It mostly applies to options because of the time decay/expiry and the highly leveraged nature of them but for shares if the company is executing then you shouldn't sell. Having said that nobody would have predicted NVDA's meteoric rise. They were languishing for a long ass time, didn't do much (compared to the last 5 years) from 2009 (coming out of GFC recession) to 2019, (they did \~6-7x tho).
disagree on that last point. i didn't predict how much it would explode, but I bought specifically because it was well known back then they would be a leader in AI and being familiar with them as a gamer I had great faith that they would do it well. always had it as a 5 year buy, but when the crash happened in 2022 I took barely any profit and was too greedy to buy back in at $120 - $140, thought the market would turn down more. And kept waiting for it to fall back until it was at $440 and thought, screw it and started getting back in.
appreciate any insight on options. still too shaky on them to start dipping in. I get the concept, still don't get the timing
https://preview.redd.it/twjcgtjbnd9d1.png?width=480&format=png&auto=webp&s=b9dc82cac5383e19f441ed6a9735ea83e6342939
once you fuck up enough, youll stop, but some people never leave monkey brain
this is the way though... people are too obsessed with the lotto's that they forget enough small gains = that lotto that you were hoping for that never came.
Exactly, I thank OP for selling low since I took profit at 133 and bought the dip at 119. Surely in for more upside now that the gods have been trifled with.
It has taken years of behaviour training and hundreds of hours of youtube and reading. I now have stocks I'm long in that I don't feel the need to take profit on, and I'm way less greedy with my day trading and flips. I started doing some simple math and taking 15% on $1,000 investments which I flip in a few days or a couple weeks makes more sense than finding that undervalued gem and steeping in anxiety for a few months waiting for it to recover.
The number of times selling early to TP, only to see the price continue higher will be far outnumbered by the number of times the price goes south...regret nothing when taking gains
> The number of times selling early to TP, only to see the price continue higher will be far outnumbered by the number of times the price goes south
Holy fuck its so simple but reading that actually made it click in my head I think, thanks
I think the fear is that I feel like everytime I tap out with a small win, itll rocket past me and I'll feel FOMO
I'm just starting to put realistic stop losses in. If I'm up, put a stop loss on or a trailing stop because once things start plummeting they can just keep on going. I've never been pissed off when a stop loss is triggered and I've made money. So many times I've been pissed off watching it fall to nothing while hoping it bounces back up again.
I use RH.
I used to have my options show my total $ gains and I always held too long wanting more money. Now I have everything set to % gains and take the $ amount out of the equation.
If I’m up 20% I know it’s a solid return and sell. Even if I open the contract and the $ return isn’t the most impressive. It’s all about % not $
I’ve been doing stocks for the past 4 years and lost a lot of money on 2 very bad occasions, Covid and the start of the recession or when we knew inflation was too high. You never know when it’s going to tank. Even today we had some good news but the stocks still tanked half way. Always pull out even if it’s not a lot of money earned. It’s worse when you lose money, or even get stuck waiting for them go back up.
Have an exit strategy before you enter. Also sometimes when I’m up a lot I’ll set a stop loss for 20% up, so I pretty much guarantee I walk away with something. But also, we don’t profit around here. Might not be the best place to ask for advice unless you need help satisfying your wife, which we can definitely help with.
So there you are, saving, building a brokerage account up. delaying gratification. You’re so much more advanced and responsible than those impulsive consumers. Soon you can do all of these posh luxury things that are beyond the imagination of the rubes.
And then you lose. You lose huge chunks of money in an instant. You realize you could have already done those posh luxuries, and bought all of those consumer goods with the same money.
Then it won’t happen again. You’ll take your principle out of a winning trade. You’ll make a system of taking a percentage off the top of profits.
Ur monkey brain is right. Ppl who scalp for small gains don't have a buffer for big losses. And you could've been right had the rally continued. Dont bet small and win small. Bet small and win big.
