TheStockBandit.net

I’ve written before about my homework and the process I go through nightly to locate trading setups, but there’s a hidden benefit to my process that I feel greatly adds to my trading results.

Bring your wide eyes to the table and you might be surprised what all your watch list can reveal!

Every afternoon after the market closes, I run my TeleChart scans and I end up with a ton of stocks in one big watch list. This big list is where I locate my trading candidates. Although I’ve seen software that offers to locate chart patterns and provide me with a potential shortcut, I feel strongly that a trained eye is better at picking up subtle nuances of a chart that may be extremely hard to mathematically define Read more »

Cartman gives a different kind of orders, but he’s no trading Authoritah.

There are a lot of ways to buy and sell stocks these days, and virtually any kind of order you can think of is now available to traders. Because of my trading strategy, I’m often asked by subscribers of my swing trading service which order types I use to execute trades. The debate between Market & Limit Orders is an old one, but I’ve got pretty clear reasons for which type I prefer and when I use them. Let’s do a little Order Type 101 and look at some of the basics. Then I’ll wrap things up with a look at my personal preference.

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I used to think that the most successful traders just knew how to locate the big winning trades and that was the key to their profitability.

We all know what happens after the STOP.

Not anymore - I’m past that, and thankful that I finally realized it. It took some time, probably because of the irony of it all. Who would have thought that the best traders’ real key to consistent profits in the market all boils down to humility and their ability to get out of trades when they need to the most? What happened to bravado and having the guts to take the plunge and go big when you really feel you’re right? Is that not how the best traders do it? Occasionally that approach might give you a windfall profit, but what happens when you’re wrong (and you WILL be)? If you don’t have an exit plan, you’re gonna be toast. It’ll be Hammer Time for your account, and it won’t be pretty or fun!

If you don’t respect the market, it will force you to respect it.

I’m a huge advocate of using stop loss orders, regardless of your operating timeframe. There are plenty of reasons to sell your stock, but the most basic premise is that once your trade stops behaving as you expected, it’s time to consider kicking it out the door.

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