[b4gt]

Please dear traders I need your help. Since I am under capitalized and still struggling to learn I keep my positions small. So the maximum amount I put per position is 500€. I have found my self gaining as much as 100€ (that is 20%) from those 500€ and the next day my stop gets hit and I get out with 4€ profit or even loss. That's not that bad since these stocks after they hit my stop are on their way to meet the volume chart.

So I think I have two problems.

One is I don't know how much should I expect to gain realistically from a trade. If the whole market is going down and a few stocks are rising, are they to be expected to continue rising or I should be grateful that I survived one more day and take the money and run?

The other one I am struggling to understand is where to put my stops. I am trying to simulate trading by playing historical data bar by bar. A typical pattern that I see is that after I enter a trade, it goes 2-3 days my way and then it kicks me out with a few cents of profit or a heavy loss. After that sometimes reverses again and continues it's way up.

[BlowFish]

Hard to say without some chart examples. A common way of dealing with stops is to use market structure. Hide the stop a few ticks behind the last swing high swing low before your entry.

[b4gt]

Here is a recent example. I got into this trade at 26 June @14.99€ and my stop was hit at 10 July @15.26. To this one I invested the sum of 994.61€ and got back in return 999.52€. That means 4.91€ profit. The day before after the close I had something over 75€ profit. This I consider a fair trade since at least I didn't record any loss.



The reason that I put the stop loss at that point is because I was watching the rest of the market going downwards and I thought that if it was going to fail with such a big candle then it deserved to die.

This thing has happened a few times so I would like some advice how to maximize profits in such conditions?

[bakrob99]

Don't get into a trade in the first place without having a target in mind. Then trail your stop behind the Swing Highs/Lows after you are 50% towards your target.

[DbPhoenix]

Originally Posted by b4gt »

Please dear traders I need your help. Since I am under capitalized and still struggling to learn I keep my positions small.

No offense intended, but if you're undercapitalized and still struggling to learn, you don't need to keep your positions small; you need to stop.

Develop a consistently profitable trading strategy through research, study, and simtrading. Then go live in increments. Otherwise you're just wasting your time and your money.

[TAvoidance]

If the charts are turning against you then don't you think your analysis must be wrong?
The amount you should expect to make from a trade should be part of the reason you enter it. You should have a target in mind and take the trade only on the merit of risk:reward and probability of the move. The moves in prices you are referring to are sometimes called retracements.

you seem to have a nice bit of money to play with there ( a lot more than me lol) so I suggest you do a bit of research on price action (google it) and read a book called mastering the trade by john carter

You will regret it if you lose your money before you've given yourself a fighting chance of actually making money

[b4gt]

They don't turn immediately against me. They usually go in my direction and give some profit before they turn against me. The problem is how much profit is enough. I have read the John Carter's book and Suri Duddella's book and Alexander Elder's book and many websites around the Internet. My main confusion with what they describe is if they can be applied to day trading, swing trading and if there is any difference.

@DbPhoenix
Unfortunately I am the kind of guy who must shoot his foot to learn to operate a gun. If I stop I will not learn. I study so I will not blow the foot. The link you provided has many useful things. I already am applying some of them.

I have an entry strategy. I want to find an exit strategy. I thought that a good strategy was to trail stops and let the market take me out. I used to trail them two days back and didn't follow that strategy meticulously. The only unbreakable rule is "Once the stop has been set it never goes back. Only forward or stands still". Now I see that this is inefficient. I didn't believe that setting targets is a good idea because every guru says "Let your profits run". It seems I was wrong. What should be done when the target gets hit? Should I get out? Tighten my stop? I don't like the idea of scaling out or adding to positions because that would confuse my record keeping.

[traderallen]

on swing trades (3 to 5 days) I have found a % change exit works best. From my entry price when the price moves 1.5%, move stop to break even then lock in a 2,5, and 10% profit. daytrades are different. AB