A one word exit reason for every trade

[Fairman]

A one word exit reason for every trade

Entry reasons get a lot of attention in journals. Exits usually get a price and a result, and that's it. One small thing that's helped me is adding a single word for why the trade was closed.

The words I use: target, stop, time, signal, manual, news. Target and stop are self explanatory. Time means I closed because it had run out of the time I give trades. Signal means something on the chart told me to get out, like a structure break against me. Manual means I closed it by hand without a clear rule. News means I closed ahead of a release.

The interesting one is manual. Those are the exits where I'm not following a rule, and after a while you can check how they do compared to the others. If manual exits are consistently worse than letting the stop or target do the work, that's a strong hint to leave trades alone. If they're better, maybe there's a rule hiding in there that I haven't written down.

Time exits are useful too. If a lot of trades end on time with small results, the time limit might be too short, or the setup doesn't move quickly enough to scalp.

One word per trade. Takes no effort, and over a couple of months it shows a lot.