I wish you would write pages Just ask me more questions......and...

I wish you would write pages

Just ask me more questions......and if I know the answer, I'll comment.

When you enter a trade do you actually quantify an acceptable time risk ?

Not always, although two traders have helped to shape my views on this, mostly because if you have taken a position, but have to wait ages for the trade to start working. That cash may be better used elsewhere for a while.

One, who was a shorter term momentum trader, would only allow for three bars after the entry bar (in the timeframe he was working in) and if the trade hadn't started to work by then, would scratch it, and stop waiting and hoping.......(his style)

The other, had an entry type that was particularly used to trade commodity ETF's in the US (mostly the GLD).
I call it "Accumulating with the Accumulators".
So, when he saw some potential accumulation going on, and he was confident the smarties were buying, he would buy a parcel each time price price dipped back down to where the accumulation began, each time putting the stop a little below the recent lows (which allowed for absolute minimal risk per trade).
This type of entry was suited for commodity ETF trading, particularly the Gold ETF (GLD), as the price was pretty constantly on the move, so an accumulation was fairly quickly done, and would make a move reasonably quickly, without dragging on for two long.
And just on this, he would usually have two targets in mind before the positions were opened, and would cash in a proportion at the first target, and most or all of the second, if that target was also reached (both targets were reasonably easy to reach if things went well, so they were not big speculative targets). Sometimes he did continue to hold a small amount if the price action was particularly strong, and would crawl up the stop, until he was stopped out.
Oh, and one more thing, these trades were usually taken over a few days to a week or two at most. So once the trade started to work, he would start to slide the stops up to breakeven pretty quickly (often just one parcel one day, then the next parcel the next day, and so on....). His thinking was to protect capital at all times, so bringing the stops up to breakeven fairly quickly, made him comfortable (.....his style).
The Inverse also worked just as well when there was selling in the background.

cheers