TechniTrader Weekly Stock Discussion: “5 Tips for Higher Swing Trading Profits”

MetaStock® SPRS Series - Week 142 – October 25, 2013 - MetaStock Spatial Pattern Recognition Skills Series written by Martha Stokes CMT

Swing Trading is a very popular short term trading style used by retail traders and professional traders.

It is far superior to Day Trading in every way, and here are 5 reasons why:

1. Lower costs to set up and maintain your trading system and platform.
2. Lower capital and experience requirements from online brokers.
3. Less time needed to make significantly higher profits per month.
4. Flexible work hours and less effort to manage open held stocks.
5. Less stress and much more fun to do.

Swing trading depends primarily on the analysis of the stock chart, and recognizing specific candlestick patterns that indicate a momentum or velocity price action is about to start.   

In order to be highly successful at Swing Trading, you need to find the right price candlestick patterns on your stock charts that will be ideal Swing Trades.  Just picking any old stock, a recommended stock, or a stock in the news is NOT going to be the best method for choosing a Swing Trade stock pick.

Here are 5 Tips on how to read a stock chart and decide if it is suitable for Swing Trading:

1. REPETIVE CANDLESTICK PATTERNS that yield consistent Swing Trading runs that are profitable.  When you find a chart with candlestick patterns that repeat regularly, this gives you a means of anticipating AND recognizing a similar setup for the next Entry before the Swing Trade run begins.
2. PRICE LEVELS are most important for Swing Traders.  Sure, any price level can have a momentum or velocity run, but for Swing Trading it is also about being in with the professional Swing Traders that track the Dark Pool giant lot funds managers.  By trading with the pros you have a significantly better profitability ratio and far more consistent runs. Lower priced stocks are generally the realm of smaller lot uninformed traders.  Extremely high priced stocks are the realm of retail day traders or options traders.
3. FOLLOW THE GIANT FUNDS MONEY PLACEMENT. The giant Buy Side funds control trillions of dollars of mutual fund and pension fund investors.  The stocks they are buying are strong candidates for Swing Trading because these stocks have companies with improving fundamentals or expanding growth potential, or both.  By tracking the giant funds via TechniTrader Quiet Accumulation TTQA Indicator as example, retail traders know that this company has stronger fundamentals and is poised for growth.  A company that is growing will  have periodic momentum and velocity moves due to surprise Earnings, sudden great news, and High Frequency Trader HFT triggered buying activity.
4. KNOW THE DIFFERENCE between a Momentum run and a Velocity run.  The Velocity run is faster moving, gaining more volume energy and buying speculation. This type of run requires a completely different trailing Profit Stop position to keep you in the stock while protecting profits, from the inevitable profit taking the professional traders will begin at some point. A Momentum run will last much longer but has rests frequently. The Stop Loss for a Momentum run needs to allow for the natural pausing, resting, and small indecisive price action days to keep you in the trade until the Momentum energy is exhausting.
5. ENTRIES AND EXITS for Swing Trading must be precise, deliberate, and well planned.  Just jumping in because a stock has started to run is the best way to lose money on a Swing Trade. Using a pre calculated Entry that buys into strength instead of the traditional Limit Order so many retail traders use, is crucial to successful Swing Trading. Never buy into weakness using a Limit Order. Using a Limit Order is one of the most common reasons Swing Traders do not have consistent profitability.

When you combine professional style Repetitive Patterns, Price Levels, Indicators, Stop Loss placement, Entries and Exits your Swing Trading will go to a whole new level of profitability.  It will be easier, more reliable and a lot of fun to do.

For more information here is a link for Candlestick Patterns

Trade wisely,

Martha Stokes CMT

Member of Market Technicians Association

Master Rated Technical Analyst for Decisions Unlimited, Inc.

Instructor and Developer of TechniTrader Stock Market Courses

For additional training visit http://technitrader.com

This Stock Discussion and Training Lesson is sponsored by TechniTrader.com

MetaStock® Partner

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