TRIP Trade on Jun 17, 2014 10:16 from dhiebert: Tradervue User Stock Trades.

appears that I exited "just" in time. Made a profitable trade, however, this thing tanked right after I got out... It was just a hunch for me... I had expected it to have started making money right away... after it didn't it was like it was making lower highs... took the money and ran. This may have been a better 1-2-3 setup for the down side to short, however, I am not sure if this was a stock to short? Please advise... Right now I'd be looking for a 1-2-3 to the short side only on a rubber band setup. Hopefully you can advise if I was thinking right about this?

It would have been a potential short setup when it failed to make a new high at what looks like about 10:25. But even then, I personally probably wouldn't have gotten into it as a short just because there wasn't much room for it to move ($1 or less for a >$100 stock = <1% max reward).

However if you had seen this as a failure to make a new high, it would have been a good point to completely exit your position (rather than holding until your later exit).

How to handle it has to do with trading style, too, though. I tend to do more trades, with shorter time frames, because I feel I can predict the movements better over a short term. So I tend to get all out of a position quickly if the stock doesn't move the way I expect it to; even if it's just moving sideways, if I was expecting it to go up I'll get out, because it's not doing what I expect it to.

If it's more your style to hold longer, that's fine, but you might want to consider reducing your position size (to reduce your risk) when there's a sign that the stock might reverse (like when it failed to make a new high here). Sometimes I'll just reduce my position if I'm not sure which way it's going to go, and then after it makes a move, I either get all out (if it went against me) or scale up after confirmation of the move (if it went my way).