Let's say you analyze the charts, you make a call, and place a trade with a certain time horizon. How do you avoid getting 'shaken out' in the short term?
I'm finding my calls are right, way more than 50% of the time, but I'm not as profitable a trader as I should be, because it seems more often than not, there's either a dump out, the chart starts to look like it's turning bearish and I begin to lose confidence in my calls. Then I might set a stop loss and there's a shake-out, it eats through my order, then the trend turns around and basically does exactly what I had originally called.
You can't avoid stop runs. It's just part of the market. One of the biggest keys to success is being able to get stopped out and then jump right back into the same trade again when the setup presents itself. Most people do the opposite and get scared out of the market = missed opportunities.
Stop runs often mark the beginning of a trend, so this is pretty crucial.
Or if it starts dumping I might panic sell.
If you're resolute about using stop losses and keeping to them, you don't need to panic sell and you'll eventually become less and less emotional about these situations. I am extremely mechanical and unemotional about trading after years of rigidly following risk management rules.