Discipline on taking stops: To understand why have been struggling to take stops need to dig deeper into it.
I had zero problem hitting NTNX if I was wrong today. I also had zero problem hitting NVFY on the long side when I was immediately proven wrong. So what was it about the short NVFY that I struggled to hit my stop...
As NVFY began to rip, I was looking at it, thinking I will prepare for a potential stuff move over the high ($4.20), so my stop is $4.41, and I contemplated putting in a hard stop there. At the time I thought I would take a decent loss if I was hit - indeed accounting for slippage it would be around $4.50 stop-out which would be a loss of around $2000.
I was somewhat concerned about the possibility of the stock stopping at the premarket high ($4.80) and not really offering a re-entry. It is worth noting that in the end that particular move played out as a "stuff" of the premarket high.
So as the price came up to $4.40 it had literally skipped up, was moving very quickly - this gave me the psych mindset of "I'll just give it a little longer" and next thing it was $4.60 and about to halt by which point it didn't make sense to stop-out any more.
A comparable example, which could really rip my face off. A pharma stock has news midday against me. I would have a moments notice to take my stop before the volatility halt - but there would be enough time. Pausing would completely ruin it.
However, if that happened on a big stock I probably would hit it (most likely). Think the problem lies in positions that I have a bit of conviction in - where giving it a chance to fake-out does make sense.
Ultimately I think the solution is to place a hard-stop when a "conviction" position begins to go against me, I realise that I've said this before. But if the position has slipped away from my profit targets, I can easily put in a stop and then cancel it when the risk of being stopped is over.
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