Moved back to Forex only, start at 7, but quickly move them to new low, basically if I'm trading a long and market moves to a new low, it could go 20pts against me, it might not, so I'm out, 4-6 is typical. I'm aiming for more, so don't worry too much about the value, it's small enough.
Sorry for answering late, still in hospital for couple weeks now, giving nurses hell. When I day trade ES, am there max of 75 minutes to 9:45 cdt, I might trade up to an hour earlier if there are reports. I don't use stops at all cause I been doing this long time and I scalp mucho contracts in this amount of time, I am hitting bids and asks, seldom use limits ahead of hitting bids/asks, it be one more thing I would have top look at or cancel or move. But those who have not been trading long time HAVE to use hard stops, too many get emotionally attached to their trade and take it personally as being wrong would be a character flaw, men are the worst at saying they got in early or late in a trade. But really who cares. If you have a well back tested method, the numbers should speak for themselves, let the systems have the losses and you just need to learn to do as what the rules are, although this is truly hard in the beginning. You get your emotions down very well, and after ten years plus, you are more of a robot and just trade like one.
This is just me, so YMMV. I want my clients to set their stop-loss and their profit target at the time of trade entry. These are not arbitrary levels - there is a specific trading range based rules set for it that is a very important part of the trading system. In fact, sometimes we will pass up a trade entry because of where the profit target and the stop-loss levels are located.
Many individuals who claim that stops are not needed or lead to sub par performance, have lost money due to poor stop loss placement.
You can do both at the same time. Set the actual stop order according the the chart or ATR or whatever. Then size you position such that the loss when the stop is hit is X% of your account.