What made you choose your trading style

Hey guys,

As you know most of us have a specific style whether its swing trading, intraday trading or long term etc - most traders stick to their style once its fully established. What is it that made you choose your style and stick with it? It would be interesting to hear some views on how you chose your specific time frame and style of trading.

Personally i prefer to intraday trade, which is bad at the moment as i have work commitments which will not allow enough time in the day to trade, sometimes i do think "maybe i should look at longer term" but it just doesn't suit me, if i am holding a long term position i get really nervous and still end up checkin it every 10 minutes on my iPhone lol.

So what do you trade and what made you chose this style?

I chose my style of trading after I found 100's of very excellent ways to lose

Short term day trading or scalping fits my temperament well. Longer term trades involve larger stop losses and the mentality of it just doesn't suit me well. Also, it sure hurts when you wake up in the morning to see your stock has gapped open against you well past your stop. OUCH!

I generally get in and out without much fanfare. Small stops so never large losses. Occassionally I'll take a longer term trade but the stakes are usually small. Believe it or not I have found trading to be much more fun even though I log quite a bit of screen time because I have confidence in myself. Much better than the old days when I used buy, hold, and sweat!

Peter

Thanks for the input Pete, and i can relate to that a lot

zutou said:

i think a long term trade will fit for me ! i don't think i m sensitive enough to master the information of market ! and a long term trade can depend on the data analysis ,that will be
a way to study when you doing the business !:innocent:

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I don't usually study when I'm doing my business.

Peter

I trade spreads mainly because of the decreased risk of loss.

Successful_Trader said:

I trade spreads mainly because of the decreased risk of loss.

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What are spreads? Never heard of these

still figuring out whether intra-day or swing is better for me

My goal is to have 2 "styles" consistently profitable.

1 that is long term and can work in the background whilst I'm busy, something off the H4, H8 or D1 charts. I have this one nailed now and happy that it will continue to perform...took bloody ages to get there though!

The other "style" is short term, M5 or M15 charts that I can trade actively when / if I have a few hours off work during the day. This one is a little harder for me to get running as I don't have the time to trade it actively to do proper forward live testing etc.

But, its a marathon and not a sprint!

Club after thinking about it, i'm the same i want to get 2 styles nailed... day trading and very long term trades, i'd love to close a trade thats moved a few 1000 pips

I actually use social data to trade. I currently focus on apparel sector only. I chose the strategy because we developed the software haha.

But overall it has been really great, and we have generated significant returns

Good question, and much more important than which currency pair or which index to trade. I am still finding my style as I am still developing the optimum strategy, but the trend is clearly from longer to shorter-term. Started as a trend-following share-holder with holding periods of 5-90 days. Then became an index swing trader with holding periods of 2-10 days (with occasional forays into equities, commodities and currency). Am now an intra-day index trader, with holding period up to 4 hours.

But if this proves as successful as I hope, I may run a swing trade strategy again alongside for a little extra, becasue the market's are open a lot longer than my own trading period.

The other trend that stands out in my own style development is that I absorb progressively less market news and economic information per day / per week at each new progression. I definitely know less and less, though I hope I understand more and more.

My irrational need to short sell, my bad practice of taking money orf the platform too soon thus increasing my risk. It was only by working with other genuine traders, paper trading and sharing ideas and above all changing my gross post trading binging.
As everybody on the forum knows, I start my days with a huge glass of whiskey, and If I havent got a trade in the money by the end of it I move my stops close to breakeven, drink the bottle dry, ring up for an escort girl to come over and give me a massage and then drift into oblivion until the next time.
OH, when I saw Anton Kriel on the BBC I started to TREAT MY BROKER LIKE I TREAT MY BITCH. Unfortunately she doesn't work at a massage parlour.
whistling:whistling

prabuc said:

I have three rules in my trading
1) Discipline
2) Discipline
3) Discipline
I am strictly following my strategy that has working since last five years.... i never loose my trade at any cost..

i attached the performance reports the strategy that me and my clients followed..

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OK there's the performance reports, now where is the strategy?
I don't believe you don't lose trades ever.:-0:-0

prabuc said:

I have three rules in my trading
1) Discipline
2) Discipline
3) Discipline
I am strictly following my strategy that has working since last five years.... i never loose my trade at any cost..

i attached the performance reports the strategy that me and my clients followed..

Click to expand...

OK there's the performance reports, now where is the strategy?
I don't believe you don't lose trades ever.:-0:-0

@Successful_Trader.. I have a different opinion.. while spreads may give you a hedge, they can still blowout, leaving you with no option but to try and get out at the least-worst possible spread-price. With outrights and a SL, if you're wrong, you're out and no need to try and manage the relationships between multiple contracts in a spread

Don't people mostly move to what they trade over time based on trial & error?

^ That's how it's been for me. I start out by absorbing huge volumes of info, then start narrowing down what I like from that. If something doesn't work out, then I retain what I liked, noted what I didn't, and kept on looking.

I work a 9-5 and so needed to be able to set things up in the evenings. This was the biggest reason that I use EOD data. Also it turns out I can get this data free, so day trading is out for me. I can't handle huge risk so I trade the small swings, usually 1 to 10 day trades. Been paper trading for some time now, trying to get my system set as best I can before going real. The more work I put into it the better my percentages become. For myself this is the best trading I can initially handle. If I could deal with more risk I would go for the bigger swings that encompass the small ones that I trade.

jjim88 said:

Don't people mostly move to what they trade over time based on trial & error?

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Only if they're complete BRAIN DEAD MORONS. Or FEMALE.

Great question ... I received an email from T2W just the other day and I have been a long time not posting, but this question seemed to resonate with me.

For me it was by trial and error, most of my training/trading came from the school of hard knocks, where I am currently working on my doctorate ... ha!

Seriously, though I favor Day Trading ... yes ... I am one of those guys, and I like to trade FUTURES to boot ... dude will you just shut up already ... lol.

I have developed my own trading style based on my own trading risk that I am comfortable with. I have made my own way of taking profits while utilizing the top 3 PRINCIPLES, in my humble opinion which are as follows:

1. Cut Your Losses Short
2. Let Your Profits Run
3. Take Profits on the RIDE!!

My favorite market to trade is currently the Crude Oil Market ... yes ... I am an EVIL Speculator ... ha. In addition, I like Gold, the Indices, and the bonds. I will trade an occasional seasonal trade in the grains.

It's been way too long since I have been here it felt good to write a bit tonight and share some of the 25 years of hard knocks I have been through as a trader.

My advice for the new traders is to NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER QUIT! I believe to get into the 5% that win you have to pay your dues. Yes, we are all part of the 95% that lose in the beginning except for those lucky souls that get it right from the get go.

Which in my experience is about 1 in 10,000 traders, in my humble opinion.

Thanks for the great question on the T2W forum!

Good Continued Trading,

David 'Tiger' Knight

Doomberg said:

Hey guys,

As you know most of us have a specific style whether its swing trading, intraday trading or long term etc - most traders stick to their style once its fully established. What is it that made you choose your style and stick with it? It would be interesting to hear some views on how you chose your specific time frame and style of trading.

Personally i prefer to intraday trade, which is bad at the moment as i have work commitments which will not allow enough time in the day to trade, sometimes i do think "maybe i should look at longer term" but it just doesn't suit me, if i am holding a long term position i get really nervous and still end up checkin it every 10 minutes on my iPhone lol.

So what do you trade and what made you chose this style?

Click to expand...