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So I've been paper trading in the swing style & surprisingly I'm doing pretty good. Averaging about 7% to 9% a day with my set up winning above 70% of the time. Not sure how much I'd lose to slippage, fees, and/or poor fills when I start putting real money down however.
Also I'm not sure why the folks who talk about it in online vids only suggest shooting for 1-2%, don't seem to follow their own rules when using a large account in respect to size, and make it so complicated. But I guess there's tons of crap out there in other fields so why not this? Probably trying to look flashy to sell their products. Or maybe if you do it long enough you just develop all sorts of bad habits?
I guess the reason I never tried it before is because the way I normally invest depends more on how often you're right whereas swing trading seems to be all about testing, not overthinking it, cutting losses, position sizing, and risk control. Basically you can still win being correct far less often so long as your wins are bigger and your losses remain small.
But under my approach swing trading looked like a best case of many small wins and a big loss putting you back to zero.
Anyway...
Who swing trades in here often?
Have you noticed a decrease in quality now that a lot of brokers went to 0% trading fees?
What company are you using to get good/quick fills (especially for shorting)?
I think my biggest issue may be getting shares period. It seems too easy so I'm assuming there are already folks out there doing what I'll be trying to do. Although, you never know until you try!
The main thing to know about swing trading is that, just like daytrading, it is harder than it looks. Hindsight is always 20/20.
Things seem easy when the market is rallying. But when the market heads down, you will start pulling your hair out and think that the end of the world is near.
Remember, the only thing that matters is your long-term return over many, many years. Everything else is a gamble and a crapshoot.
I primarily swing trade and the first thing you need to learn is technical analysis, so you can have a good risk management plan and know when to enter/exit a trade. It's really important to know when to cut your losses. You can get stopped out many times and have one good trade and still make a decent profit. What a lot of people do is the opposite. All it takes is one bad trade and you can lose a year's worth of work and even have heavy losses without a proper risk management plan. That's why many traders lose money long-term. They could be doing fine for years and then a crash happens or a stock has shocking news. They don't know what to do, they think okay I will wait one more day, it drops again, now they feel it's too late to sell, so they cost average down, the stock keeps dropping... now all their years of work has been erased and they are in the red.
How are you getting 7-9% in a day?! Can you give a recent example of a trade?
I feel lucky to get 1.25%, then I have to wait for the money to settle (2 days) in order to use the money to trade again.
(I keep most of my money long though but trade with about $50K).
How are you getting 7-9% in a day?! Can you give a recent example of a trade?
I feel lucky to get 1.25%, then I have to wait for the money to settle (2 days) in order to use the money to trade again.
(I keep most of my money long though but trade with about $50K).
The main thing to know about swing trading is that, just like daytrading, it is harder than it looks. Hindsight is always 20/20.
Things seem easy when the market is rallying. But when the market heads down, you will start pulling your hair out and think that the end of the world is near.
I figured. Mostly shorting into the rally for now. I've always disliked the concept so I've stayed away from it, but I can't argue with results. Hopefully I didn't just hit a good pocket that'll disappear quickly.
Speaking of my non-swing trading picks the biggest mistake I seem to make is overtrading when things aren't going great, which makes things worse.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sparkypeanut
How are you getting 7-9% in a day?! Can you give a recent example of a trade?
I feel lucky to get 1.25%, then I have to wait for the money to settle (2 days) in order to use the money to trade again.
(I keep most of my money long though but trade with about $50K).
Here are a few recent shorts:
AAC
RTTR
ONTX
Quote:
Originally Posted by bmw335xi
I primarily swing trade and the first thing you need to learn is technical analysis, so you can have a good risk management plan and know when to enter/exit a trade. It's really important to know when to cut your losses. You can get stopped out many times and have one good trade and still make a decent profit.
Been trying to cut the loss at a MAX of 6%, but some of them move too damn fast so my thinking is to keep 1-3 positions that are small enough that even if I got squeeze 10x I won't go broke and just keep doing it. I almost always use timed stops over technical ones, but sometimes on longer position trades I'll use RSI + price action for say a trending pick.
A lot of the technical analysis stuff I've tested has been pretty crap honestly. I'm amazed at how many so-called experts on youtube have swing trade stuff is pure crap too. Sometimes I wonder if they don't put out stuff that's going to wreck you just so they have an easier time of it.
A big part of it seems to be not confusing yourself with too much info, especially when that info is conflicting. Most of what I've been learning is identifying situations where you don't want to get in and taking those trades that have the highest probability of working out even if the chart doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Sticking with only a few setups based around 2 or 3 candles and basic trader psychology. Sometimes if I can't figure out what's going on I'll look back in the chart to see how similar setups played out with a particular stock.
