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I always have exit orders. Have found that if I sit there staring at my charts when I am in the money, I am more likely to take myself out due to fear of loss when market noise comes in, and then miss the continuation of the move. So now I get in, set my exit orders, and go do something else.
I agree but I'm also concerned that if I have stop-limit behind my position and an OCO exit order ahead of my position, then there is a good chance that the market will reverse or retrace before hitting my exit. That would mean, assuming I'm away from my screen, that I would finish with a scratch trade (+slippage). Does this possibility not bother you?
My ideal exit order would be like a price-triggered action that replaces my manually created stop limit with a dynamic trailing stop. I feel that dynamic trailing stops are rubbish when building a position, but great at taking the emotion out of exits. Unfortunately, I don't see a way to automate their creation.
How do you set your exit orders (and which system are you using)?
Also.. if it were possible to guess the perfect exit price then a cut-and-reverse would be optimal, and I don't think anyone has suggested that should be automated.
For positions that are supposed to take a moderate time, I usually surf the net (blogs, forums, youtube), read books and so on, but rarely ever leave the desk, as I do keep an eye on prices from time to time. If a pattern that I don't like shows up before the profit target is hit, I may decide to close the position. Still have a lot to improve with this kind of decision making, though.
Sometimes I also do some "fire and forget" trades, where it's either stop or profit. Mostly when I have to leave the desk for more than a few minutes for whatever reason.
No, it really doesn't bother me. If I don't catch the larger underlying move, then the loss is just a part of my system. I tried trailing stops recently, and it tended to shut me out of greater overall profits than leaving the stop or moving it discretionary.
On a good trade, I try to place a stop over the top of the range, where only a violent false breakout could take me out before the market continues in my direction. I just use OCO orders in NinjaTrader. The ATM strategy helps me do it a little bit faster but it's nothing special. If I'm not getting in where my odds of taking my maximum loss per trade are low (ie placing the stop where I expect the market won't go means a large potential loss), and/or my profitable exit would not leave me profiting more than I am willing to lose, I generally don't take the trade to start with. It's what I like to think of as a mechanical discretionary system. All parameters and orders are laid out at entry, but they are not the same every time, allowing for the randomness of the market.
If you're really bored, you can play ANY Super Nintendo games online for free through the browser and it saves your data if you sign up for a free account. (although you don't need to sign up to play)
Oh how much I miss my XBOX. I already have to act "extra busy" so that my wife is convinced I am actually working lol. This is at the top of the list once my profitability improves, and I can prove to her the time vs. reward makes sense in her mind
I have an alarm set so that I check the market at the close of each 5 min bar for my trading hours, so I try to have a book that I am reading when emails are done, along with any other important items on my to do list for the day.
I try to stay updated on news and markets, so daily I check the following sites:
I have a defined area I want to trade which I mark before I start trading for the day, so I set a price alert at that level then go and live my life - this means I spend the majority of my time not looking at the screen. This can be anything from watching TV to playing a game or whatever. I glance at my screen once every 15 mins to see what's happening out of curiosity.
I find if I sit there and watch the price I'll either fall asleep or I think every tick is a setup and I should trade it - both very bad situations I don't want to be in. Additionally, by having a very clear area to trade and walking away until the setup happens, I stop myself from deviating from the plan.
Specifics? I play heroes of the storm, watch stargate, anything on hulu, play risk and when battlefront comes out - I'm all over it.
@Itchymoku try heroes of the storm!
