Rules:

=> Cut every loss when it’s 4 to 8% below your cost. Make no exceptions so you can always avoid huge, damaging losses. Never average down in price.

 

 

Source: http://sizemorecapital.com/take-your-losses-early-and-often/

Portfolio Loss	Gain Required to Break Even
(10%)	11%
(20%)	25%
(30%)	43%
(40%)	67%
(50%)	100%
(60%)	150%
(70%)	233%
(80%)	400%
(90%)	900%
(97%)	3,233%

 

 

 => STICK TO STOPS U CAN ALWAYS RE-ENTER.

Do not look at other traders profit, instead practice risk management to protect your capital first and try to be green. Taking your losses will help you become better trader when it goes wrong. This has been my experience with swing trading, you will make up for it on some other trades down the line.

 

=> Watch index trend in general.

 

Do not hold a position for a long period of time especially if it is not working for you, on the other hand take loss and move on to the next trade.

 

 

Diversify your swing trading account instead of putting all eggs in 1 basket. Example if you have 10k split into 4 chunks 2500 each this way you wont be screwed by some news or volatality and you can capitalize on what you missed on one ticker if the other goes wrong.

 

Never trade pre-market instead wait for the price action to settle after market opens as there can be price action difference between pre-mkt and opening prices.

 

Do not get overwhelmed by financial pundits, its is better to concentrate on your trade  without any noise.

 

It is easier to predict short term than long term (Swing/Day trading) accordingly.

 

It is easier to trade a stock in uptrend when the market is up for the day, but if the market moves sideways and is choppy to the downside it just becomes difficult to scalp or take a position. For swing if the market is in general uptrend should be good enough to work. IMHO this is just my case, bear markets is the hardest market to trade as you will never know when it starts and when it ends, as it happens when you least expect (Highly unpredictable and swing to the downside very very fast.

 

Never fall in love with any stock thinking/assuming it will go higher based on your mindset instead let the market tell you the story and you trade it accordingly.

 

Brokers I use:

Currently: Robinhood & Merrill Lynch

Reason: Free commission trades and for swing trading that is good enough for me.

 Etrade: Most recently (Feb 2018) to test and experience day trading.

Prior other accounts opened: Interactive Brokers & Tradeking(Ally):

Reason: Currently not using IBKR& ALLY because I am not wanting to pay high commission and the platform is not good enough for large position size trading due to commissions and for live data feeds you need to pay separately.

 

Charting:

A) Think or swim platform, you can open account for free and you can view live charts.(Free)

 

B) stockcharts.com: To view charts with RSI, MA & MACD in better way (Free)

Example: http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=AAPL&p=D&b=4&g=0&id=p57226142642

 

C) Finviz.com: For screening stocks (Free) and also watching the behavior of the overall market from there main page it just give a quick glimpse and is very helpful to me.

      Example: All major indices quick glance: 

      https://www.finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=ALL&p=w1&ty=c

 

Desk setup:

Cheap Acer 23inch LED screen ($<$100) ,

Used Sony Vaio Laptop I3 (2nd generation), 8 GB RAM, HDD: 500 GB  (Will need to upgrade soon :) but for swing trading I do not need any powerful COMPUTER OR PLATFORM I just make trades accordingly)

Upgraded to Alienware 17 R5 (05/06/2018) Finally :) (i7 8th Gen), 16 gb ram, 256 SSD & 1TB addtional HD

Wireless keyboard: Logitech

Mouse: 04/29/2018: Added a wired gaming CORSAIR Harpoon mouse

Standing table (bought this towards end of 2017 after seeing other traders setup and is good to stretch a bit) ($<300; LUXOR Standup-CF48)

 

Relaxation Techniques:

Stretch in the morning before trading.

Go out for dinner or buy food outside at times to reward yourself.

Travel to new places over the weekend or somewhere outside.

Watch a movie.

 

Fun Facts from other traders:

 

252 trading days per year:

$200/day = $50k/year

$400/day = $100k/year

$1k/day =$250k/year

 

$4k/day = $1M/year