Trading without stops is like driving without brakes. Adding to a losing position is like driving faster when you're lost.
Yes a very large percent of people like yourself don't make it trading futures or playing poker, but to claim you need millions to make it in poker, or 100k per car to trade ES successfully is moronic. A very close friend of mine started with 500 bucks playing online poker. He took that account to 15k 3 times over before he became consistent enough to never look back. He makes a comfy 200k a year now (Tax Free) playing 3 hours a day. I am not even going to get into why or how I use stops, but they are key part to my strategies success. Just because you don't understand how to apply them, doesn't mean they don't work and new guys should call it quits just because they don't have a 50k-100k bankroll. Lots of ways to skin a cat, stop being so bias.
Reasonable cap on the maximum size of steakes distinguishes skill game from mostly gambling. Naturally, people who gamble on the outcome of a tournament appreciate more gambling in the structure...
What you have to realize is that the Poker Pro wins because he has honed his skills. The million dollars doesn't make a difference. Trading the ES or playing poker the skilled players will take money from the unskilled. If the unskilled has a big bankroll it will just take a little longer. The Poker Pro will throw away many good hands if the odds aren't to his liking. Kind of like having a stop.
If you trade without a stop, does that mean you never take a loss? In other words, even if a trader does not have a 'stop', he/she has a pain threshold - 'uncle' point or whatever the terminology. And by definition, is that 'pain threshold' a dynamic stop based upon capital preservation? I am not passing judgement one way or the other or purporting the essential worthiness of stops per se, but to me it is deeper than semantics. In fact, since this business requires a certain level of capitalization to participate by default one has a 'stop' no matter how they interpret the defintion - it would not be out of the realm of possibility for one single 'stopless' position to trigger liquidation of said participant's remaining capital reserves, No ?
Guys you either need to LEARN and hone in your skills or just quit. It's that simple, if you're not willing to put in the time to tighten things up and know where to put stops, then no one can help you. If you don't use stops but have the discipline to get yourself out, that's excellent, then this doesn't apply to you (because you're few and far between and have my respect). Anyone else, get your act together or you're going to be suffering for a long time.