Good morning, traders…
When I was working towards my teaching degree, I taught a kid named Gary. He was smart as a whip, but he had a bad habit.
He’d ace the pop quizzes. Low-stakes, easy wins. But when a unit test rolled around, he’d bomb it. Not because he wasn’t capable, but because he froze.
He’d spend so much time fixing small things — double-checking easy answers, crossing “i”s and dotting “t”s — that he’d run out of time to handle the big problems.
He chased the easy wins so hard, he let the real challenges wreck his grade.
That’s exactly how most traders treat profit and loss.
You lock in small wins right away. It feels good. But then you let the losers sit. You stare. You wait. You pray. You justify saying, “It’ll come back.”
Sometimes it does, and that just reinforces the habit.
But most of the time, it doesn’t.
And what was once a small red candle becomes a session-ruining mistake.
Too often, this causes you to take small profits and big losses.
If That Vicious Cycle Sounds Familiar, Let Me Show You How To End It Once And For All…
If I could only tattoo one trading rule on my arm, it’d be this: your stop-loss should be no more than 30% below your entry.
Not 50%. Not “wherever the 200-day is.” Not “when it feels really bad.”
30% max.
You place the trade. You set the stop. You walk away.
If the stop triggers, you’re out. Period. No dragging it into the next day. You treat that stop like a fire alarm — you don’t ask questions, you just get out.
Why 30%? Because it keeps your max risk low enough to survive a string of losses, while making sure you don’t get stopped out based on a tiny move.
You can still take shots. You can still go for the bigger move. But you never let one trade blow up your whole week. It protects your capital and your confidence.
This is the only way to consistently avoid big losses.
The Secret About Small Wins
Taking profits doesn’t mean cashing the whole thing out after the first green candle.
You should scale out of your wins gradually.
Take some off the table early. Lock a small gain. Let the rest run with a trailing stop or a tight exit plan.
This habit keeps your emotions in check. You’re not all-in or all-out. You’re not constantly flipping a coin on the next candle.
You’ve got structure. And structure gives you confidence.
It also gives you consistency. Over time, those partial profits stack up. They smooth out your curve.
They make the big wins stand out without making the small wins feel like crumbs.
Never Look at a Red Day the Same Way
Most traders think their edge is in their setup. Or their chart. Or their special moving average combo.
It’s not.
It’s in their exits. Their discipline. Their repeatability.
Traders who win long-term take small wins and small losses. They let the big wins happen naturally. They don’t force them. They don’t fake them.
And they never let a single loser become a portfolio killer.
If you only fix one habit this month, make it this: take your small wins, honor your small losses, and kill the big ones.
Set your stop. Respect it. Scale your exits. Repeat.
You’ll never look at a red day the same way again.
Happy trading,
Ben Sturgill
P.S. Since launching my OMEN Scanner, I’ve achieved an 89% win rate with a 72% average gain…*
My top 120 trades have all generated 100% or higher. 27 soared above 200%, and 12 exploded beyond 300%…*
But my biggest trade yet could be setting up RIGHT NOW.
Join Danny Phee this THURSDAY, August 7 at 9:00 a.m. EST for a LIVE WORKSHOP where he’ll go over our best trade ideas in the options market.
Stop missing triple-digit trades— Click here to sign up before it’s too late.
*Past performance does not indicate future results
