in front of us piece by piece, rather then all at once
I hope you find this useful, if you do please give a thumbs up and follow for more!