I use trailing stops for exits, but I never do it BEFORE market open. Too many things happen in the first few minutes of trading. I'd avoid this in the future.Josepi said:
Question for the board about trailing stops.
I bought a pretty good amount of MARA yesterday, and before the market opened this morning I put in a trailing stop of 2% to trigger in case it went south. The stop triggered this morning, and I sold my shares. I still made a good profit, but I left quite a bit on the table.
That leads me to believe that I set my trailing stop too tight.
Where do y'all set trailing stops? Do you use percentage, or a dollar amount? Does it vary for each occasion, or do you typically stay with the same setup?
Also, why did the stop trigger? The stock never dropped by 2%. There were a few fluctuations this morning, but never a 2% drop.
I usually use a dollar amount, and only for profitable exits after a recent unexpected good run. I set them pretty tight, as I'm already ready to exit, but don't want to give up on the possibility of a last minute run upwards.