Good idea mars..... I am just curious to know what type of success you have had swing trading... Can you share your performance statisitcs with us... you can avoid the use of $ terms...
>> Hi Mars, I read your posts and appreciate your contribution to this thread. I am very interested in knowing more about the swing trading techniques you use. Please keep on posting here.
I did my homework this week-end. I analysed my past trades and read Mike and Mars posts. I will do a few changes to my strategy. Stops Obviously my stops are too tight. I was stopped out today on SEPR, ESI and CNF. As of now I will use larger stops. I will set them to the low or high of the "candle 2 days prior, or the privious day's low" as suggested by Mars. If I had worked like this from the begining I would have made a hurge profit on CERN as Mike pointed out. I review many stocks and this seems to be a very good strategy. The other thing is that I will set a maximum loss per stock equal to 1% of my account. Trend I had to take a lost today on ESI because I was not in the direction of the trend. As I said before I will always trade in the direction of the trend. Entry point My experience showed that it is better to trade durinf the last trading hour. Volume I use to trade stock with volume spike. I will keep on watching stocks trading 1.5 times above average volume. I did some tests on this and I get better results in these cases. Trade exit My strategy is to exit on the the first or second day. Risk/reward I select patterns where I "feel" there is room for a big move. Not easy to qualify. I try generaly to trade close to a R/S level or breakouts and I like to see that the move as already started. Routine One other thing that have not yet been mentioned is the importance of the routine. I review my Qcharts set up to accomodate my trading style. Base on this analysis I selected only one stock today: I sold 100 shares of CMNT at 5.32 with a stop loss at 7.41. I would appreciate to get your comments on this pick and also on my new trading rule. DT1
DT1... I hope your adjustments will benefit you... It might take a some trades until you realize a difference.. I am a trend follower.. when I swing trade.. I never fade the trend.. dont let my screen name... fool you.. lol --MIKE
OK.. here is a problem.. with CMNT... You have a %40 stop loss.. a little wacky... If you cant find a good stop loss.. I would just take an arbitrary one .. like 2 or 3 times the ATR>.. In reality I woudlnt take a trade that didnt have a decent stop loss.. In order for you to make a 2:1 reward to risk on CMNT... the stock needs to go down 80%.. thats poor money mgmt.. In order to swing trade.. you constantly have to think of your gains as a multiple of your risk.. If your stop loss is at %5.. you should be trying to make atleast %7.5-10 on the trade... --MIKE
Thank you for your journal. It is really teaching me. I have just begun to trade in the last month and I'm following the suggestions in Come Into My Trading Room. So far, I've learned I have a long way to go but I've learned that the money management part is really critical. Jorge
Jorge, I never read the book come into my trading room... is it worth reading.. any new key points Elder touches on? I am curtious as to what he has to say regarding exits and money mgmt. --MIKE
Folks, thanks for the thread. I haven't done much posting before when I've had an open position. When I saw this thread, I thought to myself that I would start. Yet for some reason, I was reluctant to do so with this example: 4/7 Buy 300 BPUR @ $3.23 goal of $3.75ish (stop $3.10?) 4/8 Sell 300 BPUR @ $3.22 (-$9 total) I just didn't like the way it was going. Wasn't really doing what I wanted/thought it might do. And then from reading some comments here on trend, I wondered why exactly I picked this time to get in. Probably paying too much attention to insider buying numbers, that I came late too anyway. Generally, I feel good about getting better at taking a small loss that being stupid for a larger loss. However... I may have had a minor epiphany in looking at trends in a chart. Partially due to what I've read here and, I dunno, the self imposed pressure of posting an open position here... I feel like I have to be able to explain why I'm getting in. I'm thinking this is a good thing. DT, do you mind if I post my trades as well? André