Partial profits versus all-or-nothing: the math is not what most people think
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2026 8:38 am
Taking half off at one times risk and letting the rest run feels like the grown-up way to trade. Whether it is better depends on a detail that rarely gets discussed: what the runner does after the partial.
Take a setup with a 6 pip stop and a 12 pip target, hit rate around 40 percent. All-or-nothing gives a small positive expectancy. Now split it, half out at 6 pips and the rest to 12 with a stop moved to breakeven. The hit rate of the first half jumps, equity gets smoother, and the psychological pressure drops. But the runner now gets stopped at breakeven on every pullback, so the second half hits far less often than the original 40 percent, and the commission on two exits is paid twice.
The smoother curve is real. The higher expectancy usually is not. Where partials do help is on setups where price tends to stall at an obvious first level, because the stall is the reason to bank something.
The honest test: run the same hundred trades both ways in a spreadsheet, include both commissions, and compare total outcome, not win rate.
Have you found a setup where splitting the exit actually improved the total result, or only the feel of the equity curve?
Take a setup with a 6 pip stop and a 12 pip target, hit rate around 40 percent. All-or-nothing gives a small positive expectancy. Now split it, half out at 6 pips and the rest to 12 with a stop moved to breakeven. The hit rate of the first half jumps, equity gets smoother, and the psychological pressure drops. But the runner now gets stopped at breakeven on every pullback, so the second half hits far less often than the original 40 percent, and the commission on two exits is paid twice.
The smoother curve is real. The higher expectancy usually is not. Where partials do help is on setups where price tends to stall at an obvious first level, because the stall is the reason to bank something.
The honest test: run the same hundred trades both ways in a spreadsheet, include both commissions, and compare total outcome, not win rate.
Have you found a setup where splitting the exit actually improved the total result, or only the feel of the equity curve?