Entries and Exits

There is a good discussion going on over at the Tradestation User forum about entries and exits.  If you are a registered TS user, you can access it here: https://community.tradestation.com/Discussions/Topic.aspx?Topic_ID=120700

For everyone else, I thought I'd post a couple of comments I left today about entries and exits...


"As for me, my history shows that I am pretty bad at getting "good" entries, and pretty bad at getting "good" exits. For almost every trade, I seem to enter at the wrong time, and exit at the wrong time. New trades almost always go against me - usually immediately. Existing trades sometimes go from profit into loss.

My systems sometimes seem to have a penchant for buying at the peak, and selling at the low (some of my favorites I post at my blog). Through all that I seem to survive. For me, then, I think it is when I exit - before too much damage is done on losses, and trying to ride winners for a long time. It is tough, though.

To me, what I said about having "bad" entries and having "bad" exits is the funny part about trading. You can do well overall, even though it seems like you aren't doing well on most trades.

Maybe it is me maturing as a trader. In the old days, I used to really get bummed out when a new trade would immediately turn against me. Now I realize that almost every trade - eventual winners and eventual losers - are losing trades at some point. Most are winning, too at some point. So, I try to just let things play out, per the system, realizing my results will be far from "perfect."

The other thing I have found is that if I start to actually deep down believe I am a great trader, then that is when I am most vulnerable to making big mistakes (changing a system with improper testing, adding size too quickly, abandoning research because everything I have is doing great, etc).

So, I try to treat every day as my last as a trader - before I have to go back and get a "real" job."