How Do You Know When To Exit

Trader Q&A…

Question:

Hi Lance,

It was by pure chance that I found your site through you tube, but am I glad I did!! Good sound advice which if you take it, works.

There is just one thing that always puzzles me and I hope you can help me with this. I have been looking at your articles on “Support and Resistance” with great interest and find them excellent info but I can’t work out where to exit. I open the trade and it goes in the right direction, I set my stop tight, watch it rise and then turn…Is this my exit point? I really do have difficulty with exiting, not that I won’t, I don’t really know when.

If this has already been covered on your site please accept my apologies as I have only just found it and I am ploughing through it with great interest.

Keep up the good work Lance

Kindest regards

K

 

Answer:

Hi K,

Thanks for the great feedback.

Exits are tough. The fact is, you can never know the optimal exit point for any trade until it’s over – sometimes it’s best to scalp a quick profit. Other times you should have exited at a stall at the next spt/res level. Other times the move continues and would have been a great trade, if only you’d trailed a stop. It can be very frustrating.

I haven’t dealt with exits anywhere near enough yet, but for starters check out the Exit Strategy Videos at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL20078FA00249E5A2

Note in the videos as well the comment by the ‘guru futures trader’ who made millions in the markets, whose only regret at the end of his career was that he never mastered his exit strategy.

For me, I trade in two parts. The first is planned to exit at the closest potential area of spt/res, but I’m happy to take profits earlier if price action stalls or reverses. The second part targets the next spt/res area, however in a market with the potential for a big move I’ll remove that target and just implement a trailing stop.

Is that the best exit strategy? No, but it works for me – it’s largely optimized for my psychology rather than potential for maximizing profits, as the videos hopefully explain.

Happy trading,

Lance Beggs

 

---