on risk mgmt, cutting losses, common mistakes... "move your feet" Steve Cohen: If a [short] is moving against me, I’m probably buying in some every day. Even if there’s no change in the fundamentals? Oh sure. I always tell my traders, “If you think you’re wrong, or if the market is moving against you and you don’t know why, take in half. You can always put it on again.” If you do that twice, you’ve taken in three-quarters of your position. Then what’s left is no longer a big deal. The thing is to start moving your feet. I find that too many traders just stand there and let the truck roll over them. A common mistake traders make in shorting is that they take on too big of a position relative to their portfolio. Then when the stock moves against them, the pain becomes too great to handle, and they end up panicking or freezing. What other mistakes do people make? Steve Cohen: They make trades without a good reason. They step in front of freight trains. They short stocks because they are up, as if that were a reason. They’ll say, “I can’t believe the stock is so high,” and that’s their total research. That makes no sense to me. My response is: “You have to do better than that.” I have friends who get emotional about the market. They fight it. Why put yourself in that position?