That's for you to research properly. Well outside daily range is one. Don't bet the farm or put all eggs in one basket. You can minimize losses, or at least try to. What's the background eod trend? 4% total account loss on one trade idea is unacceptable to me.
You saw there was a 81% burst at the day before I entered. When I traded, there was about 12% volatility in whole day. What you say?
If there's little volatility, you can expect more volatility soon. So it's about having the right anticipations/setup combined with being able to stand the inevitable losses. Nothing out of the ordinary going on in your charts, but it's all very short-term. Longer-term background can help you see what is normal now, and also this will change over an even longer timeframe.
I always use a bracket order with a stop loss and profit target. There are top traders that use stops, and those that don't. For those that don't use a stop I hope their discipline is perfect, they can stare at their monitor all day, and their data feed never goes down. In most cases the stop less did protect me from suffering larger losses, in those times when a stop is hit but price bounces back in the direction of the trade I simply reenter, so what it cost a few dollars more to play it safe. I never enter a trade having a deep "conviction" or "complete commitment" that the trade is going to be a winner, in fact I always assume each trade will be a loser. As far as your stop getting hit - we have all been there many times - your just more honest than some. There are some tactics that can help with that, but it will take some time to acquire the skills. * Use a conditional stop loss based on another symbol such as an index or sector ETF that is moving in synch with the stock you are trading. This is very effective. * Try using an ATR trailing stop if your platform has this. This is a favorite of many quants and fairy easy to use. It adapts to real time volatility. * Learn how to use market profile if you platform has this. It can help greatly to find optimal exit areas that are outside of the noise and the obvious places where stops are resting. Once you use market profile you will never want to trade without it.
If you have to 'stare at your monitor all day' to avoid wiping out, you're doing it wrong -- you're grossly undercapitalized. No single trade should impact you materially.
No stop loss, no looking at the screen, no cares if your long and price is free falling? You must be talking about position trading or being an investor - or maybe you are talking about options. Even traders I know with 10 million accounts trading futures are using stop losses or keeping an eye on the real-time market action. If you don't use any trade management than why not just go long on say 2,000 CL contracts and say the hell with it, I will check the market in a month - LOL
So news hits the tape and you're going do what? Chase the price down? The key to equity trading is to realize sometimes stuff happens in individual names. So you diversify, have lots of positions, and no one blowup hurts you too much.
While I think there's benefit in knowing how market makers and the big players hunt for stops and it would certainly add cream on top to any trading system, there's actually a few fundamental reasons why trades get stopped out and they are to do with the very core of how price and markets work. Obviously, im limited with what I can post here but there is hope if you put in the time and effort to find the answer.
Not s ckly. Is this a Fidelity rep talking about a diversified portfolio to keep for 5-20 years? That may be fine for the herd, the buy and hold crowd but for us active swing or day traders we cut loses off and let winners run.