When going with the long term trend do you guys find it's better to buy breakouts or wait for pullbacks?
i like breakouts...pullbacks often make me vomit. If i go in heavy...i want to be making money instantly.
Both. Neither. If price is going up I'm in. I use stops so wide it doesn't make much difference where I get in. What is more important is that price does not fall to my stop loss level. I basically just place a lot of small bets and hold on to the winners.
If I'm building a large position for a longer term swing trade, I try to buy a little on pullbacks, and then increase my position when breakouts confirm a bullish case. I also buy breakouts on shorter term trades, and it often works well for me - however whenever I'm overtrading this is pretty much what goes on Btw: I'm not much of a systematic trader, just tend to follow price action and volume.
Pullbacks. I hate breakouts. I usually always end up buying the top or selling the bottom when I trade breakouts.
Breakouts on daily moves, but buy in anticipation of breakout and pattern completion as soon as the pattern becomes apparent on intraday moves. O/N risk is the factor here. If you are trading low leverage consider buying ahead of pattern completion in daily timeframe. Never buy pullbacks on stocks that are being ramped, only breakouts.