<prompt> Human: A lot of people are claiming that the market will crash soon next 1-3 years due to historical cyclical patterns and other reasons that I dont know enough about. I would like to set a stop loss for all my investments in case this happens. Is there a rule of thumb on how what to set the stop loss value at? For example, Im assuming it should be low enough to not accidentally trigger a normal dip in the market, but high enough to get out in time. Is there anything that one should know for this specific situation? Thanks in advance.  <response>: I have always been wary of stop loss orders, since:1 if it is triggered by a normal dip on a larger upward trend, you must have set it too high.2 if it is set low enough that its triggered by a massive drop, you just lost a similarly massive amount beforehand. How do you know where the real bottom actually is?To me, stop loss orders are pretty much timing the market.So if youre going to time the market, why not put a stop-gain order, followed by re-buying after dips? Just an example, of course. 