Conflicting signals on the daily TF

Does anybody trade the daily TF on equities?

If you get a signal do you take the trade long or short regardless of the general market conditions? Or do you look at where the market is headed generally (I.e. we are in a bull rally right now on all the indices) and then only take signals that go with the overall trend?

I take trades long or short (well...paper trade) irrespective of what's happening if I get a signal, sometimes I even take a long and short position on the same day, but find that more often than not most equities are moving together, so one day both stocks will be up, the following day they are both down, any gains almost cancelling each other out. Just wondering to myself if my lack of success is due to poor analysis or perhaps it's my counter trend trades.

Hope this makes sense. Any thoughts?

The market is the tide and the stocks are the boats in most cases.
You need to check the tide in the timeframe you are trading.
If you trade against the tide, you should halve your position size and only anticipate short jouneys.
Glenn

Wow, deep. Thanks for the reply, that makes sense.

You should also check the tide in at least one timeframe above the one you are trading. For example, if you are looking to go long on the 5', make sure it's not extended on the 15', etc.

Hey thanks. Will give it a try, although I only trade dailies so I would be checking weekly for confirmation.

Also been paying more attention to what the general market is doing. I was rereading Reminiscence of a Stock Operator and Jesse Livermore says only trade when the general market is trending strongly and only trade in the direction of the general trend.

Got some ideas from this link:

http://www.swing-trade-stocks.com/market-timing.html

I think that is generally true; the U.S. markets have not been conducive to swing trading lately, in my opinion. I rarely swing trade though so others may disagree.