US Stock Swing/Day Trading Thread

[GladiatorX]

Just want to see if their is enough interest in creating an active thread based on the trading of US Stocks and securities with both Swing trades and Day trading discussions and charts/examples...

I think it could be good fun; I'm trading NYSE stocks using Charts(Basic technical analysis) and Time/Sales/ Plus Nasdaq stocks using level 2 to generate my Support and Resistance and Time/sales ofcourse with much higher frequency of trades.

It would seem to me that the majority on these boards trade futures and forex; but maybe the stock traders are just quiet

Anyone up for that? Just in-depth Us stock chat... All fun ofcourse! With lots of examples, chat, 'hot stock' chat and 'speculation/small cap' long term trade ideas; You know the stuff.

 

[N Rothschild]

i have never and will never see the point in trading single stocks!

 

[GladiatorX]

i have never and will never see the point in trading single stocks!

Since starting as a trader; i've spent most of my day watching from around 8am-6pm the Time and Sales of the E-mini S&P500 and the DAX ... My observations are that
- Futures order flow is not fun
- You are required to trade whatever conditions presents itself
- Breakouts are never clean and mainly false

With stocks; You can find the type of conditions that you like as a trader; rather than trying to fit yourself to whatevers happened; with the E-mini S&P500 i would force myself to trade even when it wasn't the type of trading environment that i enjoyed and did well in, but i've realised that you don't neccesarily have to do that.

Stock time and sales patterns are much better and give a much clearer indication of momentum; E-mini S&P500 momentum abruptly ends, stocks round off.

Stocks are considerably less risky; You can position size how you like to suit your risk appetite, you can find stocks that suit your personality = Slow paced, fast paced, trending, sideways, volatile, flat, huge momentum, news-related, gaps, predictable on news.

In terms of news trading; stocks often move on way without too much resistance until 'euphoria' whereas the ES for example will just spike around with volatility.

Stocks are considerly cheaper in commisions and better for scalping BECAUSE of less liquidity and you can find stocks that you can quote inside the bid-ask. I'm sure many would disagree with that though

You can have simple setups in stocks just by looking for the big movers, it can all be relatively simple in methodology.

Stocks can turn into overnight trade with less risk because of 4:1 maximum leverage. Stocks can be studied on the basis of fundamentals and economic indicators.

Overall; i think stocks are easier, more relaxing and more enjoyable.

x

Oh and BTW: Not that i don't think the E-mini S&P500 is a great contract; i still trade it along side stocks.

Also you can scale out of positions conserably cheaper and also into them

PLUS you can day-trade stocks that you swing trade to try get better entries ofcourse you can do that in Futures but... Swing trade stocks is funner x

 

[blackbox]

Hi GladiatorX,

I feel your pain regarding the currency/futures orientation of the forums and most of the swing trade threads are extremely dated.

Not sure how much help I can be as I have only been trading for a few months, holding positions in NYSE/Nasdaq stocks anywhere from 1-20 days. I'm doing well - i.e. in the black, though I sit on the sidelines many days with a pile of cash because fundamentally I'm not comfortable with this rally - considering the statistics, money management is my best friend. I do not use Level II data. I wouldn't know what to do with it at this point and I prefer studying plenty of charts before moving on.

My main time frame is the daily chart, though I'm considering moving down to the 60min chart as I am more concerned about holding longer positions these days.

I have played with indicators and moving averages with decent success, but the main thrust of my approach is S/R and pullbacks so I'm now at the stage of peeling back all those pretty indicators from my screens. I like the idea of pivot points, but this means that one's stock pool must be quite small, otherwise plotting the pivot points is a pain.

I'd be curious how you approach the swing trading, in particular stock selection. I've gone through several phases - at the beginning screening for the basic pullback pattern with volume limits and then cross-checking the stocks for relative strength against peers and the S&p 500. Then (I don't know why, this system was working well but it was VERY time consuming), I started creating pools of suitable stocks based on volume traded, relative strength against the index, and institutional ownership. This approach took WAY too long. Now I'm thinking, since I want to take the most 'pared down' approach, i.e. limited use of indicators, I will focus on 5-10 stocks. Now the task is figuring out which stocks to focus on! My only 'must-have' stock in there is the ETF SPY. I am partial to bank stocks given my background but political risk makes the overnight risk too great for me. So I'm thinking of focusing on stocks that produce stuff I like - AAPL, GOOG, RIMM, PALM etc - which happen to move a lot but this also seems like a rather stupid reason to choose them.