Excuse me for saying so, but I find this to be a rather trite observation. It may make a lot of sense for a newcomer with a small account, but once your account gets to a significant size (I trade high five figures) it has real limitations.
To trade small position sizes with a significant account means finding, holding, monitoring and managing lots of positions. I am afraid my powers of concentration reach their limit at about 5 to 7, because when the market turns they tend to come unglued and require attention all at once. Therefore, to swingtrade a significant account, with the types of stops that entails, exposes one to significant (in dollar terms) risk in each position, because one must take fairly large positions to keep one's account working.
Even if you can manage more small positions, when the market moves against you, you are still exposed to major dollar moves in your account, because as I noted above your positions tend to move together.
Of course, it is easy to say that it is only the percentage amounts that matter, but I think most people are not sufficiently rational and clinical to think only in percentages rather than dollars. When a swingtrading account starts to move against you and you see it ticking down $500....$900.....$1200..... even though your stops are not being hit, because they are swingtrader's stops, it can be, as the original poster suggested, very gut-wrenching and it is not very helpful to suggest it is simply a question of adjusting one's position size.
The fact of the matter is that swingtrading drawdowns can be very stressful and tinkering with position sizes isn't going to do much to help. For me, mastering the emotional aspect of swingtrading larger position sizes is the most difficult challenge I have faced; much more difficult than learning how to profitably trade a small account.
