Quote:
Originally Posted by lewdog
This is all very subjective and you really have to figure out how risky you'd like to be with trading.
I lean to the more conservative side. Many traders are much more aggressive than I am. I prefer a lot of little-medium successes while others prefer being less accurate and trade for the home run.
Market conditions also precipitate how aggressive you should be. When things are whip-sawing, I am much tighter with stops. When things are going well, my initial stop loss may stay for days at a time.
With ENTG I was more conservative because it's previous best close was 122.05. So I tightened stop losses near this area in case it met resistance again. This did lead me to getting stopped out completely, which is fine as I locked in a 5% win. Had this stock been still retracing a previous high, I may not have been as tight with my stop. If you want to be aggressive with this trade you could sell 25% now and keep your original stop loss. If you'd like to be more conservative you could sell 25% now and set stop to right below intraday low of 6-28 at 118.49 (This scenario means it will be a green trade for sure).
My strategy for most trades is to sell 25% of the position when I hit a 5% gain. I then scale out another 50% of the position near 8-10% and absolutely raise my stop loss at this time. If my trading hasn't been going as well as I'd like, when I hit a 5% gain I also raise my stop to break even so that even if I get stopped out, I keep that trade green. If you prefer a stock to run but want to stay green, just keep raising your stop to the previous day's low.
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Damn, Thats grinding. I enjoy swinging for the fences for the most part. But I'm consolidating right now to take a break. Maybe!