Purshotham,
From ST DADA Great Teacher,
Re: Thoughts on Day/Swing Trading Part 2
TO ADD or NOT TO ADD
One of the questions which bother traders whether day traders or swing traders is whether they should add to the winning positions or not.The answer is not simple because adding the positions when the market is going in our favour it a good trading practice but it has its own trade-offs. Let us see what are the advantages and disadvantages :
1) Advantages : 1) The main advantage is when we get a strong trend, and we add to our positions, the positions become large without any increase in risk as we add in such a way that the total position after adds are not jeopardised.So in a strong trend the adds can give profits of 5-10 R from 3-4 R price move.
2) Another advantage is as we are adding in the profitable position along with the trend, there is less tendency/temptations of booking profits and taking positions against the ongoing trend.
2) Disadvantages : The main disadvantage is the trader looses small profits.Most of the times markets are sideways and choppy and small profits which has accumalated will vanish if we take adds.
So how does a trader resolve the above dilema ? This issue is more bothersome for daytraders. Swing traders generally get good directional trend moves but daytraders will always feel bad if the small profit accumalated goes away due to add and the trade becomes a breakeven or small profit trade. The solution lies in achieving a balance . I have found that daytraders can take atleast 1 add in sideways/weak trending markets but the moment they sense that the day could be a strong trend day, they must add aggressively and hold till the end as the statistics indicates that the strong trend days close at /near the bottom/top of the day. On strong trend days holding till the end is much profitable than buy/sell during the day In grinding up/down and choppy markets one should avoid adds.
But for taking adds, one should be prepared to fergo some small profits. Adds in swing trading are very profitable when we get a large trend and we have initial position plus 3-4 adds. Adds could be in 1:1:0.5:0.25:0.25 position so that the add quantity is reduced as we go further in the trend.
Traders can practice by starting with one add on a trend day and holding till the end, then increase add positions to 2 and so on...even one add straight-a-way doubles the profits.
Smart_trade
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While amateurs go broke by taking large losses,professionals go broke by taking small profits...... William Eckhardt in New Market Wizards
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