Not at all. One of the most successful gamblers on WSB is user fausterion18. He claims a winrate of 30% betting on 0 DTE NDX options and big tech stocks. He has millions from doing this. He just doesn't sweat the small losses. Oh and he diamond hands many of his positions. check out his profile. He still has his gain posts up.
Have a plan of taking profit or setting a stop loss at whatever your acceptable lines are. Stick to it, don’t linger on the chart about what ifs afterwards
I have the opposite problem. I take small profits constantly and let my losers ride and accumulate further losses for way too long. The number of lotto tickets I sold too early haunts me.
What helped me early on is ALWAYS buying at least two contracts. so if I get to 100% profit I can sell one and make the other one risk free and ride it out if I want. I also use the "ghetto spread" strategy too, which I love doing. I get to secure profits, and leave room for a little more 100% risk free!
Once you start doing the little things like that, it becomes routine and you don't even think about it.
You just did what you wanted. Instead of holding for the big bucks when NVDA goes to 150 the next week, you paper handed it for sake of the small benefit.
Rather earn small than risk big. How much you are willing to risk is sadly, for those who also lose big, hard to change. But I really dont care if the stock grows after I sold, I dont experience fomo and I am comfortable with the profit I earn
When you get into a position you need a target price, even if it's completely made up and random (tho would not recommend this). The more accurate your target price, the less money you lose (can even be negative!).
Alternatively you can have a target time. E.g. you're playing some event, event happens, you sell whether you're up or down.
Plan your whole strategy before you buy, and stick with it. Going to the moon usually does not happen within hours or a day. You can just buy it again.
Very few got weathy from going to the moon in this business, most got rich taking small profits with much lower odds over time...
Or reduce positions instead. If you have 10 contracts sell 2 then another 2 then another 2 then another 2 and then hold 2. This way you can do this either on the way up, or on the way down which will protect you moving forward
the opposite is much worse, taking very small profits and holding your losers. THAT is how you blow your account, nothing wrong with your strategy you're just looking for bigger gains and that is alright cause once you hit it you'll be glad you hold
I’m assuming you’re buying options with short expirations. If that’s the case you have to have a plan and stick to it, discipline is key.
Don’t get caught in the mindset of “if I miss this run I’ll never get another chance”. Stocks go up and down every day. There’s always another chance if you don’t go broke. This sub is good in a lot of ways: it helps you identify movements and patterns, sometimes give good DD and advice, but it’s a double edged sword if you’re looking at other people’s gains and saying “why not me? I’ll just yolo it and become rich too”. You need a plan and the discipline to act on it.
If momentum goes sour, don’t be afraid to walk away. Throw away 20 instead of 200. If I see gains of any sort I’m happy and if I see them approaching 20% I start looking to sell as soon as the momentum stops or reverses. You can always buy back in at a higher strike if the momentum picks back up. I have lost out on many gains by not holding for longer, but I made money even when I “lost” and 10-40% is a significant gain, don’t let anyone convince you it’s not.
If you can’t be disciplined on short expiration, consider long-expiry. It’s easy to feel stressed when theta is lubing itself right behind you, longer expiration dates will give you some breathing room.
I think once you lose a bunch of money like that you start to get an anxiety afterwards of thinking it can happen again and that’s when you start taking profits, at least that’s how it was with me
Set a price tag BEFORE buying and stick to it. For me it’s mostly 30%ish.
I sold PANW yesterday with 25% gain.
Oh yeah and options only for hedging large pos.
Scared of the drop. I see green, I paper hands. I only make gains on sells worth a dollar and a few change at most and buy back in again when the stock drops about 20 cents below last sale. This is why I go up even when the stock goes down. But I can understand if people think what I do is too much work for not enough
There is a button in your account called "sell".
If you click on that button, you can sell the.....oh....hey! What are you doing?
That's the buy button again....and now you're buying on margin!
STOP THAT!
Set and forget. I, more or less, do this.
Buy a call for 1.60, set a sell order 1.75.
Bro, hammer it into your regarded monkey brain, if you get 10% profit on a single trade, you've beaten the S&P for a year.
