Does anyone trade the eminis ES,YM etc. without a 'stop'.yea that takes guts I know..

the idea of using a "mental" stop is idiocy.

there are way too many what if's. what if your power AND phone line goes down while you are in a trade, and the market drops X points and you are helpless.

what if... etc.

if you are not managing risk, you are gambling, not trading. sure 99.9% of the time, you can trade with mental stop *assuming rock solid discipline* and not have a problem. but given sufficient 'n', even the extremely unlikely is almost certain to happen. think monkeys typing shakespare or think that fateful day in 1987.

most retail traders are gamblers watching squiggly lines (and most lose money). successful traders understand that each trade is a business decision. making a business decision without risk management is dumb

and again, it doesn't matter that you have traded successfully (not that i believe most traders in here are successful) for X years using :"mental stops" without a problem. what matters is that you are not protecting your capital.

tails are fatter than people realize, and even if they weren't, it is still absurd not to limit your risk.

and for those trading the ES, there is NO advantage to a mental vs. a hard stop. none.

except psychological. people who use mental stops are doing so out of fear of "losing." if you can't afford (economically and psychologically) the risk inherent in the trade setup, then don't make the trade. and the SETUP necessarily includes where you get out of the trade if it goes against you.
 
Absolutely untrue. My P/L headed straight north the day I stopped using stops. There are <b>better</b> ways of managing risk. Take a trip down to the CME floor and ask a floor trader where his stop is and he'll laugh at you. Successful traders don't need stops to manage risk. They have iron clad discipline and exit the trade manually when it isn't working. Putting on a trade and placing a stop puts you at the mercy of the market. You no longer have control of the trade and will succumb to randomness.



Quote from smilingsynic:

Those who trade the ES/YM without stops are guaranteed to suffer large losses.

Period.

It is symptomatic of undisciplined, lazy trading.
More...
 
It's only "idiocy" if you don't have the discipline to exit the market when the trade isn't working.

Quote from whitster:

the idea of using a "mental" stop is idiocy.

there are way too many what if's. what if your power AND phone line goes down while you are in a trade, and the market drops X points and you are helpless.

what if... etc.

if you are not managing risk, you are gambling, not trading. sure 99.9% of the time, you can trade with mental stop *assuming rock solid discipline* and not have a problem. but given sufficient 'n', even the extremely unlikely is almost certain to happen. think monkeys typing shakespare or think that fateful day in 1987.

most retail traders are gamblers watching squiggly lines (and most lose money). successful traders understand that each trade is a business decision. making a business decision without risk management is dumb

and again, it doesn't matter that you have traded successfully (not that i believe most traders in here are successful) for X years using :"mental stops" without a problem. what matters is that you are not protecting your capital.

tails are fatter than people realize, and even if they weren't, it is still absurd not to limit your risk.

and for those trading the ES, there is NO advantage to a mental vs. a hard stop. none.

except psychological. people who use mental stops are doing so out of fear of "losing." if you can't afford (economically and psychologically) the risk inherent in the trade setup, then don't make the trade. and the SETUP necessarily includes where you get out of the trade if it goes against you.
More...
 
Quote from smilingsynic:

Those who trade the ES/YM without stops are guaranteed to suffer large losses.

Period.

It is symptomatic of undisciplined, lazy trading.
More...

Quote from smilingsynic:

An exit strategy that does NOT employ stops (either to protect against loss or to proressively lock in profits as position goes in favor) is almost certainly going to be an inferior one.
...
More...


I frequently (aka daily) trade without stops in the current market. And while I am not the most agressive trader size wise, I am a consistently profitable trader. The use of stops, at times, can be very detrimental to individual trades.

You and rcanfil should write an e-book, pontificating your sanctimonious views. Sell it through online affiliate marketing to the unsuspecting, "holy-grail" crowd. Of course, the lucky ones are ET members and can get all the drivel they desire for free!

Osorico
 
"Absolutely untrue. My P/L headed straight north the day I stopped using stops. There are better ways of managing risk. Take a trip down to the CME floor and ask a floor trader where his stop is and he'll laugh at you. Successful traders don't need stops to manage risk. They have iron clad discipline and exit the trade manually when it isn't working. Putting on a trade and placing a stop puts you at the mercy of the market. You no longer have control of the trade and will succumb to randomness."

completely disanalogous example. i was TRAINED by a former floor trader. he is now a screen trader. of course he NOW uses stops, on the screen.

you are not on the floor of the CME.

get a clue.

i gave you (one of many) reasons why using mental stops is stupid. your cable can go down (i have TWO internet connections for redundancy fwiw and i still always use hard stops), phone lines (and that includes cell) can go down, etc. etc.

you are relying on stuff NOT going wrong (which is most of the time going to be true) instead of doing what smart traders do which is MANAGE RISK (iow, don't expect the worst, but be prepared for it).

ONE bad trade with a "mental stop" can ruin a month or year even of good trades.

that's stupid.

again, nobody can offer a logical/mathematical reason why "mental stops" are better than hard stops. i can see the argument on a THIN stock but we are talking eminis here. nobody is gunning for your X contract stop on the ES. get real. iow, if the market gets to your stop point, it will get there REGARDLESS of whether ytou set the stop or didn't. the only advantage of a mental stop is to prop up psychological weakness - inability to accept the risk inherent in the trade. it's a philosophy and methodology dependent on hope, not reality. again, most of the time a DISCIPLINED trader can make mental stops work. but even assuming rocksolid discipline (which is nearly nonexistent), you still are not protecting against mechanical circ's, forces of nature, etc. that may render you ineligible to manually enter your stop get out of a trade. thus, you are not managing risk.

