many people trade eminis w/o stops. IF you're not using margin. only retail thinks in such terms. think, even with all the move SP only down 9% w/o margin. now imagine, ABK w/o margin. btw, i trade w/o stops also, please don't pull out my old thread as evidence to diminish what i've posted above.
the vid I worked on today.. uses no stops.. will post it when its finished rendering.. its 8hrs long...or a full session traded.. you can see for yourself what happens when stops aren't used..
Always use a market stop. Yes you may get slippage but I would rather give a few ticks away then have a stop trade through and lose a lot of points. i have had it happen a few times when I was using limit stops and it happened on non fomc days.
Those who trade the ES/YM without stops are guaranteed to suffer large losses. Period. It is symptomatic of undisciplined, lazy trading.
I certainly trade ES without stops. Stops are often the lazy persons substitute for proper exits. Having an exit strategy is what matters, not the use of stops.
I did a trade last night on the Nikkei 225 SGXNKM with a 100 point stop ($100.00) and the Nikkei 225 gapped down 300 points below my stop at the open, I lost $300 more than what I wanted to risk. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=114657
there are inherent stops within the price action itself... based on which models you use, stops are implied as a result of price action, whether you follow what the price action is telling you is wholly different matter. also that ability to call the clearing firm is a must, since infrastructure issues, can result in painful events at times. the clearing firm will know what your exposure is... and get you out.
An exit strategy that does NOT employ stops (either to protect against loss or to proressively lock in profits as position goes in favor) is almost certainly going to be an inferior one. Limit orders will cap gains and sometimes increase the size of losses as the position gets away, and other times just sit there as the market moves away, the limit order having been one tick away from being filled.