I’m finally getting serious and focusing on becoming a novice swing trader. This is the only form of trading that I can realistically focus on right now since I typically work 50-70 hours per week not including commute time. I get up at 4:00 am to be at work by 6:00, then work until at least 4:00 pm, and usually later. During that time, I may have long periods where I’m idle, but I don’t have access to a computer and those idle periods are inconsistent. Then an even longer commute home because of Atlanta traffic. That only gives me a couple hours in the evening to shower, eat and get ready for bed so I can be in bed by 8 or 9. It sucks and I want out.
That mostly leaves swing trading. I could trade forex for an hour or so in the evening, or crypto and crypto futures on the weekend, but that feels too advanced for my current skill. Actually, I would need more trading capital than I currently have for forex, the little bit of crypto trading I’ve tried didn’t go that well. Swing trading seems like the obvious choice because I can look at the market for a little while in the evening and/or morning, plan a trade, and go about my business. In addition, I’ve decided to focus on 3-5 strategies. I’m still looking at some of the most common and established strategies from which I will choose 3 to start with.
Out of the strategies I’ve looked at so far, I’m implementing a simple Mean Reversion strategy on stocks that are ranging. I’m using the chart patterns filter in FinViz to find these stocks. So far it has worked reasonably well, but it still needs some polish. The next strategy is just a gap fade that kind of crosses over with the low RSI. Typically, a sizable gap leads to suddenly very low RSI. This one looks very promising. And finally, I’m using the MACD crossover. This is a popular strategy that just watches for the MACD to cross the signal line. For this strategy, I look for stocks that have good range and bigger swings so that the MACD isn’t just crossing back and forth every few days in a slow motion whipsaw. Ideally, I’d also wait for several days after the cross to avoid false signals.
I will probably add in a trend following strategy and I have more capital to allocate, but for now I’m focusing on the three strategies outlined above to start building my system.