Trading With No Stops And No Targets
- Thread starter wmitzlaff
- Start date
Would never do that. (My IQ > 70.)
Would like to hear you explain your rationale for trading "without stops". Please... put it in words for all of us.
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That is just one of it. No stop losses, no price targets, no exit plan, no risk management of the position itself. When you get into a trade, you have to manage that trade until it is closed! Your work is not done until then! You also, have to adjust to the situation and act accordingly. All she had to is close her bad trade on the call options and reverse her position and buy put options. Had she done so, she would have made more monies to cover the losses and lots of profits on top of it! In the heat of battle, with real monies on the line, people do the dumbest things! That is why real trading vs paper trading cannot be compared!
I agree...I traded the euro and was down 15 lots, that's 15k... 3 months of red river (what I call a position when under water), seemed like years lol...but, like true market fashion, she rolled over eventually and dumped a large sum of virtual cash into my virtual account.
Now, did I learn from that?...absolutely
What did I learn? watch your leverage and scale accordingly
The better lesson is "the trend is your friend". Why fight it? In your case, if you were trading with the trend instead, of against it, how much monies do you honestly think you would have earned? You would not have to ride down your losses for 3 whole months which means that trend was very strong and lots of monies made riding that trend! You rode your losses while, smart traders rode the trend and made lots of monies while, you suffered and lost monies! Let that sink in!
i guess you didn't read the last sentence in my post... i made a nice return on that particular trade
Yeah, you made monies on a bad trade. Lost on you is the fact that you did everything wrong. You were lucky that time. Next time, the trend could last longer and you waiting for it to comeback could be wiped out! My friend lost 90% of her monies doing what you did! Also, she is like you in that she is happy in the one time her bad trade works. Ignoring the other 19 times out of 20 that she lost lots of monies. Learn your lessons now while, it is free. When you are trading real monies, there are no second chances!
Works very well on equity in the current raging bull market.
I don't put auto stops on my options because of large bid/ask spread. Option premium itself is the stop if you only go long. For shorts I do have an exit plan but again no auto stops for the same reason.
You take the loss and roll the contracts, if you are long term or trading an 'always-in-the-market' strategy its just part of trading.
I also, trade options and there cannot be stop losses as a hard stop. Instead, we have mental stops. If the stop loss is hit or the trade not working out, you can just close the position. The original poster just does not use stop losses and not even price targets so, that is very risky in of itself. One more reason to have stop losses is to protect profits you already have. Whether that stop loss is a mental stop or a hard stop, the goal is the same! Preserve any profits you might have or prevent loss of capital.