Ask option traders about their biggest challenges, and you'd think deciding when to enter a trade would be at the top of the list.

Well, OptionsZone.com surveyed more than 1,100 investors about a variety of topics, including which factors are most difficult when it comes to trading options.

Guess what they said? "Get me out of this trade with a profit!"

Yes, a whopping 46% of the responses indicated that deciding when to exit an options trade is the most difficult part of trading options.

Surprised? We aren't. Closing trades can be stressful. So we thought we'd provide three basic strategies for determining timely exits for your option positions:

1. Learn to read the technicals.
2. Set profit targets.
3. Watch for events.

Exit Strategy #1: Use Technicals

Common tools used by traders to identify optimal entry prices for a stock position are the various levels of support and resistance arising from the technical analysis of a stock. The same applies to closeouts. We usually keep an eye on the significant technicals of the underlying asset to identify timely exits for our option positions.

We'll use a return to a significant support level as a signal to close out a put, because that indicates that the stock may be due for a short-term bounce.

Or we may close a call as the underlying asset approaches significant resistance in the form of a declining moving average.

On Feb. 6, we recommended buying calls on Dollar Tree (DLTR) following a sell-off in the stock after earnings. At that time, we identified $41.50 — the location of the stock's 50-day moving average — as a potential exit point for our option position. Reviewing the chart, DLTR had been extremely reactive to its 50-day moving average as a catalyst for support and resistance.

Following this approach, we issued a sell recommendation to our Winning Edge subscribers on March 4, when the stock ran into its 50-day trendline, which had declined to just below the $40 level.

The results? Our option position returned a 61% profit.  Could the stock have moved higher, resulting in a better return? Of course. But for our purposes — and our subscribers' collective sanity — we followed the technical approach for exiting as it provided a logical, reasonable and profitable closeout.

Exit Strategy #2: Set a Profit Target