Think about that.
In *one trade*, you've *beaten* the S&P for *an entire year*.
Now once you grasp how absurd it is that getting 10% profit in one day is, you'll gladly take it off the table.
Do that 3 times a week (say you have 2 bad days), 3 weeks a month (1 bad week), etc..in a year, you're up big.
TAKE THE W.
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Since you can't see the future, take profit. And don't bitch when your sold position goes to the moon after you sold. Profit you shall. (Yoda, 1969)
ugh....that second part, I still can't master...I'm looking at you 45 shares of NVDA in 2019.
It mostly applies to options because of the time decay/expiry and the highly leveraged nature of them but for shares if the company is executing then you shouldn't sell. Having said that nobody would have predicted NVDA's meteoric rise. They were languishing for a long ass time, didn't do much (compared to the last 5 years) from 2009 (coming out of GFC recession) to 2019, (they did \~6-7x tho).
disagree on that last point. i didn't predict how much it would explode, but I bought specifically because it was well known back then they would be a leader in AI and being familiar with them as a gamer I had great faith that they would do it well. always had it as a 5 year buy, but when the crash happened in 2022 I took barely any profit and was too greedy to buy back in at $120 - $140, thought the market would turn down more. And kept waiting for it to fall back until it was at $440 and thought, screw it and started getting back in. appreciate any insight on options. still too shaky on them to start dipping in. I get the concept, still don't get the timing
Well then, it sounds like it's on you, bud. You had faith about the company and sold to time the market and got punished.
and I get punished every day that company succeeds, even if I still get gains from it....haha. cheers!
I've been learning to sell 90% of my contract. Leaving at least 1 or 2 if I really feel the momentum is good.
Yoda was such a good hedge fund manager. No wonder he stole all the republics money and fucked off to space Florida
https://preview.redd.it/twjcgtjbnd9d1.png?width=480&format=png&auto=webp&s=b9dc82cac5383e19f441ed6a9735ea83e6342939 once you fuck up enough, youll stop, but some people never leave monkey brain
I'm more obssesed with not losing money than I am the potential for mega gains. Maybe I am just crazy
this is the way though... people are too obsessed with the lotto's that they forget enough small gains = that lotto that you were hoping for that never came.
Yer a regard, Harry.
I'm a hwat?
A blasted regard! Now ride the broom! NOT THAT WAY
Please tell Dumbledore I got the broom stick in the pooper again!
Watch NVDA rip to $130 on Monday / Tuesday just cause you sold your calls 
I kept one just incase lol 123 7/5 So it'll probably just sit at 124 for the whole week just to spite me
SEC incoming!!!!
Why
Because he kept one! That’s not how this works 
Where’s that one poster that had 20k of calls today for $138
Exactly, I thank OP for selling low since I took profit at 133 and bought the dip at 119. Surely in for more upside now that the gods have been trifled with.
It has taken years of behaviour training and hundreds of hours of youtube and reading. I now have stocks I'm long in that I don't feel the need to take profit on, and I'm way less greedy with my day trading and flips. I started doing some simple math and taking 15% on $1,000 investments which I flip in a few days or a couple weeks makes more sense than finding that undervalued gem and steeping in anxiety for a few months waiting for it to recover.
The number of times selling early to TP, only to see the price continue higher will be far outnumbered by the number of times the price goes south...regret nothing when taking gains
> The number of times selling early to TP, only to see the price continue higher will be far outnumbered by the number of times the price goes south Holy fuck its so simple but reading that actually made it click in my head I think, thanks I think the fear is that I feel like everytime I tap out with a small win, itll rocket past me and I'll feel FOMO
Glad it made sense ~ hopefully you can resist the Siren's call from behind the Wendy's dumpster now...lol
lmfao Idk that call is pretty strong
I'm just starting to put realistic stop losses in. If I'm up, put a stop loss on or a trailing stop because once things start plummeting they can just keep on going. I've never been pissed off when a stop loss is triggered and I've made money. So many times I've been pissed off watching it fall to nothing while hoping it bounces back up again.
