Hi everyone,

I'm curious about how our community approaches risk management, specifically regarding stop losses. This is one of those topics where traders have very different philosophies - some swear by them, others never use them, and many fall somewhere in between.

How Often Do You Use Stop Losses?

• Always - every single trade 66% (95 votes)
• Never - I manage manually 13% (18 votes)
• Most of the time (80%+ of trades) 12% (17 votes)
• Rarely (less than 50%) 6% (9 votes)
• Sometimes (50-80% of trades) 2% (3 votes)
• Only on swing trades, not day trades 1% (1 votes)

Total votes: 143

Discuss Poll

 

Please vote above and share your thoughts! I'm particularly interested in:

• Why you chose your approach
• How your stop loss strategy has evolved over time
• Any specific market conditions that change your approach
• Stories where stops saved you (or cost you)

For those who use mental stops instead of hard stops, I'd love to hear about your discipline and execution process.

Looking forward to learning from everyone's experiences!

Have a good weekend!

-- Fi
'The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room.'

Oracle 

Hi everyone, For those who use mental stops instead of hard stops, I'd love to hear about your discipline and execution process. Looking forward to learning from everyone's experiences! Have a good weekend! -- Oracle 'The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room.'

I'm a stock swing trader. Long only. I don't put a hard stop in the market for what I call my initial stop.
I come up with a stop price and have an alert set for when it is hit.
I then look at the price action and either sell the position or place a hard stop under the low of the day.
Gap downs are problematic. The same process is in place. A hard stop is placed under the low of the day.

As a spread trader, it's not possible to use stops unless I were using one of those high-end spreaders (TT or T4). And even then, I wouldn't use stops. They are pointless in spread trading over time horizons from a few days to a few weeks.