I am not going to get into a pissing contest with you but your advice is dangerous. If someone gets whipsawwed with stops then they/you obviously have not determined the best way to set stops because they get death by 1000 paper cuts. But setting stops and getting whipsaw is the first clue it's too close. If it never gets hit its too far. How someone narrows that gap and finds the sweet spot is up to them. It takes years. Setting stops is a skill. And not setting stops for a buy and hold strategy is not trading. That's investing.
Stops for short term or swing trades is what fools do. It's boiler plate terrible advice that gets regurgitated by wannabes on forums like this...probably people trading $500 accounts or play accounts thinking they're the next warren buffet.
If you're trading and you're using stops, you're doing it wrong. You can do it that way - but don't preach like it's the "right" way...because it's not.
Charts do tell you everything of importance. Many people do not even look at fundamentals or news to trade. I don't. Charts tell you what everyone else and the big players think of all that info. There is always someone somewhere with more info on a company than you. For example, Do you go visit CEO of corporations before you invest/trade? No you don't,...big players do and when they move on a stock someone using TA can determine what their opinion of that visit is because it's reflected in price charts!
There's really no valid argument to be made in favor of ignoring fundamentals over TA or vice versa. This just feeds into the notion that you don't really know what you're talking about or are doing, and anyone following your "advice" is setting themselves up for loss upon loss.
Charts tell you what happened, fundamentals can tell you where it might go in the future. Neither can predict the future, but by using both wisely you can estimate how much of a likely gain is possible.
Of course, this all assumes a fair, un-manipulated market. The current stock market is anything but a fair and level playing field, which further diminishes the accuracy of any estimations made by TA.
I could care a less about what the company does or does not do. I only care what OTHERS think of the stock as I am riding the wave they create. I actually do not trade stocks under $7 so I don't trade CLNE. I was simply making a point about the chart and its trade ability based on TA.
You're effectively saying that you are only guessing, which is by extension, gambling. If you buy a stock, you should have confidence in that stock to hold it until it becomes profitable if your initial expectation was wrong...and in that situation you'd never need a "gain loss" because you made an informed purchase rather than a gambler's bet.
I was trying to make a point and happened to disagree with you. That is all. But I guess I must have struck a nerve,...maybe you haven't learned to set stops appropriately yet. I'll take my mouth breathing knuckle dragging Neanderthal brain back to my cave because you obviously are more evolved than me.
The idea that "there are no right or wrong answers" is something that might fly in art class but in a market that is already stacked against the individual / small trader you don't have such flexibility. When you set a stop, you are essentially telling your market maker "blip it down a bit and take my money", which often happens when stocks "gap up" or "gap down" on open. Learn to use options to limit your risk, or do not open positions that are worth more than an amount you'd be comfortable losing.
How a smart trader manages risk:
Buy 500 shares XYZ $10 expecting it to rise
Buy 5 weekly puts $8 strike @ 0.30 / contract = $150
Position Value: $5,000
Max Risk = ($10 - ($8 - $0.30)) = $230
Break Even = Stock @ $10.30
Max Gain = Unlimited
In this example you hedge your stock position with options, which allows you to control 500 shares that cost $10 each with $230 cash requirement - as opposed to a ~$2,500 cash requirement for the position if you bought straight on margin.
Not only does this limit your max loss (up until option expiration), but it boosts your buying power. You could now buy 5000 shares of that stock with $2,300 of cash required and gain $5,000 profit for each dollar the stock moves up.
If the position moves against you significantly where the strike price of your put goes in the money, you have until expiration to let it recover rather than being "stopped out" and taking a realized loss. If you want to hold it longer, you just roll the option forward (although doing so will increase your risk as future options cost more, so rolling it to $8 for the next week would probably add $100 or so to your max risk - still a lot less than most fools are taking with their stop losses.
To the OP, backtest what stops work for your trading style.... Or you could jump into a trade with no parachute like those more evolved.
Traders actively manage their positions or write algo scripts to assist in doing so. They're not parachuting; a better analogy would be skiing down a mountainside.
I've seen plenty of traders get "stopped out" eating 5-6 figure losses that would have been easily recovered that same week, sometimes the same day, if they operated on better principles.