I use RH. I used to have my options show my total $ gains and I always held too long wanting more money. Now I have everything set to % gains and take the $ amount out of the equation. If I’m up 20% I know it’s a solid return and sell. Even if I open the contract and the $ return isn’t the most impressive. It’s all about % not $
By not doing shorts and only going long. Some win more than others but thanks to inflation it's hard to lose.
Once you're dealing with a bigger account, a small percentage move is a lot more money.
> Once you're dealing with a bigger account The biggest account I'll ever have to deal with is probably Webull's paper trading account lol
I’ve been doing stocks for the past 4 years and lost a lot of money on 2 very bad occasions, Covid and the start of the recession or when we knew inflation was too high. You never know when it’s going to tank. Even today we had some good news but the stocks still tanked half way. Always pull out even if it’s not a lot of money earned. It’s worse when you lose money, or even get stuck waiting for them go back up.
Have an exit strategy before you enter. Also sometimes when I’m up a lot I’ll set a stop loss for 20% up, so I pretty much guarantee I walk away with something. But also, we don’t profit around here. Might not be the best place to ask for advice unless you need help satisfying your wife, which we can definitely help with.
Start buying 2 or 3 calls vs one. Unload first one at 30% gain for ex and so on. This way you lock some profits and stay in the game.
Yes I take small profits as I go.
Yay! We aren't diamond handing pump and dumps anymore? Has sanity returned?? Nah.
I saw my 124's and 127's expiring today go from $80-$670. It's just the way it goes when you have a crippling gambling addiction.
So there you are, saving, building a brokerage account up. delaying gratification. You’re so much more advanced and responsible than those impulsive consumers. Soon you can do all of these posh luxury things that are beyond the imagination of the rubes. And then you lose. You lose huge chunks of money in an instant. You realize you could have already done those posh luxuries, and bought all of those consumer goods with the same money. Then it won’t happen again. You’ll take your principle out of a winning trade. You’ll make a system of taking a percentage off the top of profits.
Can you explain it to me like Im a regard
like others have said, when you lose a bunch of money you’ll learn to preserve some of the profits
Ive lost like 3k in the past two weeks. Its painful lol
Hit sell once it turns green
thankfully, i have meetings all day. so if i check and im up, i sell.
Ur monkey brain is right. Ppl who scalp for small gains don't have a buffer for big losses. And you could've been right had the rally continued. Dont bet small and win small. Bet small and win big.
Bet small win big is very low odds though It seems you either bet small win small or bet big win big (leaps etc)
Not at all. One of the most successful gamblers on WSB is user fausterion18. He claims a winrate of 30% betting on 0 DTE NDX options and big tech stocks. He has millions from doing this. He just doesn't sweat the small losses. Oh and he diamond hands many of his positions. check out his profile. He still has his gain posts up.
Sell half when you're having the internal debate. Good way to ease into it. Also, averaging out over time really helps dial down the adrenaline.
Risk management
stop losses
Have a plan of taking profit or setting a stop loss at whatever your acceptable lines are. Stick to it, don’t linger on the chart about what ifs afterwards
I just tell myself that you can’t go broke taking profits. Seriously
I have the opposite problem. I take small profits constantly and let my losers ride and accumulate further losses for way too long. The number of lotto tickets I sold too early haunts me.
Once you blow up your account, you no longer have a choice 🤷♂️
What helped me early on is ALWAYS buying at least two contracts. so if I get to 100% profit I can sell one and make the other one risk free and ride it out if I want. I also use the "ghetto spread" strategy too, which I love doing. I get to secure profits, and leave room for a little more 100% risk free! Once you start doing the little things like that, it becomes routine and you don't even think about it.
You just did what you wanted. Instead of holding for the big bucks when NVDA goes to 150 the next week, you paper handed it for sake of the small benefit.
