posted
I thought it would be interesting to see how other people trade. Im always trying to find ways to improve and am sure many of you more experiened traders have great strategies. If you would like, list them here.
treemoney
posted
this is mine so far. I typically look through IBD. I look at the canslim select and the IBD 100. I look at all the charts and find the uptrending charts and narrow it down to these. Then everyday I watch these stocks and wait for a large pullback between 8-15 percent or so. I try to get the bottom. Usually it seems they go down maybe 10 percent and then rise to -6percent and I use the -10 as a target price. Often they hit that daily low again and this is my entry point. Or if it closes at its daily low I may get it the next day hoping it to gap down allthough sometimes they gap up like stv did. So I may reconsider. So far so good. some of my recent plays were bought nuro@25.88 and it went up to about 29. Next cnxs@25.99 out around 28. then ngs@21.30 out at 24.81 then stv in about 20 and this one way up to 24.20. So far no blunders but I know im due. I set my stop losses by looking at historical quotes. I look at all the days the stock has gone up 2 percent or more in the last month and find out what was the lowest low of those days was. For example recently I think it was with ngs I found that It never broke -.30 and had a good up day. In other words if it ever dropped more than .30cents it turned into a bad day or a day not worth staying in. So if the pullback was going to continue I would get out at a 1.5 percent loss instead of taking an 8 percent loss. It seems the thing im having the most difficulty with is knowing when to take profits. I probably shouldnt have sold ngs for example but I still havnt figured out how to know how far a stock will go up.
Poseidonism
posted
treemoney, just out of curiosity, are you a day trader? Just wondering if it's what you do on a daily basis. I would love trading to be my full-time job, but with the job I'm in right now I can't really do it.
Just curious.
treemoney
posted
No, im not a day trader. I work a full time job right now so I cant and I dont even think I really want to be a day trader. I like the profits im getting right now without having to sit on my computer for hours everyday. I work an afternoon shift right now so usually I wake up around 10am pacific time and see if there are any good oportunities. This way the market has already established itself somewhat for the day and I get more sleep. I just see if there are any exellent opportunities by looking at my stock watch list. I have all these on a yahoo finance virtual portfolio that I monitor them on. That way I can watch them all at once. If I see a good oportunity I monitor it with real time quotes. I try to catch a stock at the right time. If I see no opportunities or nothing even close I just turn my computer off and call it a day. I may hold a stock for a few days or a week. My averege trade right now is between 8-20 percent. I only take what I view as perfect opportunities so I only make between one or two trades a week. Ive only been trading this way for about one month or so but so far it is working exellent. I did about five or six trades last month and each I took at least a ten percent profit and none were loosers. I do expect loosers in the future since it is enevitable but I dont care because I think my stop loss strategy is pretty solid. So I dont even spend an hour a day trading. Although I spend a lot of time trying to learn right now since im new to all this.
pirx
posted
Hello, treemoney! Good to hear that you found a solid trading strategy! Iīm working on this too, since Iīm a beginner myself and I have also decided, that one or two trades per week should be more than enough. (ofcourse if there are any good opportunities)
I would just like to ask you, if you donīt mind, which software do you use for stock screens and technical analysis.
I wish a nice day to all of you!
treemoney
posted
Mostly stockcharts.com for technical analysis and I have a prescription to the Investors Buisness Daily website. That is where I find my stocks. I just use my Ameritrade account for real time quotes. thats about it.
pirx
posted
Thanks! But isnīt it hard to find an edge on stocks which are widely followed? Just asking. As far as I have observed, sometimes it seems, that exactly this turns out to be the edge - that many people follow the stock. The tricky part is to know when to enter and exit from trade.
katefield58
posted
Am new to online trading and am trying to find info on an Ohio Steel company set to possibly do very well. Doing business with China is raising their value. Anyone know of such a company? Would appreciate any help!
treemoney
posted
Thanks! But isnīt it hard to find an edge on stocks which are widely followed?
not really, So far im about 7 for 7. I always get at least ten percent. A stock in a strong uptrend that has a large pullback of 8-15 percent almost always comes back to its previous spot and then some. Espesially if you can find stocks that have regular pullbacks at least once a month. Ive noticed that usually the day after or for the next few days after a large pullback a stock goes back up very strong. I simply use the anticipated upward momentum that came from a pullback. I also think with many of the stocks on IBD you could just hold them and make a lot of money. They are the best companies out there and the ones doing the best. Also I agree that the edge is going were the money is going. Right now its energy stocks for the most part. When to exit I think is the hardest and I dont know when. I wish I wouldnve held on to some longer. Sometimes I may just exit for another stock that has better potential momentum. Like after gaining around 15 percent on ngs I went to stv since it lost 15 percent the previous day. Even though ngs still looked good, stv looked better. Both of these wouldve been good stocks to hold on to. I really like ngs for the long run although I dont own it right now.
pirx
posted
Sounds like a very solid trading strategy. If you can make atleast 10-15% every month, that is more than enough, to make you rich
bmaxingout
posted
my strategy i put all of my capital into the big boards they are easier to research. i take some profit and buy pinks. each morning as soon as i get out of bed a take a five dollar bill toss it into the air(been using the same one for twenty seven years)heads up i trade for the day, tails and i spend the day doing dd.if it falls back onto the bed i crawl back into bed with my lovely wife and stay there till lunch. now i know there is no science behind that but it works for me. good luck all
macdrsirules
posted
I won't go into finding the stocks that I buy there are too many to mention. But what I do look for in a stock are technical indicators that match the price movement of a stock. Look at all the indicators and see if any correlate directly with the stock price. RSI is a very good indicator that I use more than most because it correlates more than most. The use of indicators is my primary means of finding an entry point along with candlesticks. It matters not which indicator/indicators correlate. As long one indicator matches well with the history of the stock price. Take a look at this chart and see the RSI. http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/SC.web?c=BDX,uu[h,a]daclyyay[pb50!b200][vc60][iUb14!La12,26,9]&pref=G It won't give you every entry point, but it will give you a solid entry if you see the RSI drop to 30 or lower and then wait for candlestick confirmation of an uptrend. That is only one example. I use candlesticks for exit points as well and am learning to pay more attention to moving averages also. I try not to rely too much on RSI for exits because the price of many stocks continue northward after the RSI passes 70. Bollinger band width, OBV, accumulation/distribution or CMF or other money flow index are just a few of the indicators that are out there and do work. Nothing is concrete however. Another thing I like to see is a drop in price while the accum/distr line or CMF or MFI is positive and increasing(positive divergence). This will generally indicate a trend reversal along with the candlesticks. However be careful if you are dealing with penny stocks with this method as manipulation by MMS and naked shorting can continue this stock downward even with excellent indicators that I mentioned above. I could go on more but this is probably enough. Many folks on this site have good trading strategies. Check out cashmakers picks. Machievelli also seems to be somewhat of a pro. Too many more to mention. Good luck.
macdrsirules
posted
I also do a tiny bit of FA before entry to see whats going on with the company. Just to make sure they arent going into bankruptcy or issuing a billion more shares.
Machiavelli
posted
Tree's style is the William O'Neill trading style... mine is the Toni Turner's trading style.. similar to what MACDrules does...
posted ![[Smile]](smile.gif)