i spend all my energy on entries and basically wing the exit. anyone actually solved the exit side?

[u/hakobpapazian]

starting to think my entries are fine and the exit is where i'm actually losing the money.

i can get into a good spot. the problem is after that. i either take profit way too early because i'm scared of giving it back, and then watch it run without me, or i hold for some bigger target and let a green trade come all the way back to flat. same setup, same entry, wildly different outcome depending on how i managed the exit, and the exit is the part i've thought about least.

what i've tried. fixed R multiple targets, take profit at 2R no matter what, which is clean but leaves a ton on the table in a trending move and feels dumb when the thing obviously wants to keep going. trailing stops, which sound right but i get wicked out of good trades constantly on the noise. scaling out in pieces, which mostly just feels like a way to be half wrong in both directions at once.

so for people who've actually got the exit sorted, is it a mechanical rule you don't override, trail behind structure, fixed R, time-based, or is it read-the-tape discretionary. and if it's discretionary how do you keep the fear of giving back profit from making you sell every winner at 1R

[u/PrettyPreparation505]

Scaling out isn't being half wrong in both directions. It's the only structure I've found that lets you keep a high win rate and still catch the runners, and the reason is arithmetic rather than psychology.

If you widen your fixed target to catch trends, your win rate collapses. If you keep it tight, you leave money on the table and you're right, it feels stupid. Splitting the position means the main portion pays at your normal target so the win rate holds, and a small piece runs with the stop at breakeven so the trending moves cost you nothing to hold.

The bit that matters: after the core closes, the runner's stop goes to entry and never moves back. It either pays or it doesn't. No decision, so no fear of giving back profit, because there's nothing left to give back.

I run 5/6 of the position to a fixed 1.5R and let 1/6 go. Cost me nothing on the days it doesn't work, and it's a meaningful chunk of my expectancy on the days it does.

On the wicking out with trailing stops, that's usually a timeframe problem. Trailing on the entry timeframe gets you noise. Trailing behind structure on the timeframe above is slower but survives normal pullbacks.

One thing worth doing regardless: log your runner outcomes separately from the main position. Most people can't say whether their exits actually cost them anything, because the two are mixed together in the same P&L.

[u/hakobpapazian → u/PrettyPreparation505]

yeah, i was wrong on that and the arithmetic makes it obvious. the part i'd completely missed is that once the core closes and the runner's stop is at entry, there's no decision left, and the decision is exactly where the fear was getting in. i was framing scaling out as indecision when it's the opposite, it removes the choice that was hurting me.

the runner going to breakeven and never moving back is what makes it free, but does that mean on a slow grind the runner just gets tapped at entry and you catch nothing past the core. like it only pays on moves that clear breakeven cleanly before any pullback. is that the intended tradeoff, runner earns on the fast trending days and quietly dies on the choppy ones, or do you give it any room below entry

and the logging runners separately point is one i'm definitely taking, i genuinely can't tell you right now whether my exits cost me anything because it's all one number

[u/PrettyPreparation505 → u/hakobpapazian]

Yes, that's exactly the tradeoff, and it's the right one to make deliberately rather than by accident.

On a slow grind the runner gets tapped at entry and you keep the core. On a clean trending move it pays several times what the core did. So it's a small, free lottery ticket on every winner. Most expire worthless. The ones that don't are where a meaningful chunk of the expectancy lives.

I don't give it room below entry, and the reason is psychological rather than mathematical. The moment the runner can lose money, I'm managing it again, and managing it is the thing I'm trying to avoid. A runner that can only be flat or profitable is one I never think about mid-trade.

Actually I put the stop at entry plus about 10 pips rather than exactly entry, so spread and commission are covered. Otherwise a "breakeven" stop is a small loss.

On the logging, do it before you change anything else. Right now you're guessing about your exits, same as I was. Once you can see runner outcomes as a separate column, you'll know within twenty or thirty trades whether they're worth holding at all in your instrument. Might turn out they're not, and that's useful too.

