Holding and exits are more difficult.
I find this to be true regardless of technique. You can get quite a lot with pivots because they give resistance areas in which to take some profits (or support if short), and then holding a portion as long as the trend continues can also work well. For example, if short Brazil last year, you missed a lot of gains by exiting on YS1 - the real low was 2015 YS2. By holding a portion below all long and medium term pivots, you had a lot more gains.
You can add some basic candle and volume analysis with moves on the pivots to help decide the next move. For example, last week on SPY, after 3 decent volume up days 3/16, 3/17 and 3/18 there was a very low volume advance 3/21, also a lower volume small candle 3/22 and then there was a drop. But the drop was also low volume and it quickly came back.
The other thing I would add after that is RSI. This can help on entries as well. We are looking for RSI extremes or divergence. Just hitting 70 or 30 doesn't count. In fact you can get slaughtered trying this and miss all the great trending moves. SPX monthly chart was overbought from 10/2013 all the way to 4/2015. NDX was even more extreme. So in fact exceeding 70 is a sign of strength because the market is telling you to wait for divergence. Ditto in reverse on buying oversold. Just this year daily SPY RSI reached 31 on 1/7 and then was 29 on 1/8. And there was a lot more drop to follow. The clear divergence on 2/11 low helped the buys there.
If you want even more, then I would think about basic trend momentum using MAs and a more thorough analysis of RSI across timeframes for possibility of trend exhaustion. I don't have time to do blog posts on this with everything I am checking, just putting this out there as a possible addition to the method.
For example if we take a 20MA on 3 different asset classes across timeframes:
SPY
D above rising 20MA, bullish.
W above falling 20MA, weak bullish.
M testing flat 20MA, uncertain.
Q above rising 20MA, bullish.
Daily chart strong and quarterly chart still strong, but uncertainty on both the weekly and monthly means the daily chart could easily turn back down. If we saw a more positive weekly chart then that would likely coincide with monthly chart resolving to upside.
TLT
D above falling 20MA, weak bullish.
W above rising 20MA, bullish.
M above rising 20MA, bullish.
Q above rising 20MA, bullish.
This is really quite a trend with only the daily showing very mild weakness. Based on this consideration it would have been better to hold portion of original 1/6 buy and not get shaken out by the 1 day break of 3/11.
GLD
D below falling 20MA, bearish. this came as a surprise on 3/25 with a big gap down.
W above rising 20MA, bullish.
M above falling 20MA, weak bullish.
Q below falling 20MA, bearish.
Issue with holding a full gold position was M and Q charts were not in full bullish mode yet. Now you can hope for this to unfold but right now this rally still different from the glory days of 2002-2012, with nearly all monthly bars on GC1 above a rising 20MA save 10/2008 and 5/2012.
So I went with idea of monthly pivot on the holds but considering the above would have led to a different conclusion, ie better to hold TLT and take profits on GLD. At least so far.
Now let's do the same for RSI & BBs to consider trend exhaustion.
SPY
D reached 68 3/17, no BB tag; weak high but may come back .
W was not OS on lows (other things were), no real edge except W chart RSI higher 2/8 area compared to 1/11 week. Note SPY weekly chart OB several times 2013-14 with even a good looking divergence that resolved with a simple pullback and another explosive move up. It was not until a deep drop and a very clear divergence 12/2014 that the market stalled for 6 months for distribution before a larger drop. Point - waiting for divergences on a strong run can take quite a while to turn!
M RSI 2 bars 49 , this is partially why there were buyers. Near 50 in an overall uptrend often good pullback area.
Q bearish RSI divergence possible on current bar and regardless very clear 2015 Q4 and this is additional reason why 2016 Q1 started off with selling.
So fairly odd here with monthly chart in pullback buy area but quarterly chart also showing possible top.
TLT
D last time OB 2/11 on high, no divergence; recent low 42, both signs of strength.
W 67 on 2/8 week high up there but not fully OB. high well outside BB sign of strength.
M bearish divergence on 2/2016 high compared to 1/2015 with much lower RSI and entirely inside BB.
Q some bearish divergence on 2016 Q1 high compared to 1/2015 as well.
So the interesting case here is larger timeframes Q and M showing some bearish divergence, but with D and W still stronger. A high test on the weekly followed by daily chart rolling over again could result in a larger drop (ie rate increase). Or the larger timeframes will ignore the divergences for longer with daily and weekly chart returning to high areas on RSI and BBs.
GLD
D yup classic bearish RSI and BB divergence on 3/7 high area.
W RSI reached 68 2/29 week.
M RSI reached 51 2/2016, sell area in downtrend like 50 area is buy in uptrend.
Q RSI 42 on low, not much edge.
So combination of daily divergence, weekly chart high RSI, and monthly RSI reaching 50 was reason to take gains.
Of course if all this is enough to make your head spin just keep to pivots, very simple, above / below Y, H, Q and M then have we reached a big R or S level. But if you trying for the multi-month buy and hold it would be better to be in on a strong trend. Usually entries are before this happens but then the momentum of the move gives you reason to hold.
On 1/6 TLT was above a rising D20MA, clearing a flat-ish W20MA that started to turn up, soon jumped above a nicely rising M20MA, and entirely above a very nicely rising Q20MA. By the time of adds 1/25-28 above all pivots, and above all 20MAs all with rising slope. No reason to nix that.