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by runako 5004 days ago
>> If you're investing for long term - you shouldn't be investing in things that require stop losses.

Except that in the long term good companies sometimes go bad quite suddenly. Frequently, the harbinger (e.g. CFO suddenly quits) will erase a lot of wealth quite rapidly. Stops are a good way to not have your portfolio blow up while not also having to obsessively follow the news.
1 comments
stouset 5004 days ago
As an individual investor, you're not going to beat the automated algorithms on breaking news anyway. Trading individual stocks is a fool's game. Buy and hold index funds.
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runako 5003 days ago
Just to be clear, I wouldn't counsel racing algorithms (this should be obvious). But you want to be able to exit somewhat rapidly in case of catastrophe at a portfolio company. A stop can turn a big loss into a smaller loss.

>> Buy and hold index funds.

To each his own, but this strategy has been pretty easy to beat over the last 20 years (even easier over the last 10), for those willing to study companies at all.

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