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Think of it as an insurance policy against the OMG WTF moments in life. Such as you open a new trade and like it normally does it moves slightly against you, not much just a little....then the internet goes out or you lose power or your computer dies. Panic sets in. You don't have a stop in place and you can't see where price is going. In theory, you could have lost your entire account and you wouldn't know it. A stop will give you peace of mind in knowing your losses are limited.
These markets can move very quickly. A stop loss will react far faster than you can.
So as @JonnyBoy said "No you don't need to. But should you? Yes."
Proper treatment of stop losses is an intensive subject. But generally, yes you need to use a stop loss when trading with higher leverage; although, other treatments might be applicable in specific scenarios. It is, also, true that bad stop outs are a primary cause of futures trader losses.
Without getting into other types of treatments, the safest way to use stops for futures traders is generally going to be stops such that you give yourself some reasonable risk per day, I think around 3% is a balance between aggression and conservation-- but depends on account size, and then to manage your positions in an intelligent way such that your probability of hitting the 3% is still marginal.
This management style doesn't require a rigid specialization. However, for many futures contracts your minimum risk per day will still likely be in the $500-$1000 range which implies a minimum account size of between $15,000 to $25,000 (or about 3x to 5x the average starting account). This is just one idea though; certainly many other possibilities.
Keep in mind the price based stop loss is just one type of stop loss. There are other types of stop losses such as time based, condition based, etc. Keep in mind, effectively when trading with futures you always have a stop loss which is the point your broker liquidates you (although there is no guarantee they will liquidate you in-time to avoid additional losses, though generally that is the case).
If you enter a trade, you do so under a premise, right? So, you enter long for example under the premise that you're in a bull trend. That means higher highs and higher lows, right? So if price dives under a higher low, you're no longer in a bull trend which means your premise is wrong and the premise of all your fellow bull trend traders is wrong as well, hence they all put their stop there.
In general, traders put their stops in a logical place in the market where their premise would be incorrect. Stops protect traders. Preservation of capital is key as is the ability to trade another day if today wasn't your day. Your first goal is to not lose money and stops help you to stay in the game.
When I just started trading I forgot to close position in the evening (btw I was 100% confident that i didi it). Next morning i was very surprised and upset... So it's always better to be sure you wont lose all your money
Whether or not you place a stop loss order is almost secondary to the fundamental matter of risk management. The real question is whether one has truly limited risk relative to expected reward per trade. Otherwise one A) Is left exposed to disaster and B) Can't accurately gauge risk-adjusted returns or expectancy.
To mitigate "A", most seem to find placing a stop order is advisable for a number of reasons: loss of connectivity, discipline in risk control, unexpected price fluctuations, etc.
@tpredictor also makes a great point: risk management affects trade outcome, and must be optimized per strategy to allow enough cushion for trade success but not so much as to offset net profit.
It really is tough for me personally because I trade strictly systems and I've learned the hard way not to have stops on. If I put them on, I usually put them way outside the ATR.