it certainly helps to qualify that statement to the vehicle of choice... now if you were talking mark to market futures trading, where intraday movement can wipe out your account and leave you owing the firm, then your arguement needs to be tested in real time and then come back and report your findings,,, almost certain that you will curse your own words! however, if you were discussing equities, where you actually own something, instead of all the various forms of derivatives (options, futures, options on futures, bonds, debt instruments (swaps, etc.) and some other exotics) then your intial claims do have their basis in fact..... however, if you need a bathroom break, a lunch break, a tele break, a check the printer break, then stop losses allows you to take up your seat on the trading desk after the break, otherwise, they will be dusting off the chair and closing what's left of your account and getting someone else to sit there because volitility ensures that naked (unprotected) positions have some sort of cap on market risk, either through options on the underlying index or equity or through some other hedge, but to just be short, say GOOG, when it does one of its +$35 point moves is sheer stupidity, without having some sort of cap or stop loss in place....
Here is a short video form Alex on the subject of trailing a profit stop. It's good to be able to trail up a stop without having a specific target in mind. This way you can catch some huge moves on trending days. Click on the link below to watch this video. VIDEO LINK: http://www.puretick.com/video/trail
Take a look at July 08 Copper. See attached file. It's May 5th 8:00am before the pit started trading. Not sure what that is, but looks like bunch of stops placed just beyond the copper all-time high all got tripped with the shorts' faces ripped off.
I would like one of those trail accounts! then I could try out one of those stategies on that TRAIL account
If stop losses don't work for you - then don't use them. Why are you trying to be an 'authority figure' proclaiming that stop losses are for losers? Pathetic
Knowledge does not come out of thin-air. Setting tight-stops requires you to have some knowledge of future market behavior (not necessarily pure prediction but at least some guestimate of probabilities) Obviously setting tight-stops with no knowledge - just causes you to get stopped out repeatedly and bleed to death. There is no 'free lunch.'