[torero]

Yes, charting tools are from TS (check View->Toolbars->Drawing). Yes I take positions in 1 swoop and exit in one swoop. It's still tough sometimes to hold oneself back from not exiting when watching the retracements. But I've come to realize 2 things: 1) money is made and then some from sitting on winners to cover the many losers. 2) these retracements indicate that the trend is healthy, giving new players a chance to come in and push the trend further. 3) Many times I realize I always take my profits too early no matter how much I think the market has gone already; this is a bias I'm still trying to get rid of.

Of course psychologically it's tough to watch prices go against your position but a couple of things I did that helped me overcome them. Once the trade was in my favor, I put the stop at breakeven. Once I had the position risk-free, it became easier to let the position go its way and only to move the stop to add more profits. The other thing I overcame was the initial stop loss; I had to accept that will be the loss I personally accept already, no matter the outcome of the trade. Knowing this makes me more careful about taking a position and avoid overtrading. So if it goes against me, so be it. This comes from confidence but confidence from letting go is from knowing your strategy will work and that takes lots of practice, time and patience to see for yourself that the strategy work (backtesting and papertrading). I took one year to papertrade before I was confident enough to trade it and accept the loss on each trade I make. From this period I improved my stats that 1 out of 2 trade is a loser so that fact made me comfortable about taking the loss because I know the trades I take are carefully selected for the high probability trades.

Having confidence in your system is the first hurdle. The last hurdle is patience to let the winner take its course. That is why exiting takes a long time to master because patience is the last trade virtue a trader learns and masters. Just IMHO.