"In this particular instance, I had over four bucks two days after laying on the trade. I just went ,,,, WOW, if there EVER was a time to cut my profits short .... it's NOW."

This is how I came to hate brokers. I had shorted beans way back in the day. Shorted em with a couple two or three puts...the price was just way crazy high and looked like it was fixin to break so I bought the puts. Boom, down she goes for a few days. Called the broker to make sure my amazement was correct as to how much I was up. 1800 or so. Damned broker talked me into selling them back to take profits...that's a lot of money, said he. I was making the big bucks back then and 1800 wasn't really spit to me so I was going to let em ride. I had calculated they would go much further down...they did...cost me about 25K in 1990 money! I hate brokers.

Morale of the story...I bet there's tons upon tons more money left on the table from getting out of a position to soon than there is money made by letting them run.

I'm guilty of it, too. I'm in the process of trying to talk one of the nephs out of continuing to do that. He makes just a little bit and he's out...just so, I think, he can call it a winner. He leaves money all over the table and I have to listen to him "bawlin' like a calf"...shoulda, coulda, woulda.

I coulda had this much or that much. I tell him that over time that will wreck him mentally worse than just being wrong off the bat.

I try to get him to use trailing stops. Don't know why he won't. Could be he can't with what he's using to trade stocks with. I don't think he can even short them.

So I switched to this theory...if your long...pretend that you are out of the market and looking for a place where you would put on a short...look for a place you would say to yourself...this is a place I would sell...if you're long and come across a place where you would short, then sell out and go short.

This will cure you, because first...if you talk yourself into thinking you are at a place to short just to justify getting out of your long and it continues up...you lose money because it continues up and you lose money from the short. That'll hurt so bad you'll stop faking yourself into a short just to get out of your long.

Why sell out of a position at any other place than where you would put on a position the other way?

You see what selling just because you want to gets you. Either that or just be happy with what you made and walk away.

As my old Daddy told me once...I'm happy whenever I put money in the bank.