I never count on open profits. They can disappear far quicker than when being built up. But the only valid reason to exit a trade is when my trailing stop is hit. Learning to accept this and allow things to play themselves out is a difficult but necessary skill. #trendfollowing
The alternative would be to try and be 'smart' and attempt to exit at the extreme of a move. The danger then becomes cutting your winning trades short, and over time its the outlier price moves which power the growth in your equity.
In my own experience and from talking to lots of people over the years who have tried to follow price trends, it is the "letting winners run" element which is far more difficult to get comfortable with and successfully implement, than the "cutting losers short".
Possibly the most famous example of this in trendfollowing lore is the heating oil trend from the Turtles initial training period. So the story goes, only one trader stayed in the trend until expiry.
This must have been an "A-ha!" moment for the group as a whole, and is a lesson countless others (including myself) have read about and learnt from in later years.
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