Herein is where each of us need to define if we are traders or...

Herein is where each of us need to define if we are traders or investors. The one thing i'd say if you are an investor is if you get in decent profit and you think it could go to the moon at least take some off the table to protect your initial investment.

Lets say you get into a stock and it has moved well and you are now up 3R and you think it could run to be a Disallowed for arguments sake. Take your initial risk off the table. Why care if you have taken 1R off the table and you only make 9R in the end. At the very worst you should be getting out at breakeven if the thing tanks and it all goes upside down.

If you are watching a stock go up and up and then watch it go all the way back down that tells me you don't have a clear exit plan and you are now using emotions for your decisions. ( i.e oh it was just at x and i'll wait til it goes back there and then i'll get out, then it drops some more, oh i'll hang in because i'm not getting out at this price and it surely can't go lower, etc etc until it is back to where you started ).

Whether you use technicals or fundamental to invest something has happened for that stock to be coming down and this is where my point of cashing some out and either sitting on the sidelines or investing elsewhere in the mean time is useful. Don't fall in love with your positions. Call it opportunity cost but the more taxing element of this is the emotional cost. Will this type of event stop you from getting into the next one? Will it mean you revenge trade and jump into the next on a bit more of a whim because you just stuffed this one up and you want to get into something asap to make back that paper profit you were sitting on? Will you stick to your plan or get in because of FOMO? If you have a plan and can stick to it then each investment decision becomes the same as the next. This will mean you hold some stocks, cut some stocks, win larger on some but at least your max loss should be defined and at a comfort level to allow you to pull the trigger on the next one and leave your mental bankt intact. You will still make mistakes but don't beat yourself up about those and don't get upset if you leave a little profit on the table. If you do you are playing the shoulda, woulda, coulda game and that will get you nowhere. No one is perfect. The name of the game is to stay in the game with a psychology that allows you to keep pulling the trigger when the odds stack up either fundamentally, technically or both.

It absolutely sickens me to think good people have lost their hard earned due to this situation at BIG which is why you just can't trust any of these boards or reports and why i refer to a black swan event in my previous post. This by rights should never happen considering it is a listed stock and should be reported correctly but look how brazen some people are and what the flow on effect can be if they take a risk on their end which is incomprehensible to 99% of the public. The only way of protecting against this inconceivable behaviour is to incorporate safety measures in our own plan.