I think I understand Carol. I trade KLAC and my method is extremely simple but then again for a guy like me it needs to be. Enjoy the KLAC ride while it lasts. I started a KLAC thread last week and was considering posting trades for feed-back.I've been trading about a year+ and am starting to get the hang of it after losing much$. Stopped watching the 1min & being glued to LII. Also not afraid toturn a day trade into a swing. Stopped overtrading as well.
I always focus on one stock. I trade volume and so I just slam one stock all day. Used to trade lots of intc, then jdsu, then qcom and sebl, and now mxim. Slam them until they get too cheap or start trading crappy. (Crappier than usual.) This works well,if, if, if, you have a scalping mentality. I'm rarely in a stock for more than a minute or two. I don't catch the larger trending moves, but I do catch tons of smaller moves. Trading one stock is good for that type of trading, although I do know people who also will hold for longer periods of time and only trade one stock. Their main downfall is controlling their losers in a market that has these weird ranges. Holding onto the one in ten where the ranges aren't what they appear seems to be the killer........when you fade a move and there is actually some follow through.......
TRading just one stock doesn't make any sense. You should trade as many stocks as you can track. I find that i can watch about 6 different sectors, maybe 60 stocks very closely. Catching just about every bid/ask change and most of the prints. More than this and i start to get bogged down.
silk you must be the greatest multi tasker ever. To watch 60 stocks and see nearly every change?? Are you just watching for size on the bids or offers....or are you actually identifying the trends in 60 stocks all at once?
Just 60? What do you do with your other eye? That seems more like investing. You know you can still catch Louis Rukeyser on the tube. Have you seen the recent NuVeen prospectus? Very safe. Sheesh, 60 stocks.....slackard.
You know , when I paper trade, I can watch 200 stocks , for real $$$$ a few is plenty. Let me know if you need a ream or two silk.
NVLS is a good stock if you only trade one. You have to figure if it is going to strong or weak on any given day relative to AMAT and KLAC and then you set up an overlay chart and go for it. I traded BRCM for quite a while and used VRTS and BRCD for comparables but that stopped working as they all got cheaper and started diverging on news.
I trade several stocks and just started trading es and nq a little but I seem to have a love affair with medi. It has been a little tame lately but usually trades like spitting cobra. I love her violent mood swings even the ass whoopin I some times get when I am not paying attention. I have been cheating on her a little lately though.
I'm almost afraid to say this but if you read it all I think it'll be OK. I watch about 100-120 stocks on a quote screen, sort of as a collage of the market. I have them grouped. I have a 'watch list' which changes for news-based thingies, and I have my core groups. Some stocks I find I'm ignoring and after a long while I'll either pay attention to them or dump them. I used to trade 20 or so issues per day, but I seem to be zeroeing in on one or two that I do most of my trades in. The others are backups. It also depends on the tone of the market. Some days I can paint with a broader brush, so to speak. <font size=1>hmmm. two artistic metaphors in the same post? </font> When the market was ripping it was easier to use the buckshot approach. But now that I'm playing defense more, it makes sense to narrow my focus. It seems like I'm just trading the spooz by proxy so two or three stocks per day should be adequate...until I get a better understanding of things. Right now it seems like homebuilders are the group du jour so I've been playing around with them a bit. I thought Don Bright's comments were helpful.