GL_Storm wrote: ↑Tue Jan 17, 2023 7:02 pm
What is a Swing Trader?
It's when we share our wives- jk
. It's a time interval. A day trade is something that is typically done within a few minutes to a few hours. A swing trade is typically a trade that evolves over a period of one day to a couple weeks.
I swing trade for two main reasons. I trade currency pairs on the foreign exchange (by far the largest of all markets). Due to the nature of the forex and how its value is measured (in PIPs), and that I leverage my trade through my broker, I need to see a wider PIP movement range and this doesn't happen over a day trading time period. The other reason is because I'm not concerned about 1 or 2 trades, but I'll put in about 7 to 20 Limit Orders and go about my day. Because I'm using a Limit Order my broker will take margin of a few PIPs to execute the order (commission) (BTW- There is a point when paying the transaction cost of a trade in and out, which is about $20 to trade in and another $20 to trade out, makes sense. But if you are micro trading then paying margin makes sense.) If I tried trading currency in a day trade period the margin I pay to my broker in a leverage trade would scalp any profits I would make in that short of period, or I would simply go in the hole if a sell is triggered by my "stop" (aka my risk I'm willing to lose).
I trade Forex currency pairs because it opens more trade opportunities than trading things like TQQQ vs SQQQ. This is important because of risk exposure. Many traders out there who are trading the Qs straight up are often speculating way too much and expose themselves to tons of risk by using large positions. For example, if I have 100K and am trading the Qs straight up and not doing contracts, many of these traders may risk 20%, 40%, or more of they overall buying power in order to try to hit a 1% or 2% gain on a day in the hopes to make a few hundred bucks. But if they are wrong, then bye-bye buying power.
I'll use about 1% to 2% of buying power per trading position, but I place many trades to diversify my risk. I fully rely on analytics, my edge (knowledge about something that happens with consistancy), and success rate. I don't care if I lose a trade, whereas the former does care about their trade which in turn causes lots of psycological pressure which impacts making consistant trades. In my methodology I target success rate, and if it fails me then I have to reexamine my analytics and edge.