I have been on the sidelines for a long time now. I watched a lot of great opportunities pass me by since the COVID19 crash. I have been watching the indexes and the leveraged index funds like TQQQ and SQQQ and I have decided to go back in with a small account. New wife gets all weepy when I start talking about funding a proper trading account but I have a couple thou socked away in an Alpaca account and also in a TD Ameritrade account. I have my TradingView set up to trade on my Alpaca account and have done well in paper trading just TQQQ and SQQQ and if it looks good in the morning I am going to make a small play. If not, then another day. No more exercises in faith-based trading, just going with my indicators. Fingers crossed. Today I would have made an easy 3% and this has been pretty typical. I plan on a max of two trades tomorrow, no margin trading.
TQQQ and SQQQ are ETF is just same as QQQ or NQ. How big is your account? after 100 trades enter your trades into this spread sheet and it will show if you are a positive or negative trader http://www.marketcentral.ca/expectancy/traderecord.xlsx if you are negative expectancy after 100 trades, stop trading immediately. it means the longer you trade, you will not make money if you are positive or negative expectancy either your trading plan is flawed or error or you are not trading your plan.
I set up my indicators on tradingview. The two main ones are VWMA3 and VWMA6. Semitransparent infill below both, green under 3 and red under 6. Where they overlap is a blend, sort of olive color. When I am seeing green I want to be long. When I see red I want to be short or else out of it. Since I am looking at TQQQ and SQQQ mainly right now, and not using the scanner, I don't have to go short, just switch to SQQQ. I also pay attention to the width of the green or red band because it can be a harbinger of a switchover between red and green showing. I display bollinger bands but mostly I am just using them, and volume, as feel-good indicators, not my primary indicator. I enter a trade manually but set a stop loss according to a somewhat complex set of rules but you got the idea. I always set a stop loss when I will be away from the screen for a few minutes. I will only be playing with the $2k in the Alpaca account right now and I will start out only putting half of it into play at once. If I take a 1% beat on any trade or 1.5% total loss I am done for the day. US account so I have to watch my total trades within any 5 day period anyway, and I plan on one, maybe two trades in a day max. It's a pretty simple strat that doesn't require a lot of mental processing on my part so I can look after my business at the same time. See the pic for what my chart looks like on my laptop. I haven't configured my trading computer and the big monitor for this yet. I really only need that when I am watching a lot of stocks.
Just from looking at your chart and tools and your comments, it sound like you don't have the experience, tools, and knowledge of other products to trade. Why trade the TQQQ or SQQQ? There is like hundreds of stocks or other financial products to trade.
So if you got it since you been watching do you think you would've sat through and just let your profits run?
You inferred all This from his chart? And comments ? Those alone can size up a trader or a wanna be trader?
Actually I was trading quite actively until several months ago. Ask around. Trading the Q's will fit well into my daily routine. I can't be watching a half dozen charts and a watch list and tweaking a scanner all day or even all morning. Here I have just two instruments to keep an eye on. One, really, when you think about it. I have other things do to, too. I can prep product and fill orders while watching one chart, no problem. Do you think I shouldn't be trading? I don't think I should be trading, either. Or running a small business either, but I am. I should be sitting on the bank on some peaceful bayou with a fishing pole in one hand and a beer in the other or going out for a sail cause hey, I'm retired. The problem is, when you are retired, you don't get any days off. So I do things. And if I don't pick things to do, the wife will pick things for me to do.