Need to eliminate the big losses

One of my favorite stories indirectly relates to stops.

Years back some guy was on CNBC who was a big shot at some financial institution... Merrill Lynch size class... He related how they used to have a traders' meeting every Monday morning before the market opened, and everyone who was sitting on a losing position had to explain to the group "why he was holding that loser". He said, "most all losers were closed out on Friday so the trader didn't have to explain anything.... saved us a fortune".
 
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Scataphagos said:
Stop orders are usually not "totally ineffective" against a shock move. A stock rarely trades @ $100 one second, the $60 the next. Even if your stop gets "blown through", likely still better than riding it all the way down.

If you're into "preserving capital while you pursue profit" (as should we all be), there is simply no good excuse for not using stops.
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Forex/Index's BIG news can create 100pt spikes, depends on what your trading, obviously I don't trade over news, but random N.Korea stuff can happen at any second, which on a 10pt SL can be kinda painful.

I have a far away, big spike get me out stop, being 15pts, but generally it's markets turned, pull back a bit, I exit / flip sides then it goes further, sometimes it's wrong and I take 2 losses, when I could of had 1 profit but hey over all, still better off.
 
SoesWasBetter said:
let me know when your avoiding big losers doesn't also cost you the big winners.

no rush
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It's not about, single wins/losses it's about over all, what will make your account greater this year, yes you'll miss some, but over all, your better off doing this.

Takes a long time to accept this and stop worrying about individual trades, a long long time.
 
SoesWasBetter said:
let me know when your avoiding big losers doesn't also cost you the big winners.

no rush
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Oh brother... I think you "stepped into it".

1. If a stop sucks you out of your position, you can always re-enter.

2. You don't know about "big winner"... that depends upon how you play it. The market will always give you the chance to turn a potentially large gain into a small one. IOW... even if you are on a play early that turns out to be a big winner, no assurance you're going to capture the lion's share of it. (i.e., How many people took profits and bailed waaayyy too early on Google, Amazon, Apple, Priceline, FB... or even Bitcoin... others?)
 
Many traders confuse things like psychology, not sticking to a plan, etc with LACK OF EDGE.

I am not saying you do or do not do this but I will say this:

Be very honest with yourself as you Postmortem.

1. Position Expectation
2. Risk Management
3. Worthwhile volume

Most traders simply have negative expectation on their trades along with poor risk management.

Professional speculators and gamblers weave expectation, variance and volume into a livelihood.
 
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Trade earlier, I was living journal'ing on here, makes me behave better, I wrote I'm on the wrong side, normally I write, but I can't exit, why can't I exit, instead I just exited, flipped sides, okay went a tad lower could of gotten out near BE on trade 1, then it rocked up and made twice my loss. Happy Happy Days!!!

Think less, DO MORE!!!

My issue is, I lose weeks of steady profit in 1 bad trade, Scata is right!!
 
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