If your overall strategy is to merely outperform the market, you don't even worry about the bear markets.
That's where you get into trend, trend direction, trend change, and trend reversal. Sperandeo is one way to go. Or you can look at Wilder/LeBeau and the ADX/DMI.
I would submit that someone who holds a position for up to five months without a "stopless" strategy, as does Mr. Market, is more an INVESTOR than a trader. I would also bring to your attention that Oneill's IBD stands for INVESTOR'S Business Daily. A swing system that holds for weeks/months requires a very large amount of capital if one is to hope to generate a trading income to cover a decent level of living expenses. I also swing trade, and IMO, you would be hard pressed to CONSISTENTLY generate 100K with a "stopless" system like this with less than a 400K account, unless you were willing to take on considerable margin. And in that case, when the market reverses you would be in a very ugly position. Finally, I would simply point out that it is sooooo easy to confuse brains with a bull market. On average, the market impacts individual stock movement roughly 75%, so a sharply rising market will always cover a multitude of trading errors. (Like trading without stops.)
I'm not going to sell my losers anymore. I don't care how much they drop. I mean I wish I was still holding EBAY long from 1999, because one day its going higher. If I looked back at all my trades, at one point or another they were down by at least 8%., they probably appreciated by 100% since I sold them for a loss. Now the only problem I face is how to I prevent the bd from selling me out after Ive run out of money to meet the margin calls. You're brilliant Mr. Market, maybe you can give me that answer. BY the way how did your strategy of buy and hold work from March 30, 2000 until the market started uptrending again?
Let me get this straight now..... Timing is of no importance, and Cutting losses is not a good rule. Humm, i can say sometimes you can be chased out of a stock, only to find it go higher. However, cutting losses is the Key to the current market. LOL...MRMARKET, you must be a broker....you sound like one...LOL
This is essentially the Gardners' attitude at The Motley Fool, i.e., that as long as you choose wisely (shades of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), it won't matter if your losers go to zero; the gains on the winners will more than compensate for those few losses.
What if the investor/trader has a Wharton MBA, would you still be confused about brains and a bull market?
Not cutting losers? What if Japan circa 1980's was upon us or Dow 1920's (meaning this up year is just an illusion to a malaise we're about to go through), do we cut losers or wait it out for the long term an be eventually right? Better yet, stocks have gone up over time as nations have evolved from an agrarian society to an industrial one...what's the next stage, technological society or is this as good as it gets ?
Based on your theory and performance, you should use margin because you never would get a call. Without running a complex model, I'm willing to bet that you'll blow away Buffet in less than a year. Should I take a mortgage out on the house?