Shoulda, coulda, woulda

Well, oil is pushing towards $120 a barrel which is great for my trade but it leaves me wishing I had bought more than 20c a pip at $116.36.  If hindsight were foresight, I'd be a feckin' millionaire by now. Shouldn't complain though - at them moment, the trade is in profit of over 60 quid which is double what it was yesterday.

I've thought a little more about when to get out of this one. Normally, when a trade pushes roughly 2.5% further than I've bought it, I'll sell a third of it. Then, when it hits 5% more than I've bought it, I normally sell the second third.
I then leave the last third to run.

But this time, I've simply set a stop at $117. In this way, I'm now guaranteed something at least. But rather than selling some as described above, I'm going to hold the lot. If it keeps rising, I'm going to move the stop higher, a sort of a manual trailing stop if you will. In this way, if it moves forward a decent amount, I will have the full stake earning me money rather than a small portion.

Deciding when to get out is an inexact science though and is often as difficult as deciding on whether to open a trade in the first place!


Open Brent Crude Oil trade: