Algo Trading: Looking for advice on exit strategies

[Gathem]

I broke my strategy into two parts, Entry criteria, and Exit criteria. Right now, I am pretty happy with my entry criteria, but not as much on my exits...
I am wondering if anyone has advice on better exit strategies.


What I've been trying: I've been trying a strategy where I set very low stop limits when I'm wrong, and I let the wins ride. This results in my being right 15% of the time, but when I do get it wrong I usually only lose $1, and when I get it right I get $30.This reward/risk ratio is very high, and it performs well in backtests, BUT I think this is a bad strategy because slippage eats my lunch.
In addition to setting the stop loss, I also try to set a trailing profit target, so that it rides the goods, and cuts losses on the bads.

What else I've tried: I also tried using the inverse of my entry strategy, and that didn't perform super awesome.

What I'm hoping to dial in: An exit strategy that's much closer to 30-50% correct, with a lower risk/reward ratio.

Does anyone have some words of wisdom?

[Leeroy_Jenkins]

Always test with commission + slippage 1-2 ticks. If it's a good strategy, it should not turn it into a losing one. If you're trade liquid instrument like ES you don't get that slippage most of the time. It just give you a bit of confidence when you get that slippage you'll be fine.
My favorite exit is moving stop 1 tick lower previous swing low when price makes new high. For long position. And vice versa for short. It's much better than trailing stops/ATR stops. With this approach I don't use profit targets.

[bltdavid]

Always test with commission + slippage 1-2 ticks. If it's a good strategy, it should not turn it into a losing one. If you're trade liquid instrument like ES you don't get that slippage most of the time. It just give you a bit of confidence when you get that slippage you'll be fine.
My favorite exit is moving stop 1 tick lower previous swing low when price makes new high. For long position. And vice versa for short. It's much better than trailing stops/ATR stops. With this approach I don't use profit targets.

Hmm, I like that exit idea ...

What kind of chart do you trade with?
Have you found any particular Swing "Strength" works better than others?

[Leeroy_Jenkins]

Hmm, I like that exit idea ...

What kind of chart do you trade with?
Have you found any particular Swing "Strength" works better than others?

I'm still testing this thing. I prefer small tick charts because more swings, more price action. But it's also fine on 5 min chart. I started this like algo strategy idea, coded it, but results not that good. Additional filter is needed to avoid ranges. It can catch big moves but always straggle with ranges. Now I wanna use it for discretionary trading.

Swing "Strength"

For swings I use PriceActionSwing (swing lines, length in points, red/green bars) for almost 3 years. I don't think that if you have move 3x points up and x points down it's enough to initialize trade. You need context - are we really trending, no S/R where you enter etc.
Cyan dots is my code, I enter above/below them, stops are always below/above them.
I click buttons and it sends order immediately above/below dots, stops managing is fully automated. Thanks to strategy. it's not ATM strategy, it's simple one.