Favorite Trading Strategies?

[CDubb16]

I'm not trying to be a poser or anything, I'm just curious as to what everyones favorite trading strategies are? Be it speculation, arbitrage, techincal analysis, buy and hold??? any tips that may come with it would surely be beneficial to some people as well

[Stocktrading101]

Short term momentum trading here with the focus being 90% technical. Also am a fan of CANSLIM but only when the market is strong.

[Airelon]

I seperate into two camps really.

1. DRIP investing for the long term. It's so easy, it's almost painful. I keep my DRIP portfolio accounts completely separate from my trading accounts. For DRIP'ing, I use Sharebuilder.

2. For my trading, I'm a swing trader, 3 to 5 day time frame. My main tenants are: money management principles, then volume + price, and then technical trend trading (EMA's and such)

[rachael24]

Which strategy would you guys suggest for a new trader?

[CDubb16]

It depends on how risk averse you are... Assuming you dont care much about risk because you are young (if you just graduated college), you should have a long term solid DRIP account, and then you should look to holding positions for a couple weeks at a time... depending on the market strength. If you get the hang of that, go for short and margin positions. I personally like options, only if i have a lot of time to study and research the position though, you can lose your a$$ or make your retirement there

[CDubb16]

on the contrary, day-trading gets too expensive in transaction costs.

[CDubb16]

Originally Posted by Stocktrading101

Short term momentum trading here with the focus being 90% technical. Also am a fan of CANSLIM but only when the market is strong.

I totally agree with the CANSLIM strategy as well

[Airelon]

Originally Posted by rachael24

Which strategy would you guys suggest for a new trader?

I'd sort of have to agree with the progression that CDubb mentions.

I generally recommend that when folks feel ready to enter the market (Here's a series of videos that talk about the education that I feel at least, is necessary before actually getting involved in the markets. My mantra is that money management principles are the key to making money in this business) - to move to:

1) Investing: Building a long term investment porfolio built on the power of DRIP's. Not all brokerages let you have DRIP's though. Scottrade for example, doesn't engage in the programs. Whereas with a brokerage like Sharebuilder? Sharebuilder is built more for "Investing", so to engage with DRIP with Sharebuilder is very easy (Literally, click it on and off)

2) Position Trading: When they feel comfortable enough with Investing, have a separate account that you can position trade. Position trading is trading with a 5 to 7 month time frame.

3) Swing Trading: This is once you have a feel for 5 to 7 month time frame. Swing Trades are usually done within 5 to 7 day time frame. Sometimes as short as 2 days. Sometimes as long as 11 days.

4) Day Trading: Once you have swing trading mastered, you may be ready for day trading, if that's your psychology. Personally, although I could day trade, it's just not my psychological build. I've probably had less than 10 day trades in my entire trading career. But this is the big leagues. You need to have mastered emotional discipline in order to be successful at it.