Quote from Virtuoso:
The enormous difference is in the "approach" and begins before the trade has even begun.
As an example we can take the recent action in the S&P.
Suppose you were flat during the entire slide from 1155 to 1120, but thought that there was a good chance that this move may prove to be the start of a meaningful change in trend and could possibly perpetuate much more selling in the weeks to come. Obviously you missed the most opportune time to initiate a short position, which would have been up at the highs, but this dosent mean that you have to sit on the sidelines for the whole move and play passive observer. So you now have a "bearish-stance" on the markets, but need a good spot to enter into a short position. You know that selling into weakness, especialy when the prevailing trend is up, would not be the best way to initiate the position, so you decide to wait for a retracement of the initial swing and enter against strength in the hopes that the selling will re-assert itself in the near future. But now you have another dilema -- you don't want to shoot your load to quickly and have to endure too much heat if there is a deeper retracement than you had assumed when you put out your position. So you decide that the best way to compensate for this possibility would be to break the position you want into 3-4 "lots". Fib ratios can work extremely well for this, you can simply set-up a grid off the 1155-1120 swing and plan to enter at the 38.2, 50 and 61.8 levels. If you are a shrewd trader you will have a "puke-spot" already in place and know exactly what your absolute risk is before you invest even 1$ in your "idea". So you plan to enter at each of the 38.2, 50 and 61.8 levels and puke all three should the market rise above the 78.6 level.
This is scaling into a position and like I said in my initial post there is an enormous difference between doing this and say putting out a short at the 38.2 and then adding additional risk on a whim in an attempt to lower your cost-basis. The difference is simply in the approach.
With all that said -- I also don't think there is anything wrong with a disciplined trader "adding to a loser" provided he knows his absolute risk and has a definate puke spot that he will adhere to no matter what.
Over the years I have found that with the exception of a few maxims most in the trading game are for the most part hollow.
Virtuoso
"Matters of great concern should be handled lightly...
Matters of small concern should be handled greatly..."
~Hagakure~