Hi - great question. For my intraday stock trading, which primarily is momentum breakouts/breakdowns during the opening hour, I use the following to help determine exit/profit targets:

+ how long the stock moved in it's immediate past: the biggest single strong move before consolidating/pivoting that it made, looking back at the last 2-3 days worth of data, as the "best case" exit

+ 1/3 to 1/2 of the immediate past day's ATR (for example, if RIMM has and average daily range of 7 points, as it does in the current market (3/10/2008), then my maximum target would be 7/2 = 3.5 points.

+ I'm very likely to exit near the next whole number resistance and/or prior cup pattern s/r lines, especially if the tape is slowing down once in a live position.

+ and of course I primarily just use a .2 trailing stop on open orders, with the assistance of time and sales for live tape reading. If I see a slowdown in the tape, and large prints on the ask, and the market itself is slowing (and/or trin flipping against the trade), then I will likely exit at least 1/2 the position as well.

Remember, the entire concept of "exit targets" is relatively unimportant, the main thing is risk management and trailing stops on open positions of no more than a quarter point.

That's because stocks seldom do what we expect of them; rather our ability to win at this is determined by our ability to take small stops on incorrect entries, and trail small stops to lock in *whatever* profit we're able to take, on the winners.

Thanks for the question,

Ken