Swing trading questions/discussion

[brownsfan019]

I'm glad that Tin took the initiative to get this area of the forum going and thought a thread discussing swing trading ideas could be useful. It's been awhile for me since I've taken some swing trades since day-trading futures has just eaten my time up.

Here's a question for the stock swing traders out there - how do you screen for possible plays? I guess there's two methods - 1) Build a list and only play that list or 2) build a screener. I can see the validity of each.

I'm just curious what method is most popular. As a candlestick trader myself, building a screener would be rather hard and/or useless. In theory, most candles are a 'pattern' but certain other parameters need to be met in order to be a valid pattern.

And another question would be do you play the underlying stock or the options? Which one and why? Being a fan of leverage myself, I like the options but there's quite a bit of analysis that needs to go into playing the right option vs. finding the underlying and just playing that. Perhaps that's another thread in itself - ways to play options on your swing trading plays.

[TinGull]

Glad to help! (is that what the Scottrade founder says to the unassuming customers in his chopper?)

As for what my plans are...I'll most likely be back into options soon. I know how I can decrease my risk exposure at the get go on a trade with spreads...kinda like putting out a marker lot to see if the trade will work. Then, one can add to the position accordingly.

As for what I watch when analyzing options...most importantly I watch the implied vol. I don't necessarily watch it compared to the historical vol, but rather watch the trend of the IV. Depending on where IV is for the instrument, I'll determine whether I want to be a buyer of premium or a seller.

As for how I'm finding the things to trade...I'm using a stock scanner (telechart) to find opportunities. You can scan for candle formations within that software, but mostly I'm looking for things on VSA principles, and looking for things that in an overall uptrend right now. I'm currently long gold, oil, and looking at copper for a play there, and some insurance companies look to be a possible interesting play.

[Reaver]

LOL yeah this is gonna be great, since ya know..I swing trade. LOL
Thanks to Tin and James for getting this thing going.

[TinGull]

Glad to help!

[Reaver]

I plan on starting up some stuff as to what I do right now for swing trading after a discussion with Brownsfan about it.

I am constantly evolving my trading so I am trying to think of a way to explain it without seeming like I am crazy right now....

I have a few ideas and different hings I am fooling with right now...

What I do is develop various ideas for myself and glean various ideas from other sources and break them down and attempt to rebuild them integrating key concepts into my trading...So if you see me posting a bunch of odds and ends, bear with me.

[TinGull]

odds and ends always end up making a whole, don't they?

[Reaver]

Quite true! I'll see what I can come up with when I get home and have some time to think....

[studyolic]

Anyone here trade stock index futures? When I saw the "swing trading" forum come up, I thought I might find a few buddies, but it seems most here trade individual stocks / options. Just to clarify where I'm coming from, I use hand - drawn one-day bar charts which I convert to 2-day swing charts, so I'm using relatively long time frames, and Gann-style analysis. I chart the FTSE, Australian ASX and DJ euro Stoxx50, and also gold and copper.
Just thought I'd see if there were any longer-term traders out there.