I am swing trading using moving averages, ob/os indicators, volatility measures and volume trend info for setups. I prefer the 2hr to 180min charts and the cycles that show up on these time scales.
Most stocks clearly follow the swings of the market but a smaller group is lagging and always setting up for an opposite turn.
I have a watchlist of both groups and take positions in multiple stocks on both of them to spread risk.
sometimes I lay off in the Q's or options if I can't find enough countertrend trades. Once in a while I go unhedged, long or short only.
One can get an idea about the tone of the market just by keeping an eye on the proportion between these groups.
I also keep an eye on the Alpha rankings of industry groups on barchart.com, especially the top 100 stock group and how it relates to the market (like a yoyo most of the time) and the ebb and flow of the daily breadth data.
I trade higher Beta stocks so most of the time even if only one or two pop in the right direction I can do pretty well.
