Swing trade entry order techniques

[dgb80]

Hi.

Relatively new to trading and trying to work out the mechanics of different parts of my strategy. I'm not looking to blindly mimic what other traders are doing, but hoping to see different ways and rationales for approaching entering Swing trade orders in which price fluctuations can obviously influence your profit targets and stop loss positioning.

Here's are my questions:

If you run your screen AFTER market hours and then find a trade you want to enter the next day, how to you enter the order under the following circumstances?

-Do you just enter an on-the-open market order?

-Do you enter a limit buy order for the closing price on the day of your screen? What if your limit order doesn't fill the next day? Do you buy at end of day or reconsider entering the trade?

-Do you worry about market gaps up/down the next day if using a market order? Does that cause you to reconsider entering the trade?

If you run your screen DURING market hours and then find a trade to enter:

-Do you use a market order or a limit buy order at that time?

Thanks in advance for any input or advice.

 

[tomorton]

It seems you're a stock trader, as you;re concerned about opening gaps. This is one of the downsides of stock trading, there is a clear closed session when you can't trade and can't see the direction of price action as there isn't any trading. I trade only forex now and sometimes stock index values and avoid the overnight gap risk.

But I have done much stock swing trading. Usually I would set an order to enter when price moved the next day up through a buy stop or down through a sell stop. This was because usually I wanted to get long if price breached a previous daily high or daily low. The breach of that level would confirm my TA and the momentum would hopefully push price a little in my direction. I never set an order without knowing the entry price.

But, not often, price would gap above my buy order, and the order would be triggered next day above where I wanted. That is not always bad but demands a fresh look - maybe its a good sign and I would hold on, despite the lost lower part of the move: or maybe its an indication price has pushed too far too fast - depends on context more than numbers.