Only stocks: Mostly Canadian(Home country) with a few US picks Look for Mid cap and up; trading over 1,000,000 shares per day; rising earnings;& in an uptrend. Basically look for stocks that are rising and will hold for a few days to a few years if the trend continues. I've been mostly in cash and missed the rally the last 5 weeks.
I am much like you deaddog. Except I swing and position trade. Similar rules too. I tend to swing trade when I detect chop and position trade in trends. I also must admit I am a fan of indicators. But I have tweaked them to my liking and they have been pretty consistent.
I found that price has to move before the indicators do so I just watch price. I throw a trend line and a moving average on at times. Which indicators do you favor?
I know I will be banned from this site for saying but I like MACD. But I have my own set of rules for using it. I also use trend lines and MA and candlesticks but I can usually tell if a chart looks juicy in 5 sec or less using MACD. Then I delve deeper into it and narrow my choices from an initial scan that may pull up hundreds of charts that show promise.
profitlocker, That is a crappy thing to say We're all traders Just as sprinters..., marathoners.., relay runners - are all athletes RN
I guess it does sound offensive, even though I just meant it to reflect skill levels. There are people who want to daytrade, but can't due to time constraints. I used to be one of them, but I never swing/position traded either. Holding non-tangible assets overnight doesn't sit well with me. I prefer real estate for this. Even my Roth IRA is used to for long only daytrades. We all have our comfort level, but that doesn't mean we can't learn from each other.
I haven't done any testing. I subtract 3 times the 10-day ATR from the 5-day MA and that is my provisional exit. But I may exit sooner. If something slowly levels off I get out rather wait. Studies indicate that a higher tolerance for price decline, like 10 x ATR, results in higher profits. I don't have the nerve for that yet.
For now I have been using stockcharts.com. I have a subscription and I have tailored different scans and chart settings over the past 6 years. Now I can scan pretty easily depending on what I am looking for.