What indicators should I focus on?

[Freedomtrader2012]

I am planning to trade in UK shares with no leveraging or margin. Account size approx £20,000. Planning to trade as a swing/postion trader and feel that it makes good sense to use a mix of fundamental and technical analysis however:

What indicators should I focus on and why?

How do I use these indicators to find a good entry/exit point and why?


All comments kindly appreciated. I understand trading stocks won't make me rich overnight, has a 95% fail rate, has an extremely long learning curve (years rather that weeks or months).... However looking for other traders views / experience to enable me to have sufficient information to develop my own trading plan.

Thanks again for all responses

 

[malaguti]

I am planning to trade in UK shares with no leveraging or margin. Account size approx £20,000. Planning to trade as a swing/postion trader and feel that it makes good sense to use a mix of fundamental and technical analysis however:

What indicators should I focus on and why?

How do I use these indicators to find a good entry/exit point and why?


All comments kindly appreciated. I understand trading stocks won't make me rich overnight, has a 95% fail rate, has an extremely long learning curve (years rather that weeks or months).... However looking for other traders views / experience to enable me to have sufficient information to develop my own trading plan.

Thanks again for all responses

If you are looking to trade as a position trader, i wouldn't use indicators.
Why not enter when the trend on the lower time frame, say 2 hourly/4 hourly, aligns with the trend on the daily.
You wont need indicators for that, and you then don't become reliant on indicators. That's my suggestion at least.

 

[Tradesight]

I am planning to trade in UK shares with no leveraging or margin. Account size approx £20,000. Planning to trade as a swing/postion trader and feel that it makes good sense to use a mix of fundamental and technical analysis however:

What indicators should I focus on and why?

How do I use these indicators to find a good entry/exit point and why?


All comments kindly appreciated. I understand trading stocks won't make me rich overnight, has a 95% fail rate, has an extremely long learning curve (years rather that weeks or months).... However looking for other traders views / experience to enable me to have sufficient information to develop my own trading plan.

Thanks again for all responses

Hi Freedom,

You don't need any indicators to begin trading. The best thing to start looking for are trade setups. Once you have an understanding of what a good trade setup looks like you are on your way to successful trading. I would recommend you keep your time frame as short as possible. This will accomplish a couple of things. It will force you to look for and identify good setups and make managing the open trades much easier. There is nothing wrong with going in and out in the same day. Keep it simple and get comfortable with the mechanics of trading.

For now I would look for clean setups that are breaking out. I found this nice setup last night and traded it today. The stock hit a technical level and just rested below it. The opportunity is when it finally breaks above it. In the first chart you can see what I saw last night. There are no indicators on the chart, just a nice potential setup. In the second chart you can see how it broke out and gave you a nice opportunity to take a profit. I had an order in the system to automatically buy it when it crossed above $5.24

I'm a US based trader so this stock is local to me, but trading is trading.

Best of luck,

Rich

 

[Funky Trader]

Individual shares are far more risky than trading indicies and far more time consuming, IMO. Also, you really have to research them, as a piece of news, change in management or slightly different results to expected can have very dramatic, sometimes counter intuitive reactions, with incredibly high volatility.

At least with indices you have currencies and other indicies against which they may move and the relative performances can be easily tracked. For example, the DAX has trounced almost everything lately (2000+ points / about 40% since Oct/Nov 2011 when it crossed above the Euro). With little to no leverage, that could have been a pretty stress-free trade and would have just quietly earned and earned.

You have to work out what kind of trader you want to be, before you start. It would be no good doing a year long trade if what really excites you is scalping and trades that sometimes last a few minutes. Likewise, if you can only devote half an hour a day, late at night, scalping would be a complete no-no.

 

[Jason101]

See posts 2 and 3.

If it is going up in your time frame then buy. If it is going down then sell.
If neither then stand aside.

You can use ma's to make sure you are clear on trend strengh.

Make some rules so you get out quick when it goes against you.
Make some rules so you stay in for a long time when it goes your way.