Free lessons › Trade Management & Scaling › Avoiding the Premature Exit

Letting winners run

Trail stops behind structure, not behind feelings.

8 min · Advanced

What you'll learn

• Trail a runner's stop under each confirmed higher low, or above each lower high on shorts
• Compare a structure-based trail with a tight fixed trail
• Write one pre-planned exception for climactic moves into major levels

Key takeaways

• Trail runners behind confirmed higher lows or lower highs, on your entry timeframe.
• A higher low counts only after a later candle closes above the pullback candle's high.
• Tight fixed trails get hit by normal pullbacks and cut runners short.
• Any exception, such as tightening after a climactic bar, must be written before the trade.

Glossary

• Trailing stop — A stop that is moved in your favor as the trade progresses, locking in more profit.
• Confirmed higher low — A pullback low validated when a later candle closes above the pullback candle's high.
• Climactic bar — An unusually large candle, often about three times normal range on heavy volume, that can mark exhaustion.

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