Trade Management: How To Hold Winners And Cut Losers

Good entries don’t matter if your trade management is trash. This page explains how to stay in good trades long enough to get paid and get out of bad trades before they kill you.

1. Cutting Losers Quickly Isn’t Optional

Futures move fast. If you don’t cut early, you lose control instantly. A normal 5–10 tick pullback becomes a 25–40 tick nightmare in seconds.

Rules that survive:

• If your stop is hit, you’re out. No exceptions.
• Never widen stops.
• Never add size to a losing position.

Managing losers is 80% of staying alive.

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2. Why You Can’t Hold Winners

Beginners cut winners early because:

• They’re oversized
• They entered late
• They don’t trust their stop
• They focus on P/L instead of the chart

Fix the cause → holding winners becomes automatic.

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3. How To Hold Winners Properly

When the trade moves in your favor, you don’t randomly take profit. You follow structure.

Use These Signals to Hold:

• Higher highs & higher lows (uptrend)
• Lower highs & lower lows (downtrend)
• Pullbacks that hold the 20 EMA
• Strong volume pushing in your direction

These signs mean the move is alive — let it run.

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4. How To Exit Winners Properly

There are only three good exit signals:

• Break of structure (trend break)
• Big opposing candle with high volume
• Hitting a key level (overnight high/low, yesterday’s high/low, VWAP)

If none of these happen, holding makes more sense than bailing.

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5. Don’t Move Your Stop Too Early

Beginners move their stop to breakeven the second they’re green.

Problem: You get stopped out by normal noise, and then the real move starts without you.

The correct approach:

• Wait for structure to confirm before adjusting the stop
• Move stop only after a new higher low (or lower high) forms
• Never trail based on fear

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6. Your Best Trades Will Feel Uncomfortable

Big winners always feel like they’re “about to reverse.” If it felt easy, everyone would do it.

Holding winners = sitting through small pullbacks with discipline.

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Bottom Line

You don’t get paid for being right. You get paid for managing the trade correctly after you’re right. Good entries help — but execution and discipline print the money.