US Equity Swingtrading

Article43

Not to clutter up the daytrading thread - this thread is for swingtrades - duration of trade is entirely at the discression of the individual trader - it can be days to several weeks - rarely months.

Article43

Stock: AA
Price @ 27Mar08: $36.05
Upside Target: ~ $38.00
Downside Target: ~ $34.00
Potential Profit / Loss: $2.00 per share
Bias: Long

Lmt Long: $35.50/55
Max Stop: $34.85/80
Max Risk: $0.65/0.75 per share
Target: Sell Stp @ $37.75
Profit Target: $2.20
R:R = ~1:3

DO NOT TRADE THIS - but watch it by all means to see what way it goes - it can be one of two things - a loser or a winner - lets see what happens!

Article43

Target Hit

Filled @ $35.55
Stop @ $34.80
Sell Stp @ $37.75

Now - lets see how the short term hold plays out - we will need to adjust stop up if markets rebound a bit today - Ftrs are currently up, so for now the odds are in our favour.

Only time will tell!

Article43

So far the pre-market is very quiet - Ftrs are holding about 0.4% gains for now - so far so good, but in this game things can change very rapidly, that is why we must always use stops to protect others from getting thier hands on too much of our trading capital!

Article43

AA is weak on open - now at $35.30 - things can change quickly as mentioned - prob is you will never know what way it is going to go - so this trade will either be stopped out at the stop level - or stop will only be moved when profit can be locked in - a swing is a swing and should be left that way, it can be a bad idea to convert it into a day trade, or vice versa for that matter!

AA droped to $34.90 - getting very close to our stop :rolleyes:

Article43

That was close - AA droped to $34.82

Article43

Stop moved to $35.35

Risk is now $0.20 per share.

This might be hit but it might also be a wise move - lets see what happens!

Article43

When you are away from your regular PC - and you don't have access to your setups - yahoo provide a relatively good snapshot of what is happening in the markets.

http://finance.yahoo.com/indices?e=futures

Note; the screen will say "streaming quotes on", but do not take this as the live price - for live prices you must use your data feed via your broker, like IB if you have an account with them, or a subscribed data service.

Do not rely on free data for making trading decisions as penny pinching does not work out too well with equity trading.

YM Ftrs are +81 as per yahoo link - AA might get a pop today and give a chance to lock in some profits - might even close the trade if it looks OK.

AA is + 0.22 pre market @ $36.28 - but this is only on 200 shares volume - nothing to get excited about.

YM Ftrs fairly steady for now @ +76

Take note that some commodities took a big hit yesterday and if this decline continues then some big funds will shift their money - anyone want to guess where they might put some of it for now

Article43

OK - AA did not trade up with broader market, so stop is now moved up to $35.95

Profit locked in is now $0.40 per share.

Trade duration = 2 days

Article43

Please feel free to comment on the pros & cons of this type of trading - as by looking at the 5 day x 5 min bar chart for AA you can come up with many - but is very easy analyize after the event has expired!

Article43

BTW - you can have a STP price ($35.95) and a SELL STP / SELL STP LMT price ($37.75) in at the same time - whichever one gets hit first is activated.

You win either way when the market has moved in your favour - better than losing anytime - even if you dont make your 1:3 R/R play.

Article43

Stop moved to $36.20

Profit of 0.65 cent per share now locked in.

Article43

Trade was stopped out yesterday for 0.65c profit per share - done and dusted.

Maybe we can get one of the analysts here to post a trade now - as there appears to be a few experts amongst us - very quiet here though, I hope it is not my style of writing that prevents people from posting, as I really do know nothing about anything - and a 6 year old has exactly the same chance of posting a winning trade as I.

Let those who are brave enough step up - remember, it is OK to be wrong when trading - actually, most of the time it is better to be wrong than hoping you are right - that is for amateurs and people who know absolutely nothing about gambling - as trading is gambling, no matter how hard one tries to convince oneself otherwise - believe me, I KNOW ONLY TOO WELL

Notorious BIG

Is this lad talking to himself?

Article43

Notorious BIG wrote: »

Is this lad talking to himself?

Not any more

Article43

As Mr NB has now joined the discussion - we will next look at doing a trade on AIB - that should get a lot of interest from the resident analysts

Now- the first thing we must do is analyse the chart for AIB - so lets see what all of those TA indicators are saying - this might be a buy, or wait, maybe it is a sell, did you see that MACD signal!



Might need to do a bit more in depth study for this one - looks like a bull from a certain angle :rolleyes:

A Random Walk

Article43 wrote: »

Maybe we can get one of the analysts here to post a trade now - as there appears to be a few experts amongst us - very quiet here though, I hope it is not my style of writing that prevents people from posting, as I really do know nothing about anything - and a 6 year old has exactly the same chance of posting a winning trade as I.

You made 1.6% on your trading. (65c/$35.55).

If the 6 year old had bought a broad index fund, such as the S&P over the period of your trading he would have made 3.2% (Difference of 43 between opening and closing price over the two days/1327.02).

So for all your huffing and puffing, the "boring" index investor who bought and went to the pub or played with his kids made double your profit. And with far less risk to their capital.

I know that won't happen every day, but you're the one who chose this illustration.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Article43 wrote: »

this might be a buy, or wait, maybe it is a sell

Profound.

portomar

A Random Walk wrote: »

You made 1.6% on your trading. (65c/$35.55).

If the 6 year old had bought a broad index fund, such as the S&P over the period of your trading he would have made 3.2% (Difference of 43 between opening and closing price over the two days/1327.02).

So for all your huffing and puffing, the "boring" index investor who bought and went to the pub or played with his kids made double your profit. And with far less risk to their capital.

I know that won't happen every day, but you're the one who chose this illustration.

point is arandomwalk, that if you had have bought same stock in november and use "buy and hold " theory, youd be a poor 6 year old. check out the thread on "saver policy" in this board for one mans experience of being a novice retail investor

PDelux

AA broke out to $38.54 ! Ah well..

Actually i think swing trading can get better gains than following the index, if not just by the fact that you can profit from shorting as well as going long.
The point ARW made about a good system, everybody would be using it. That is a good point but the problem is most people dont know how to use it. Article43 didnt mention why he did this trade but it was either because of a bounce off the 50 day MA or horizontal support or because both conincided. This could be a good system to follow. Say for example if you are buying 100 shares, risking 20c and going for a target of 60c. If the probability of the bounce off support or the MA is good enough you're on to a winner. BUT the bounce off the 50MA was at $34.66 and he got filled at $35.55. See the whole new risk he has added to the trade because he is chasing it. Most people will fail with a good system because they force the trade. If everyone was patient and only took the trade when the price is exactly where it should be then the performance would be better. It is hard to do though.