it's dumb, and i don't know any successful SCREEN trader who would say otherwise, but again - this is the internet where bravado rules, and logic doesn't
 
"I frequently (aka daily) trade without stops in the current market. And while I am not the most agressive trader size wise, I am a consistently profitable trader. The use of stops, at times, can be very detrimental to individual trades."

explain how. give an example. and if you can find one (they don't exist) explain how the advantage OUTWEIGHS the disaster quotient of using mental stops and having black swan or other issues happen, especially when you get a power outage, etc.

they don't exist. you are employing a common trader fallacy. i love studying trader fallacies. there are few better ways of discovering how to be a successful trader than studying why other's fail. the fallacy is this: it hasn;'t happened to me, so it can't happen.

traders misprice risk. that is WHY there are edges in the market. the fact that you think that the benefits (lol) of mental stops outweight the drawbacks is a perfect example of this.

thank god for the liquidity providers. those who at some point are forced to get out of a trade (often through margin/forced liquidation by their brokers) because they don't manage risk.

"You and rcanfil should write an e-book, pontificating your sanctimonious views."

again, i've never met a SUCCESSFUL trader who doesn't have this view. mental stops are only a PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVANTAGE to losers who can't stand the thought of losing, so they expose themselves to more risk out of hope that it will never happen to them. it's a denial of reality.

" Sell it through online affiliate marketing to the unsuspecting, "holy-grail" crowd. Of course, the lucky ones are ET members and can get all the drivel they desire for free!"

there is no holy grail, nor am i affiliated with such bilge. nice strawman
 
So let's see, cable goes down, DSL goes down, dial up goes down, cell phone goes down, house phone goes down. If all this shit happens all at once not having a stop in place is the least of your worries :D

And no, I don't trade at the floor but I have watched floor traders and know many of them personally. Some may use stops but the majority don't. They have access to multi-million dollar accounts if they've been around long enough. They are so well funded they don't have to worry about being stopped out. They nibble on what the public is selling and when a panic bottom is put in they raise their stake aggressively with a ton of capital in reserve. They use a very small portion of their buying power and make money on the leverage.

Timing the market is important. If you make it your priority your chances of winning get reduced dramatically. Perhaps you're different. Perhaps you can win using stops. I ain't saying it can't be done because anything can be done but you have to have other tools than simply timing the market and placing stops.

Quote from whitster:

"Absolutely untrue. My P/L headed straight north the day I stopped using stops. There are better ways of managing risk. Take a trip down to the CME floor and ask a floor trader where his stop is and he'll laugh at you. Successful traders don't need stops to manage risk. They have iron clad discipline and exit the trade manually when it isn't working. Putting on a trade and placing a stop puts you at the mercy of the market. You no longer have control of the trade and will succumb to randomness."

completely disanalogous example. i was TRAINED by a former floor trader. he is now a screen trader. of course he NOW uses stops, on the screen.

you are not on the floor of the CME.

get a clue.

i gave you (one of many) reasons why using mental stops is stupid. your cable can go down (i have TWO internet connections for redundancy fwiw and i still always use hard stops), phone lines (and that includes cell) can go down, etc. etc.

you are relying on stuff NOT going wrong (which is most of the time going to be true) instead of doing what smart traders do which is MANAGE RISK (iow, don't expect the worst, but be prepared for it).

ONE bad trade with a "mental stop" can ruin a month or year even of good trades.

that's stupid.

again, nobody can offer a logical/mathematical reason why "mental stops" are better than hard stops. i can see the argument on a THIN stock but we are talking eminis here. nobody is gunning for your X contract stop on the ES. get real. iow, if the market gets to your stop point, it will get there REGARDLESS of whether ytou set the stop or didn't. the only advantage of a mental stop is to prop up psychological weakness - inability to accept the risk inherent in the trade. it's a philosophy and methodology dependent on hope, not reality. again, most of the time a DISCIPLINED trader can make mental stops work. but even assuming rocksolid discipline (which is nearly nonexistent), you still are not protecting against mechanical circ's, forces of nature, etc. that may render you ineligible to manually enter your stop get out of a trade. thus, you are not managing risk.

it's dumb, and i don't know any successful SCREEN trader who would say otherwise, but again - this is the internet where bravado rules, and logic doesn't
More...
:D
 
Quote from whitster:

...
explain how. give an example. and if you can find one (they don't exist) explain how the advantage OUTWEIGHS the disaster quotient of using mental stops and having black swan or other issues happen, especially when you get a power outage, etc.

they don't exist.
...

again, i've never met a SUCCESSFUL trader who doesn't have this view.
...
More...

With that preconceived belief, I couldn't/wouldn't/can't/won't explain anything to you or any other member of ET. Paydotcom.com has a whole lot of products if you don't want to write your own e-book.

Good trading to all
Osorico
 
To those of you deeply capitalized speculators who don't use stops, please explain how you calculate the risk reward ratio on any given trade, especially a scalp.
 
i'll repeat this for the studio audience.

i am NOT REFERRING TO FLOOR TRADERS

the title of the thread referred to EMINI's. EMINI's do not trade in the pit.

also...

the example i gave was one of many. what happens if you get a heart attack?

food poisoning?

etc.

protecting against unforeseen risk is prudent.

and i will repeat. you can (and some do) trade successfully with mental stops.

it is suboptimal at best. disastrous at worst.

and i will repeat. name me one situation where using a mental stop is preferable to a hard stop with eminis.

and don't say a situation where your mental stop is blown through, and the market retraces up, and you get out at a better price than you would have with a hard stop

the point of stops is to protect against risk. you don't know what the market will do. nobody does. it MAY do this. the problem is the situation(s) where it doesn't. define your risk and respect it.

to quote ahnold: "hear me now or pay me later"
:)
 
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