Give-back
A give-back is a trade or a day that was up and ends down. The position was green, you held on or kept trading, and the gain went back to the market.
In depth
It happens at two scales. A single trade goes 400 dollars up, you wait for more, and it closes at 100 down. Or the day is up 600 by 11am, you take three more trades because it is working, and you go home flat. Both leave the same number and the same feeling.
The fix is mechanical. Move your stop up as price moves, so a winner has a floor under it. Take a partial at a level and let the rest run behind a trailing stop. And set a point where the day ends, in profit or in loss, decided before the open.
Why it matters
Give-backs do more damage than losing trades, because you already did the hard part. The read was right and the entry was right. Ten trades a month going from 300 up to 100 down is 4,000 dollars, and it never shows up as a bad setup, so it never gets fixed.
Give-backs are one of the habit findings TraderLog computes from your trades, and an automatic tag marks the individual ones. The calendar shows each day's result, the stats page reports your best and worst day, and trade replay puts your fills back on a TradingView chart.
Frequently asked questions
Holding a winner with no stop behind it, and trading on after a good morning because the day feels easy.
Move your stop up as price moves, take a partial at a level, and set a point where the day ends.
Keep your Give-back trades on the record in TraderLog
Trades import from Schwab and IBKR on their own, every day lands on a calendar with its P&L, and the day's entry sits beside it. Replay any trade on a TradingView chart. Free for 14 days, no card.
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