Hi coinz, re stop loss. The stop loss for me varies with each trade, usually related to support (from charts) and taking account of how much I'm prepared to lose. It could be anything between 5% and 30% on a particular stock, depending how liquid it is and how long I'm planning to hold it for and the size of investment. For short term trades my stop loss is usually no more than 10% below what I paid and I move it up as the price goes up - and adjust the base level to the support trend lines (ie it could get to 12% or up to 3% below the current price).
I hope that makes sense. I use charts to see the support/resistance. This could be a flat line where the price has consolidated in the past, or the bottom of a trend 'channel' if the price is trending up.
My e-broker allows me to set conditional stop losses, but I only do this automated stop loss if I have to go away or out and am not able to keep an eye on the price movements. Otherwise I just sell when it hits the stop loss (depending on market trends/conditions as well).
I'm sure someone can explain it better than I can. You could do an advanced search of HC (by thread subject) on stop loss, or google.
