Deciding when to exit is, for most traders, harder than deciding when to enter — and it matters just as much to the outcome of a trade.
Fixed Profit Target
Decide on a specific price or percentage gain before entering, and exit there regardless of how the move feels in the moment. This removes emotion from the exit decision but caps the trade even if the move keeps running further.
Trailing Stop
Move your stop-loss up (for a long position) as the trade moves in your favor, locking in progressively more gain while leaving room for the move to continue. This can capture a bigger move than a fixed target but can also give back more profit on a sharp reversal before the trailing stop triggers.
Time-Based Exit
Exit after a set amount of time regardless of price — useful for scalping specifically, where a setup that hasn't worked within a short window often isn't going to. This is less about price and more about not letting a trade linger indefinitely.
Technical-Level Exit
Exit when price crosses back through a meaningful technical level — for example, closing back below VWAP after you entered expecting it to hold as support. This ties the exit to the same logic that justified the entry in the first place, rather than an arbitrary price or time.
Practice Exit Timing
ScalpClock's Exit Assistant is built specifically for practicing and analyzing exit timing on real price action.
Open Exit AssistantThe Discipline Problem
The most common exit mistake isn't picking the wrong method — it's not following whichever method you picked. Holding a loser past your planned exit hoping it recovers, or cutting a winner early out of fear of giving back gains, both break the plan you set before emotions got involved. Whatever exit approach you choose, deciding it before you enter — and actually following it — matters more than which specific method you pick.
Study Real Exits in Replay
See how these exit approaches would have played out on real historical price action, with zero capital at risk.
Open Chart Replay