As far as I know, technical traders build a lot of their edge by looking at a lot of charts. Some gravitate towards specific setups, the most common one I've seen being the breakout after volatility contraction. Others like to trade only specific tickers that provide good trading ranges and they're familiar with all the moves that ticker makes. Of course, they're not mutually exclusive and many people do both styles. But I'm curious to get opinions on pros/cons of each.
trading the same setups using scanner vs trading a basket of tickers
- Thread starter spectastic
- Start date
I have certain tickers that I like. But, if you trade only with them, the trade will be only a couple of times a week. Therefore, I have a developed scanner that looks for me from the S&P 500 for the most volatile (Stokes In Play). In this case, the chance of getting the setup I need to enter the market increases. Therefore, I can trade every day.
I know a trader who looks at hundreds of stocks before a trading session. This is a well-known Russian trader Gerchik. He selects several dozen shares for his watchlist according to a certain setup and then places pending orders and waits. And the more he takes away shares, the more likely he is to make money. They even talked about him in one of the Wall Street Warriors series.
Alex Gerchik
Alex acted like a big shot on the show, as if he was god’s gift to Wall Street during the days when even a monkey could make money day trading. Gerchik used a simple strategy that involved buying baskets of stocks premarket when the S&P gapped down. In 2002, the strategy stopped working and apparently Gerchik was never able to consistently make money again. He used the reality show’s fame as a platform to sell trading courses and has become nothing more than a snake oil salesman. Currently, he is the president of the Gerchik & Co, a Forex brokerage company.
https://pennystockwhizzkid.com/wall-street-warriors-where-are-they-now/#Alex_Gerchik
From a trend following angle, just following trend sounds simple enough. One simple approach is to gather the data of how long can a stock stay above a trend line once it get above a certain trend line. Just scan over a period of a year and plot the distribution. Here is what I have observed.
I scan for set-ups. There are days I don't get any so I get a day off.