I have it on good info that NVDA will be trading sideways for all of July
Answer is too regarded for this sub. Use stop loss order.
Have an exit strategy or buy enough where you can sell the majority and cover your runner
Rather earn small than risk big. How much you are willing to risk is sadly, for those who also lose big, hard to change. But I really dont care if the stock grows after I sold, I dont experience fomo and I am comfortable with the profit I earn
When you get into a position you need a target price, even if it's completely made up and random (tho would not recommend this). The more accurate your target price, the less money you lose (can even be negative!). Alternatively you can have a target time. E.g. you're playing some event, event happens, you sell whether you're up or down.
Plan your whole strategy before you buy, and stick with it. Going to the moon usually does not happen within hours or a day. You can just buy it again. Very few got weathy from going to the moon in this business, most got rich taking small profits with much lower odds over time...
Or reduce positions instead. If you have 10 contracts sell 2 then another 2 then another 2 then another 2 and then hold 2. This way you can do this either on the way up, or on the way down which will protect you moving forward
Profit ?
the opposite is much worse, taking very small profits and holding your losers. THAT is how you blow your account, nothing wrong with your strategy you're just looking for bigger gains and that is alright cause once you hit it you'll be glad you hold
I’m assuming you’re buying options with short expirations. If that’s the case you have to have a plan and stick to it, discipline is key. Don’t get caught in the mindset of “if I miss this run I’ll never get another chance”. Stocks go up and down every day. There’s always another chance if you don’t go broke. This sub is good in a lot of ways: it helps you identify movements and patterns, sometimes give good DD and advice, but it’s a double edged sword if you’re looking at other people’s gains and saying “why not me? I’ll just yolo it and become rich too”. You need a plan and the discipline to act on it. If momentum goes sour, don’t be afraid to walk away. Throw away 20 instead of 200. If I see gains of any sort I’m happy and if I see them approaching 20% I start looking to sell as soon as the momentum stops or reverses. You can always buy back in at a higher strike if the momentum picks back up. I have lost out on many gains by not holding for longer, but I made money even when I “lost” and 10-40% is a significant gain, don’t let anyone convince you it’s not. If you can’t be disciplined on short expiration, consider long-expiry. It’s easy to feel stressed when theta is lubing itself right behind you, longer expiration dates will give you some breathing room.
Use stop loss.
I don’t sell
I think once you lose a bunch of money like that you start to get an anxiety afterwards of thinking it can happen again and that’s when you start taking profits, at least that’s how it was with me
This morning I was up $50 and took it, then it ran up way further I woulda been up $450.
How did it make you feel?
Set a price tag BEFORE buying and stick to it. For me it’s mostly 30%ish. I sold PANW yesterday with 25% gain. Oh yeah and options only for hedging large pos.
You just need to have a percentage that you take profit at every time. Up 50%, it’s probably time to go.
sell when you are happy and don’t look back
Scared of the drop. I see green, I paper hands. I only make gains on sells worth a dollar and a few change at most and buy back in again when the stock drops about 20 cents below last sale. This is why I go up even when the stock goes down. But I can understand if people think what I do is too much work for not enough
Evolve
There is a button in your account called "sell". If you click on that button, you can sell the.....oh....hey! What are you doing? That's the buy button again....and now you're buying on margin! STOP THAT!
What is monkey brain? Just stick to your targets bro. Don’t get greedy
Set and forget. I, more or less, do this. Buy a call for 1.60, set a sell order 1.75. Bro, hammer it into your regarded monkey brain, if you get 10% profit on a single trade, you've beaten the S&P for a year. Think about that. In *one trade*, you've *beaten* the S&P for *an entire year*. Now once you grasp how absurd it is that getting 10% profit in one day is, you'll gladly take it off the table. Do that 3 times a week (say you have 2 bad days), 3 weeks a month (1 bad week), etc..in a year, you're up big. TAKE THE W.
I dont know if I can set a sell order for profit through my broker (RBC - Canada) I can set like a stop limit sell but thats for a loss