I’d say I’m mostly a swing trader, but my recent reading has led me to look into breakouts using stocks that are strong relative to their sector and the market. So instead of buy low and sell high, the aim will be to buy high and sell higher. I think both methods have their strengths, so I will use my discretion and not stick slavishly to one method.
Hi leonarda, thanks for the positive feedback on my journal - it is appreciated. And thanks for posting your positions. It's always good to see other peoples trades as they make me look at stocks that I might not have noticed. I have had ITV.L on my watchlist for a month or so, but missed the entry so am still watching as it ticks up without me. SN.L looks interesting though on the weekly chart. A weekly closing all time high and recent break above resistance looks promising. I look for the weekly relative strength to be over 70 to confirm a breakout. It was 69.91 this week, so is very close. So I'll be watching this one with interest next week for a possible longer term breakout play if it meets my criteria.hi, just re-reading your initial post, and I must say I agree with the above, and is the way i've been trading over the last year, quite successfully. However, so far this year it's been difficult, but the market has been very choppy so far for this type of trading.
I'm currently sitting in the following positions:
Opened: 11Jan Long SN.L Open: 686 Stop: 653 Target: 800 P/L: +6.2%
Opened: 12Jan Long WTAN.L Open: 522 Stop: 503 Target: 620 P/L: -1.2%
Opened: 03Feb Long ITV.L Open: 80 Stop: 76 Target: 95 P/L: +8.0%
Opened: 04Feb Long VOD.L Open: 178 Stop: 173 Target: 200 P/L: +0.8%
Hi leonarda, thanks for the positive feedback on my journal - it is appreciated. And thanks for posting your positions. It's always good to see other peoples trades as they make me look at stocks that I might not have noticed. I have had ITV.L on my watchlist for a month or so, but missed the entry so am still watching as it ticks up without me. SN.L looks interesting though on the weekly chart. A weekly closing all time high and recent break above resistance looks promising. I look for the weekly relative strength to be over 70 to confirm a breakout. It was 69.91 this week, so is very close. So I'll be watching this one with interest next week for a possible longer term breakout play if it meets my criteria.
I'm a medium term swing/position trader, since I have a day job, so only take 4-5 trades a month when I get the signals from a shortlist from my scanning software. I pick the stocks by discretion looking at the charts and the fundamentals/company reports.
I can keep you posted with my entries/exits if you're interested? I don't want to crowd your thread.
The thread has already morphed a bit from my original journal, but it's more interesting for it I think. So I'm happy for you to post your trades in here as well, as like I said, there might be some that peek my interest that I hadn't noticed from my own research. So all I'd ask is that if you are posting trades to try and do it in a similar format to the what I have been doing in the thread. So entry price, stop loss and a target, risk reward and if possible a chart and your reason for buying it. Then I can look into ones that look interesting to me.
I have found that posting my trades in my journal has really helped me with my risk management, as it's easy to break the rules when you are doing it on your own, but the extra scrutiny helps keep me on track, and minimise my risk.
Ihave gone thru your trades and methods. Quite good but somewhat mechanical. Some stock you have picked in anticipation of news and al that.
My 2 cents here.
* All trades including stock MUSt be traded in the direction of the major market (S&P/FTSE). You dont wanna stay in the wrong side of the market for any reason.
* Use of stop loss made you lose many good trades you entered. Stop loss is a killer. It is only useful for a crash. That occurs rarely. I do not see SNP 500 crashing to the upside though LOL
* U tend to base trades on indicators such as overbought/underbought. Those are not important.
* Your target strategy is very good
If you follow market trend and larger stop losses with your target plans, you will hpefully notice a far better performance going forward.
Good luck
isatrader,
having thought, I think what might be best so as to not confuse your thread is to create my own journal, as I think you've made a good point about helping me not break my rules and be more disciplined. The format will be similar, so you can peek/subscribe at/to my thread for interested research as well as comparison.
I think my style of trading is very similar to yours in terms of method of stock picks and timeframe, however I use more leverage than you I think. Mainly because I am only trading a £1000 account, so i'm happy with the 20% max drawdown my methods experience with that account size. As I progress I will reduce leverage...!
Cheers!
I certainly agree with only going with the major market direction, ie. don't try and fight the trend, but that's just my personal strategy. In other words don't try and pick "tops"/"bottoms".
Stops are another interesting area, I use an automated "disaster" stop which is typically 10-15% away, but I always exit manually based on a variant on the trailing parabolic SAR based system I developed.
Isatrader, can you please explain to me, is trading those stocks that you are trading considered SPOT trading? What broker do you use if I can ask? I am just curious...
I believe it's called swing trading, and I use Finspreads for my spread betting, as they let you trade smaller sizes and hence means I can use much stricter money management.
Picking tops/ bottoms are what separates savvy traders from the rest. The practice is the only way to be exceedingly profitable. Do not follow that crap advise about top/bottom as bad. They are not. But they must be done in the context of the larger market trend. Larger market trend means trend of the SNP500/FTSE/DAX(all same).
Ihave gone thru your trades and methods. Quite good but somewhat mechanical. Some stock you have picked in anticipation of news and al that.
My 2 cents here.
* All trades including stock MUSt be traded in the direction of the major market (S&P/FTSE). You dont wanna stay in the wrong side of the market for any reason.
* Use of stop loss made you lose many good trades you entered. Stop loss is a killer. It is only useful for a crash. That occurs rarely. I do not see SNP 500 crashing to the upside though LOL
* U tend to base trades on indicators such as overbought/underbought. Those are not important.
* Your target strategy is very good
If you follow market trend and larger stop losses with your target plans, you will hpefully notice a far better performance going forward.
Good luck
Ammm, no, no, SPOT trading - as a PROMPT trading. In my country you do not pay any taxes to tax office for SPOT trading, but you do for trading stocks...
Is this the broker: http://www.finspreads.com I guess they use their own platform, not MT4?
I don't often pick a stock based on any news. I think you've got this impression from my recent Talvivaara Mining trade. However, I'm actually a big believer that if a stock has had a strong run up before the news that it's got a high probability of selling off on good results. My entry reason for Talvivaara Mining included that I believed it would run up before the results, but that was based on the chart patterns and indicator set ups that I could see. Plus the knowledge as a long term Nickel trader that this years strong performance for nickel would no doubt translate into higher profit margins for the company if it's been well run. If the results say otherwise then I will close out immediately.
With regards to stop losses, I have very strict monthly drawdown limits. On my long term account I do not use stops at all as getting stopped out on small swings would prove expensive in fees. However, on a leveraged account such as spread betting I believe they are essential and am willing to take small loses if it keeps my drawdown under control. I think it's more an issue of your timescale as to where you position them. For example on an intraday trade they would need to be exceptionally tight, whereas on a trade of a week or more I prefer to place them just below the -1ATR level as this is only normally hit on a reversal of trend. So is more of a disaster stop.
Indicators are a personal preference and do help me especially when I'm scanning the whole market stock by stock as I don't look at levels in the indicators but at divergences between indicator and price action. For example, my favourite is Force Index (Simply subtract the prior close from the current close and multiply by volume). A divergence in this and price action can be very telling as can show that there's no volume behind a move in a much visual manner than volume alone. But in general I use them as another tool for confirmation.
Thanks for the comments, they are appreciated.