Trailing Stop-loss Effectiveness for Stocks

How well do trailing stop-loss rules work for U.S. stocks? In their March 2019 paper entitled “Risk Reduction Using Trailing Stop-Loss Rules”, Bochuan Dai, Ben Marshall, Nick Nguyen and Nuttawat Visaltanachoti evaluate effectiveness of trailing stop-loss rules. Traditional stop-loss rules are price-based or time-based. Trailing stop rules sell (buy back) a stock when it declines X% from a high price (rises X% above a low price). The initial trailing stop is X% below the purchase price, remaining at this level unless the stock price rises and escalates to X% below each new high. Stock sales occur at the close on the day after respective stop-loss triggers, with proceeds moved to U.S. Treasury bills (T-bills). Stock re-entries occur at the close on the day after respective buy triggers (see the figure below). They consider trailing stop thresholds of 1%, 5%, 10% and 20%. They use buy-and-hold as a benchmark. Using daily returns for 25,997 common stocks, including delisted stocks, during July 1926 through December 2016, they find that:

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