Trailing Stop Losses... (Page 1/1) 82-T/A [At Work] DEC 04, 12:25 PM What is your magic percentage? Do you determine it on the individuality of the stock, or do you use the same percentage across the board? I generally use 5%, but I'm interested to hear the logic you all have... Boondawg DEC 04, 05:40 PM I look at what's currently in my wallet, subtract for food, clothing, & shelter, and then spend the rest on Whippet's. sourmash DEC 04, 06:02 PM Since I don't have what you might call a "job", it's a little out of my scope to invest. Managing my meager investment should be a concern. maryjane DEC 04, 09:21 PM I will assume you meant 5% below buy in and not 5% below 7 day average.... But even to lock in gains, 5% would still be too close. For me, 5% would be too tight. I tend to buy only long term (Hold) equities and a 5% stop would cost me too much in CPA trouble and repurchase due to short term broad market volatility. If I were going to liquidate every ime the equity lost 5% then I would tend to also liquidate every time it gained 5% and that is not how I do things. Maybe, about 10% of total holdings but certainly not 100%. I can handle 15%/20% trailing loss stop pretty easily. I take a long and wide view of things tho. blackrams DEC 04, 09:26 PM I don't even bother looking any more. Trying to out guess the market has proven to be a losing cause for me for, I just let her ride. I used to be in several agressive/risky investments. As I neared retirement age, I moved my investment into more stable things. What I hadn't planned on was how fast the "wife" could spend my savings. Oh well, she'll outlive me so, it's gonna be her problem. Rams 82-T/A [At Work] DEC 05, 10:21 AM quote Originally posted by maryjane: I will assume you meant 5% below buy in and not 5% below 7 day average.... But even to lock in gains, 5% would still be too close. For me, 5% would be too tight. I tend to buy only long term (Hold) equities and a 5% stop would cost me too much in CPA trouble and repurchase due to short term broad market volatility. If I were going to liquidate every ime the equity lost 5% then I would tend to also liquidate every time it gained 5% and that is not how I do things. Maybe, about 10% of total holdings but certainly not 100%. I can handle 15%/20% trailing loss stop pretty easily. I take a long and wide view of things tho. Thanks MJ... no, 5% trailing stop loss for any stock that drops 5% (or more) in a single day. This is for the stocks that I have significant gains in already, not ones that I've just purchased... +80%, I've started to use stop losses this year. I had several in place just before COVID really hit, so I was able to secure some of my big gains, while not losing as much as I otherwise would have. At the time, I struggled to find a good balance between say 5-8% because sometimes a stock would drop 5% and then immediately go back up the next day... and I would have sold. I have a different perspective on most stocks. TESLA for example, they call it a Millennial stock. It's kind of an offensive term for Millennials, but it essentially means stocks that people are buying because it's cool... would be like me buying Atari (which would be a horrendous investment). Many are buying Tesla because they can't buy Space-X. I share the appreciation... so I bought the stock as well. Gains have been unreasonable, and I'd like to keep those. I suspect that while it's an excellent company. I'd much rather sell TSLA at a high price... and then buy it back again at a "dream price." So my stop loss on there is 5%. Something like Home Depot, which will almost always go back up, I might be more inclined to put at a higher percentage. Sort of like closer to your strategy of 15%... I might go 10%. Problem also remains is if a stock continues to drop just under 5% every day... which I had once... and my trailing stop loss wasn't triggered. So that sucked. The "trailing" aspect of it means that it sets a new threshold every time the stock goes up. I may have it set at 5%, but if the stock goes up 10% every day.... my new trailing stop loss amount is determined by the current value. It's an excellent tool I think to prevent radical drops... such as things caused by economic turmoil. I'm seeing them as becoming more and more important in the future as cyber warfare can have a more catastrophic affect on society, and with wall street... while bullish, also being more skitish since EVERYONE has online / immediate access to their brokerage. Was hoping to get an idea of people who use this and what their thoughts are. Like you, I'm long term in most of my investments. I have index and market segment ETFs for about 60% of my investments. The other ~40% are individual stocks. It's the stocks where I set the trailing stop losses.