Setting entry and exit rules that survive a pump

The worst time to decide anything is while a candle is moving. Every rule in this guide exists so that the decision is already made before the alert fires, whether you execute manually or hand the rules to an engine.

Size the position for the loss, not the win

Decide the maximum you are willing to lose on a single token, and derive your position size from that. If your hard stop is 35% down and your maximum acceptable loss is 0.2 SOL, your position is roughly 0.55 SOL. Working backward from the loss keeps one bad trade from mattering; working forward from the dream number is how accounts die.

Hard stops are exits, not opinions

A hard stop is the price where you accept you were wrong. In meme coins, where a token can drop most of its value in minutes, a mental stop is not a stop. Either the exit executes mechanically or it does not exist. Expect the stop to fire on trades that later recover; that is the fee you pay for surviving the ones that never do.

Exit targets beat exit vibes

Distribution starts while sentiment is still euphoric, which is exactly why “I’ll sell when it feels toppy” fails. A fixed exit target, or a laddered one, sells into strength on purpose. You will routinely sell before the absolute top. The people who caught the absolute top are mostly the people who also rode the other trades back to zero.

Let the rules be asymmetric

A common structure: risk one unit to make three or more. Wide targets, tight stops, small positions, many attempts. Meme coin trading is a hit-rate game where most entries fail small and a few succeed large; the rules exist to keep the failures small and to actually collect the successes.

Automation is rule enforcement

The value of autotrading is not intelligence, it is obedience. An engine holding your parameters does not widen a stop out of hope or skip an exit out of greed. If you would not trust yourself at 3 a.m. during a green candle, write the rules down while calm, and let something unemotional hold you to them.

Nothing here is investment advice. Rules reduce damage; they do not create returns.