How you decide Stop Loss?

Stop Loss plays a very important role in day trading but how to decide & handle SL is big question. I want to understand how the day traders decide SL & how they manage?

ATP

Ideally a stop should not put a big draw down in your pocket.Also it should not be very less that it does not allow the stock/index room to move.

http://daytrading.about.com/od/daytradingglossary/a/StopLoss.htm

http://www.mydaytradingtutor.com/trading-stop-loss/

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-06-13/news/29653330_1_stock-splits-trading-session-levels

Sl of any trade depends on entry and that will lead to the question how you take entry

I take entry on support and resistance, sometimes in the middle of the move to when I'm very sure otherwise I let it go coz when you enter in the middle of any move your stop gets wide and 2-3 unfavourable attempts like this will kill your confidence for further trade.
Now when I take entries based on my understanding of market and support and resistance placing stops gets much easier, it can be few points below support or half or one and half times of the atr of that scrip(i choose different atr values and time frame depending on market situation so no exact values but just a hint).
I use it for positional swings but can be applied for day trade too(day trade keeps you on the toe most of the time.)

Amit, thanx for the useful links.

Typical SL's placed are below/above

1.Minor Pivots
2.Visual pivots
3.Opening range
4.Open/High/Low of the day.Previous day Open/High/low/close.
5.VWAP
6.Moving averages.
7.Daily Pivots/S1/S2/S3/R1/R2/R3.Important Fib levels.
8.ATR based stops.

A thread on how to place the stops is in the forum.

Thanx JK for good points.

when I stopped using stop loss my loss stops ..

better to use SL when some thing during any sudden events like tsunami , fed annocement, some policy change , election results etc.

bad advice for newbies and for 95% traders who r not deep pocket traders

Jab Capital hi Nahi Rahe, to SL ki Zaroorat nahi hoga.......

dis agreed with you . the stop loss is prime no 1 factor for loss..