Stop Loss??? Can't Be Done Automatically
General question to the message board:
How do YOU determine YOUR stop loss. When is enough enough?
KevinD,
I really don't know how you can set a stop loss. Even before the IFT Board of Clowns limited transactions I never thought of using a 'stop loss' strategy - except in the most broad meaning of the term.
Personally, (and I'm NOT a trader and NOT an advisor and NOT experienced) I use the TSP Spreadsheet provided by this site. (Actually, that is how I found this site so many moons ago). Patterns seem to form in the numbers. Then I consult the 'Great Guesser' oracle via my Quija board and read the posts of folks I respect and look at their recent IFT transactions (trust but verify:laugh
and make a move. Basically, the reviews happen in the evening and the IFT check happens in the morning. If all the dirt and leaves strongly point in one direction than I make the move.
And, try not to panic and blow an IFT on a reversal trade too soon. That leaves you high and dry if the market booms – take a look at my returns for March/April! Those returns are at least 50% less than I would have attained if I kept to my 3 Allocations strategy.
Here is another strategy that is probably timely. Buy something like Ric Edelman's 'Lies About Money', determine a good long term asset allocation, set up your TSP to match it as closely as possible, and let her ride. Unless you think you will be trading live chickens raised in your kitchen for a homespun burlap hair shirt. In that case, move to the ‘G Fund’ and rent out the UniBomber’s cabin.
Maybe, get three viable allocations – dead center, a little more conservative, and a little more aggressive – and reallocate via the Quija Board soothsayer. Most of the time the oracle will not tell you that a ‘King must die for Greece to live’. Sometimes it will tell you to take cover behind ‘walls of wood’ though… This is actually my strategy – and, I should be heading there quickly. It held my losses to a mere 20% last year – uuuggghhh. Moving away from this strategy – a result of fear, eh – has cost me much moola in March/April.
So, to be brief – which is not my strong point since I am thinking about the topic as I blather here – you really can’t stop loss since nothing happens automatically. If you were in the market for one week in early October you would have lost 18+%. A couple of days 12+%. One day 7+%. How much would a manually executed ‘stop loss’ have saved you while your emotions were on the edge. And, given that wonderful experience, would you have had anything in the market during this extremely fast moving 25% boom (or boomlet)?