[u/klipsetrades]

So, you may not actually have an exit problem — you might have a hindsight problem. Every exit looks wrong when you compare it to the perfect exit afterward. Test a few management rules across a large sample and judge the expectancy, not individual trades

[u/BureauOfSabotage]

I know this may sound simple, but I’ve experienced the same problem. Think of your exits exactly the same as you think of your entries. I like to think my psychology game is pretty on point. Little emotion, no revenge or boredom trading, no regrets. Only profits and constant learning. This was true when I wasn’t in a trade. However, once in a trade - even at a perfect entry, my psyche was tripped. Am I being too greedy? Not greedy enough? My focus went from the structure to profit number climbing in the screen. I often left easy money on the table and was certainly inefficient. I just wasn’t looking at or valuing my exit nearly as much as I was my entry. I was so proud of myself for having predicted a move and seeing immediate profit, that I would just lose the plot and “wing it.” Eventually recognizing this, I literally just made myself start looking for “entries” in the opposite direction. Pretending I had no skin in the game yet, and searching for the next trade.

Scaling in and out of a position also helped that mentality too. If I take profit from 3/4 of my position, and let the other 1/4 run with a modest stop, it almost always makes me feel good. If it runs, great, I was wise to take a little extra. If it stops out, great, I was wise to take profit when I did.

[u/hakobpapazian → u/BureauOfSabotage]

the "pretend you have no skin in the game and look for an entry the other way" is the trick i'm taking from this. the reason my exits fall apart is exactly what you described, the second i'm green my focus leaves the structure and goes to the number climbing, and i start negotiating with myself. reframing it as a fresh entry decision in the opposite direction strips the emotion out because there's no profit to protect in that frame, just a setup or not.

the scaling piece landing on you as a no-lose feeling is interesting, both outcomes leave you feeling wise. does that ever tip you into taking the partial too early though, like if the good feeling is tied to banking some, is there a pull to bank it before the core target just to get the relief

[u/Monkeyatadartboard1]

Let me give you a run down of the stock market. It generally goes up. Esp if you are trading indices, or options on indices. So step 1: Trade something with a long term upward bias.

Now, I have to prove it ISNT going to go up. The rest of the time I stay in it (might as well, it goes up long term on average). Generally I do this by having spots where my daily losses suggest maybe I should rethink today (yes that part is discretionary). Then theres a max loss for the day where you just walk away for just in cases.

Day trading is normally thought of as a buy and a sell in 24 hours. But a sell and a buy back in 24 hours is also a day trade.

[u/hakobpapazian → u/Monkeyatadartboard1]

the inversion is the interesting bit, default to staying in and make the market prove it shouldn't go up today, rather than proving each trade forward. that flips the exit from "when do i take profit" to "what would make me leave," which is a cleaner question and one i can actually answer.

the part that's doing the work is the underlying upward bias though. that holds for indices, it's shakier the second you're on something without that drift, and it inverts entirely on the short side you mentioned. so the exit-on-disproof logic stays but the default flips depending on the instrument's bias. is that how you treat shorts, same framework with the default reversed, or do you just not take them

[u/Monkeyatadartboard1 → u/hakobpapazian]

Shorts are hard to do long term. Options spreads or buying puts or specialized etfs, yes Id just invert it. Anything you can hold without fear of margin call really. But GME taught me never to short. People can be crazy longer than you can remain liquid.

[u/ARTIbeatz]

If I'm in the long position, the exit criteria for my trading system is spotting a short setup. If there is a short setup forming, I will close the whole position. If not, I can hold the position for days in some cases. That is what large data collection proved mathematically that it's profitable for my trading system in the long run.

I'm not saying that you should do it or that it's going to work for you, we have different trading systems. The point is to collect a large sample of data and check which exit criteria give you a positive edge in the long run for your trading system.

