STEP 4
NEVER LET A PROFIT TURN INTO A LOSS
remember step #2 "cut the losers with stops"? of course u remember how we talked about using "stops" to make sure that any of our losses remianed small losses.
well now we'll let u in on another secret. u can use stops to protect profits just the same way we talk abotu using them to protect our capital.
let me explain wat we are talking about:
imagine u had bought 1000 shares in a compay for $3.00 each
now imagine that u had set ur stop loss at $2.85 which is equal to a 5% loss. therefore if the shares u bought at $3.00 go down below $2.85 u will get out imediatley
being smart u will have also set ur profit target at 50% which means u r going 2 sell the shares when it gets to 4.50 and get out with a handsome profit
since u bought the shares, the price of the stock has gone up to $4.00 this means u now have an unrealised profit of $1000. not bad! but it also means that u now have ap roblem
should u wait for the shares to go to ur profit target before u sell them?? wat if htey never get to $4.50 and ninstead go down to $2.85 where your stup is?? that would mean u would lose the unrealised profit of $1000 that u currently have and make a small loss on the trade
the answer is to use a difernt type of stop, a ""profit protection stop" to make sure that we never let a profitable trade turn into a loss
THE PROFIT PROTECTION STOP
SO HOW DEOS IT WORK??? altho it might seem comlicated its actualy quite simple
if u take a trade n find that the prices move in ur favour u will start to have an unrealised profit
wat u should do now is to set a limit on the amount of the unrealised profit that u are prepared to lose. this will depend on ur plan and the stocks that u r tradin but we'll use 20% for our example
in other words we never want our unrealised profit to decrease by more than 80% of our unrealise dprofi