Many stock market traders use different types of sell signal to exit position. Since exit signal cannot be 100% reliable, some traders use stop loss and profit target to exit position. Not much research was done in the past to define if a combination of different exits can provide a better trading performance.

 

Addaptron Software has done numerous computer simulations using historical data of well-traded big ETFs. The research discovered that a better trading performance in a long run can be achieved by using four conditions for exit. The image below explains these four exit conditions.

 

 

4-Way Exit Method has been implemented in computer program SMT1 by Addaptron Software. The software allows optimizing parameters of any exit combination. It can be only one exit, 2, 3, or all 4 exits. The table below shows one selected example of the different trading returns depending on exits combination (entry by signal in all cases).

 

Exit combination	Annual Return, %
loss	27
signal	167
profit	360
time	308
signal, loss	177
signal, profit	360
signal, time	397
profit, time	617
profit, loss	447
time, loss	399
signal, profit, time	617
signal, profit, loss	447
signal, time, loss	470
profit, time, loss	617
signal, profit, time, loss	684

 

The simulations were calculated using backtest data for 12-month period from 2017-08-25 to 2018-08-24 (252 trading days). The research was based on the historical prices of well-traded big ETFs that represent a whole sectors, like Financial or Biotech.