But I'm sure I still have a lot to learn & will get burned many times in the process.
I struggle to get back into stocks I get stopped out of so that's one thing I need to work on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bmw335xi
7-9% per day is not swing trading
What is it then? The trades fit the definition 1-x days less than a week in total.
Main thing I'm looking for is advice on different brokers who have good fills as I'm really worried about having the right trades, but then not being able to get the shares.
Been trying to cut the loss at a MAX of 6%, but some of them move too damn fast so my thinking is to keep 1-3 positions that are small enough that even if I got squeeze 10x I won't go broke and just keep doing it. I almost always use timed stops over technical ones, but sometimes on longer position trades I'll use RSI + price action for say a trending pick.
A lot of the technical analysis stuff I've tested has been pretty crap honestly. I'm amazed at how many so-called experts on youtube have swing trade stuff is pure crap too. Sometimes I wonder if they don't put out stuff that's going to wreck you just so they have an easier time of it.
A big part of it seems to be not confusing yourself with too much info, especially when that info is conflicting. Most of what I've been learning is identifying situations where you don't want to get in and taking those trades that have the highest probability of working out even if the chart doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Sticking with only a few setups based around 2 or 3 candles and basic trader psychology. Sometimes if I can't figure out what's going on I'll look back in the chart to see how similar setups played out with a particular stock.
But I'm sure I still have a lot to learn & will get burned many times in the process.
I struggle to get back into stocks I get stopped out of so that's one thing I need to work on.
What is it then? The trades fit the definition 1-x days less than a week in total.
Main thing I'm looking for is advice on different brokers who have good fills as I'm really worried about having the right trades, but then not being able to get the shares.
In most situations, good traders don't have time for youtube. In a bull market it's easy to make money. You can still learn some basic information from youtube videos, but I wouldn't pay attention to 99% of youtuber traders trying to teach you how to trade or selling their website program.
I always say, do what works for you. There is more than one way to trade. However, once again my advice is to always always have a risk management plan and that applies to every trader because all it takes is one really bad trade or a crash to wipe you out.
Swing trading is considered a more conservative trading strategy. 7-9% daily is not conservative and not sustainable. If you go through a period where you are averaging those gains, that's good, but it's not like the average or standard return even for day trading. Just be careful you don't get over-confident and ignore your risk management plan.
You will not get 7-9% consistently in reality. If you could you would be making billions of dollars
For what I'm doing & willing to risk it seems the normal range of what is possible is $125k to $400k a year, but you can push it for a few million if you want to crank up the risk. From the way I understand it swing trading is more like Knish from the movie Rounders grinding it out day after day.
The main reason I even got interested in this is because my core approach position trading is only good for 3-6 months then I have to just sit there the rest of the year doing nothing. Not fun.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bmw335xi
Swing trading is considered a more conservative trading strategy. 7-9% daily is not conservative and not sustainable. If you go through a period where you are averaging those gains, that's good, but it's not like the average or standard return even for day trading. Just be careful you don't get over-confident and ignore your risk management plan.
It seems riskier to me since some of the trades you're potentially taking are little better than 50-50 unless people just sit those ones out. But then I'd think you'd run into issues of not trading enough to let the numbers work.
+4.5% today.
I figure it isn't sustainable as we're only talking a bit over a month here so far. I suppose I could go with the build that was averaging a little under 5%, but has a win rate at almost 90% (#'s haven't been updated for a couple weeks so they're likely different now). Then again had two big days that I didn't include with the average since they threw the above off (43% day & a 51.5% day).
Looked up some basics candle pattern stuff last night, but I sort of overdid it. Now I have diagrams of 48 "workable" patterns that I'll likely never use for anything. Holy sheet there's a lot of technical crap out there. No wonder they say most people don't make money at this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bmw335xi
In a bull market it's easy to make money.
Shouldn't it get easier to short once we are in a Bear market?
Quote:
Originally Posted by bmw335xi
As far as brokerages, Ameritrade is the best.
Ameritrade. Got it. Thanks!
Last edited by Port Pitt Ash; 10-28-2019 at 03:19 PM..
Location: West Los Angeles and Rancho Palos Verdes
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Forgive my ignorance, but from what I'm reading on Investopedia: is swing trading simply daytrading but you hold for a little longer?
Edit: Sorry -- read a bit further:
"Day Trading vs. Swing Trading
The distinction between swing trading and day trading is the holding time for positions. Swing trading involves at least an overnight hold, whereas day traders closes out positions before the market closes. Day trading positions are limited to a single day. Swing trading involves holding for several days to weeks."
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