Mike's Swing Trading Journal

Quote from Trend Fader:

First of all.. how do u rate your stocks fundementally? What do u use to analyze their fundies? I simply use IBD and stocktables. The tecnicals are more important to me though.

Basically i try to enter on the breakout day.. where the volume is greater than avg and the stock is trading near the high of day. I usually enter stocks after lunchtime or near EOD. I constantly scan the market with prophet scanner for high volume breakouts. At the end of day.. I run my EOD scans for trades to enter the next day .. those are my pullback trades. I place buystop order over highs for the next day.

So basically I use 2 methods.. for breakouts I enter that same day that I catch them popping and volume surging which i use realtime scanner... and then I have my end of day scans which I find orderly pullbacks ( kinda similar to Dave Landry from tradingmarkets).. and enter with buystop order next day.



--MIKE
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Thanks for telling me your methods.

I rank stock fundamentals based on s&p historical financial data (probably one month old), it may not be up to date. Rating is simply like this. For example, the stock having the best eps gets 1.0, the worst gets 0.0, others get a relative number between 1 and 0. Each stock is compared with all stocks, s&p members, its industry respectively. Consider as many as fundament numbers such as rev growth, gross margin, even per employee data, etc. Add all scores together with weighted adjustment to individual values. Each stock gets a final score. On my stock fundamental ranking list, XOMA BDCO MVIS ELC JMAR WGAT VYYO VLNC and LMLP are the worst 10. TAXI, DRL, MFA, OSG, RWT, PLFE, TMA, FMT, AC and ANH are the best 10. As a swing trading, I prefer technicals as you do. I agree that fundamentals is not as important as patterns for short-term swing trading.

Here is one on my hot list. CBK broke out on heavy vol a week ago. It shows up on my EOD scan. Upgraded to STRONG BUY by MarketEdge.com on 4/11. Do you buy? I will buy if it corrects more on Monday. Good luck.


Thanks,

AqTrader
 
I like the CERN setup. Look like a good resistance break. Might join you on this one.

In terms of you strategy are you preferential to wide trailing stops or fixed profit and loss targets?

I tend to give my swing positions very wide trailing stops and take profits when I see a technical turning point.

Mike
 
Quote from Mike805:

I like the CERN setup. Look like a good resistance break. Might join you on this one.

In terms of you strategy are you preferential to wide trailing stops or fixed profit and loss targets?

I tend to give my swing positions very wide trailing stops and take profits when I see a technical turning point.

Mike
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I do the same thing. Wide stops at first.. and then i use discretion to exit. I always have a wide fixed stop at first.. but never use a fixed target. I always scale out of my positions. I use the overall market as a clue as to how quick I exit positions and how aggressive of a position size.

Normally, I am a big fan of scaling up into trades. SO if market heats up and starts a huge rally and CERn lifts off.. i will be scaling up.

-MIKE
 
Long 300 EFD @ 22.80... Stock is pretty strong.. and its in process of building base. Could be a little longer than normal hold on this one. VOlume is pretty strong the past few days.
 
Quote from Trend Fader:

Hey guys. I have been a member of ET for a few years and decided to start a swing trading journal. I will be posting all my swing trades on daily basis.. I will try to be as realtime as possible.

My methods are simple. I trade pullbacks and breakouts. ALways trade stocks above the 50day MA.. and I like to see above average volume coming into the stock. I use tc2000, prophet charts, and stockfetcher for scanning everyday. I just looks for stocks that I think are pulling back as orderly as possible or breaking out of bases or consolidation patterns with a rush of volume.

Normally, when trading stocks I always favor the long side.. because thats where the real money is to be made. I do ocassionally short the market when the major indices are unde their 50ma like we are now. But i have backtested my results and realize that there is always money to be made on the longside regardless or bull or bear market.

If the thread goes well... I will continue posting.. if no one is interested I probably will eventually just close it out.



--Mike
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Hey Mike,

Great start to your journal. Look forward to read it in the future.
With your method, what annual return are you looking for ? Do you use margin ?

Cheers

Gekko
 
Quote from gekko:

Hey Mike,

Great start to your journal. Look forward to read it in the future.
With your method, what annual return are you looking for ? Do you use margin ?

Cheers

Gekko
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I dont look for any annual return.. what ever the market gives me I take... I take it day by day .. week by week.

I only use margin when almost all of my positions are doing very well and the market as a whole is acting very well. Right now.. I am keeping things very light.
 
Quote from Trend Fader:

Long 200 CERN at 57.5... stock is very strong .. good fundies.. looks like a leader to me.
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Nice chart and thanks for the idea. I just pulled the monthly, and it looks, to me anyway, that it's set up into an attractive inverted h&S setup. By the way, good luck with your journal.
 

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