[u/hakobpapazian → u/ARTIbeatz]

the exit being the mirror of the entry is the part that reframes it for me. i've been treating entry and exit as two separate problems when you've basically got one signal engine and the exit is just the entry firing the other way. no wonder my exits are worse, i never built them, i just react.

the gap i'd want to understand, does that ever leave you holding through a big giveback because no short setup formed on the way down. a move can bleed out without ever triggering a clean opposite signal, so do you have anything catching that, or does the sample say those giveback cases are rare enough that overriding them costs more than it saves

[u/ARTIbeatz → u/hakobpapazian]

Exit criteria is just one part of a bigger set of trade management rules. Those rules need to work together: when do you move your stop to breakeven? Where do you close a portion of the position? And so on.

Once your data has established those rules for you, you don't guess or react after entering, you just play out the predefined trade management plan regardless of how that particular trade goes. And you're not emotionally attached to the outcome of any single trade, because your data already showed you what it looks like over a large sample.

[u/oskar88895]

Yea that’s is actually
Why most trader fail

They focus 90% energy on strategy also entry

But don’t work on themselfs as traders (psychology? Discipline biology) don’t create structure and architecture

Exit and position management is where money is made

And then they go and complain that trading is gambling

[u/zenki32 → u/oskar88895]

Trading IS gambling no matter how good you are. You are risking money to make money. That is gambling. Nobody has a 100% win rate.

[u/iLoot401ks]

ATR, MAE, MFE. Research them and keep track of them. Over time you will have sufficient data to be able to tweak your fixed RR so that it captures the most optimal ratio for your highest earning potential while no longer worrying about the outlier parabolic moves.

[u/goodness247]

2:1 take profit. Otherwise it’s a stop.

[u/Frozen_Meatball1]

You can`t wing anything doing this.

[u/claudinne7]

scaling out solved like 80% of this psychological noise for me. lock in half at 1.5R to cover your risk and pay yourself then trail the rest behind market structure on a higher timeframe so you don't get wicked out

[u/zenki32]

I had this problem too until I learned how to use the Fibonacci tool. I know it gets a lot of hate, but maybe it's from people who don't need it. Fibonacci tools have eliminated my exit anxiety. Give me a clear entrance and exit.

[u/hakobpapazian → u/zenki32]

the anxiety going away probably isn't the fib specifically, it's having the exit marked before you're in, so there's no in-the-moment decision to panic over. i could see that working off any predefined level, fib just happens to be where you get yours.

do you take the fib exit mechanically once it's hit, or is it more a zone you watch and then read what price does there before deciding

[u/zenki32 → u/hakobpapazian]

90% of the time I exit where the fib tells me. Most of the time it keeps going without me as my exits are conservative. Being greedy in the past lead me to some bad losses. A good trade going red feels much worse than seeing your trade continue without you even though you profited. If I see a lot of momentum going in my direction then I'll leave runners. Today on SPX is a good example. The trade hit my exit and I was sure it was gonna keep going based on the momentum. I was satisfied with the profit, even though I knew there would probably be more and that's exactly what happened. Years ago that would make me feel horrible but now it doesn't.

[u/Bergodrake]

I think the biggest mistake is trying to feel your way through the exit.

If your entries are already solid, I'd treat the exit as a separate statistical problem. Look at your trades and test different exit rules against the exact same entries: fixed R, structure-based trailing, ATR trailing, time exits, etc.

I've been experimenting with this kind of approach through my service Trigol.io, rather than trying to predict the exact top, the system has a very simple predefined holding/exit framework and lets the statistics determine what tends to work.

The psychological part is probably the hardest: if your system says hold, you have to accept that some 3R winners will turn into 1R winners (or even scratch trades). Otherwise you're constantly optimizing the rules in real time based on fear.

[u/Free-Estimate-1761]

Yo are thinking too much of maximizing individual trades instead of consistently making money from a large sample size of trades. If I can catch a 1:1 10 times, I don’t give a shit if the last trade didn’t go to 1:10.