I’ve been getting a fair number of emails about my trading style. People are asking me what “system” I use. Well, frankly, trades in this blog are not taken using any system. What I do is better described as a “method” or “style”. And the only way for me to describe it is to call it swing trading. This might create a little bit of confusion. For most people “swing trading” has to do with the length of trades, falling somewhere between day trading and investing – holding on to something forever. This has been popularized by media sources like CNBC, probably during the days when day trading was all the rage. For me “swing trading” term goes back to early days of technical analysis when Charles Dow and W.D.Gann described it as trading “the length of a swing”. I see it as trying to predict future price swings by analyzing most recent ones. And as far as I’m concerned it has nothing to do with the length of trade. This is dictated by a time frame used. For example, trade on 4H chart will take much longer than one on 15M chart. Sometimes I like to think of duration of a trade, or expectation for it, in terms of number of bars(candles) rather than hours or days. In principle, I analyze price alone and past swings, or price movements, dictate the direction and magnitude of the anticipated move. And this is it. Swing trading, as I see it, is my method.
There are a few orders pending and waiting for markets to move. No new positions were established, but all the orders are still valid. Lone trade is the CAD-JPY trade from last week and it is progressing at a snail’s pace. And the snail is on prozac. Since I don’t have anything to update, here is a look at my GBP-JPY short term buys for today.
One winner, one loser, with not much to comment on.
I’m not adding any new orders at the moment for trades on time frames suitable for these pages. To put it simply, I don’t see anything interesting right now, and there are enough orders. For now at least. I don’t want to trade for trading sake, right opportunities will present themselves soon. Or just a little later.
Mike K.
So, that’s how you call it, swing trading. Good to know.
Interesting. I didn’t realize swing trading was anything else than length of trade. Guess plenty is left to learn for me. No indicators at all?
No, not really. In earlier years I devised number of strategies using indicators, even created two myself. Over time I drifted away from them and now my discretionary trading doesn’t employ any.
Last two days I took the time to go over your posts for few months back. Results you’ve been getting are very, very impressive. Excellent trading!
Swing trading or swinging, Mike?
On a swing.
Beast went down hard today. Is it the sell off you expected? Do you think it is a buy area for a nice run on 141?
Yes, this was very likely to happen and it did. Inorder to buy I will be following 1H charts looking for reversals and tying to enter on upside breakouts. Direct buy (without waiting for reversal signs) would only be at or under 125.00. This would give about 1600 pips upside potential to 600 risk.
Does it apply to all yen pairs? I mean, do you think more than gbpjpy will be a buy soon?
Andy, probably. I’m watching hourly charts and they are slowly turning. It doesn’t mean things will turn, but a good sign.
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