Serious thread about stops.

[cscott]

Quote from demoship:


And cscott has no idea what he's talking about. a 5 - 15% stop on a daytrade? that's ludacris.

I do not daytrade, so you are probably right about that. OTOH, a 2 cent move down and you're out? That is what is ludicous! Hell, spreads are often more than that. Add commision costs and you lose more than you win.

Hey, but whatever floats your boat.

 

[lindq]

Quote from cscott:

I would not advise any serious investor to daytrade.

REAL investors HATE daytraders! ...but that's another thread, sorry.

Last I looked, this site was called Elite TRADER.

A more appropriate site for you and your misplaced comments would be Motley Fool.

 

[MajorUrsa]

Quote from cscott:

Ursa, JFYI, I'm not a noob, and noobs don't trade as I suggested. I guess you like losing money. :-(

It's a long time ago but I still remember from my n00b days the warnings and advises NOT to do what you just stated. This stuff is so basic that I can not understand why you purposefully give the opposite advise to an apprentice. So, why?

Ursa..

 

[kiwi_trader]

Because he's an idiot. I originally suspected it from his IB maligning entrance to ET and have had it confirmed in this thread.

 

[stylark3]

Quote from demoship:

If you want to set a max loss per trade, that's fine, but I wouldn't vary the stop loss based on # of shares. If it's .15, it should be .15 for 100 shares, and .15 for 1000 shares, provided it's the same stock.

No demoship. You misunderstood.

The stop-loss doesn't vary. It's fixed.

Actually, everything is a fixed figure and are based on the max. intended loss per trade.

But, at some point it would be more prudent to convert to a trailing stop after a certain level of profit has been acheived.
Or alternatively, start using mental stops once a certain level
of profit has been reached.

Personally, there is only one reason that I use any fixed stops at all for daytrading -- I could temporary get disconnected from my tradestation.

If it wasn't for this concern, I would use mental stops-losses almost exclusively (except for an occassional trailing stop setting).

 

[demoship]

I trade stocks that have a very tight 1c spread.. if the spread's wider then that, then i'll adjust accordingly.

And what I do is buy on the ask right before the ask disappears, and both the bid and ask go up a cent, if the bid starts going down, or the stock won't move, i scratch the trade (loss on commission of course, but that's a different story).

Commission is 1c / share / roundtrip, provided I do 200 shares or more. So that's not that big of a problem.

 

[demoship]

Quote from stylark3:

No demoship. You misunderstood.

The stop-loss doesn't vary. It's fixed.

Actually, everything is a fixed figure and are based on the max. intended loss per trade.

But, at some point it would be more prudent to convert to a trailing stop after a certain level of profit has been acheived.
Or alternatively, start using mental stops once a certain level
of profit has been reached.

Personally, there is only one reason that I use any fixed stops at all for daytrading -- I could temporary get disconnected from my tradestation.

If it wasn't for this concern, I would use mental stops-losses almost exclusively (except for an occassional trailing stop setting).

Sorry, let me clarify, the stop loss should be fixed in proportion to per share.