I don't use stop losses but neither do I consider myself a fool. Stops take you out of perfectly good companies for no good reason than that the rest of the shareholders have had a panic attack.

I've stopped looking at my portfolio except at the weekend when I can't trade. Just look at the company websites. Unless you see bad news there is nothing to worry about medium term unless you're on margin...

The stockmarket is a voting machine short term, long term it's a weighing machine. Start looking at how heavy your stocks are (i.e. how many economic ounces) not at how popular they are. Right now I'm looking to buy heavy, unpopular stocks (except I've no money...).