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Mike's Swing Trading Journal
- Thread starter Trend Fader
- Start date
Quote from EchoPatrick:
Mike,
Nice journal start. Thanks.
I started a breakout/breakdown swing strategy 4 months ago, and have found it a good start to supplement my daytrading.
How many positions on average do you have open?
Many thanks for sharing,
PatrickQ
I usually have between 3-7 open positions. But it mainly depends on the market conditions and how my p&l does. I am a firm believer of averaging up and betting more into winners. I would rather scale up and have a huge position into a winner then diversify.
I am not running a hedge or mutual fund so i can afford to take risk and go full throttle on a position thats really starting to take off. Thats how I make money. Probably 1 out of 10 trades have the potential to make serious money.. and if i am positioned properly I clean up. Thats the basis of my trading... to mostly chop around.. but when i nail a winner i make sure i have most of my eggs in that basket.
For example look at Stts. Right now I down a little on it. If it drops under the 50day sma.. i will probably start scaling out most of it for a moderate loss and move on. But if we have a high volume up day and the stock really starts to move.. i will be adding 1k shares to every 50 cent rise. A stock like that has the potential to rip to $8-9 in the next few weeks. I want to make sure i am fully positioned to nail the move. But most of the time this never happens and I end up washing those type of trades out.
--MIKE
Mike,
I would have to agree with your approach, as it makes tons of sense to average into your winner, and that you BE most of the time, then hit a home run. From my journal notes on my swings, I have made similar comments.
For now, however I have lots of buying power, so I look to have open at a minimum 10 positions (both long and short), but find that the more positions I have open the more money I make. I have a ceiling based on a basic % of my equity for all open positions - to give me a max number of positions.
My targets are tight, as are my stops - hence the win rate is what has generated a positive expectancy of the swings over the past 4 months.
I might over time however, change around my swing towards more of an approach like yours.
Once again, thanks for sharing and I look forward to taking more notes on your comments and insight.
Thanks,
PatrickQ
I would have to agree with your approach, as it makes tons of sense to average into your winner, and that you BE most of the time, then hit a home run. From my journal notes on my swings, I have made similar comments.
For now, however I have lots of buying power, so I look to have open at a minimum 10 positions (both long and short), but find that the more positions I have open the more money I make. I have a ceiling based on a basic % of my equity for all open positions - to give me a max number of positions.
My targets are tight, as are my stops - hence the win rate is what has generated a positive expectancy of the swings over the past 4 months.
I might over time however, change around my swing towards more of an approach like yours.
Once again, thanks for sharing and I look forward to taking more notes on your comments and insight.
Thanks,
PatrickQ
Cutting back on some GKIS and STTS.. goona scale out of my position into half and book some minor losses. Markets are very weak.
What % risk do you use for a stock?
Quote from Hook N. Sinker:
What % risk do you use for a stock?
I never risk more than 1% of my total portfolio as far as position size goes. I treat each trade seperately if I scale in. So if I am long 100 IBM and the stock goes up 3 points and I want to add another 100 shares.. i treat that trade seperately.. so I am risking 2% of my portfolio on the trade.. but of course I would be in a profit.. so its a little different.
As far as stop losses on stocks.. i normally use 2x the 14 day ATR... or near a major swing low. I use that as my hard stop loss.. but I rarely take losses there.. normally i scale out and book losses earlier before they reach my protective stop. Usually if i am right.. my stocks will rip from the very beginning.
Nice market reversal.. still long GKIS, STTS, CERN, EFD.
I scaled out 300 STTS and 100 GKIS for small losses... because market reversed I will wait until EOD to see how they close before I dump completely half my position.
I scaled out 300 STTS and 100 GKIS for small losses... because market reversed I will wait until EOD to see how they close before I dump completely half my position.