What Are The Pros and Cons of Scalping

Posted by trader on 22nd October 2011

There are so many ways to win the games of stocks trading, CFDs as well as spread betting. Among the most popular strategies are the day trading, swing trading and scalping. These different concepts are all applicable when engaged in the trading of those financial instruments and commodities mentioned above.

In order to understand these concepts, it is best to define each of these strategies first and state their respective pros and cons.

On the one hand, day traders are those who look for a position once or twice in a day. These are the types of the traders who open their position at the beginning of the trade day and they will close that specific position on order before the market closes. This can actually refer to a very short-span way of trading.

The advantage of day trading is that one can easily detect if he or she is losing or winning the game. This is because in just a day, one can clearly realize if there are some earnings or losses from the positions made. This is unlike long-term trading. However, its disadvantage is that the potential profit is small as well.

While on the other hand, the swing trader does not need to wait for the market to close in order to make profits. This is because it is longer than trading in a day trade but the positions are shorter than those that an investor or trader can hold and trade for couple of months and even years. The advantage of swing trading is that it is more flexible because closing the position to gain profits is not dependent on the closing or opening of the market. However, like the first one, this kind of transaction involves little potential earnings. Nevertheless, it can be maximized through proper handling and management.

Last, but not the least, scalping is another method to trade stocks, CFDs and even in spread betting. This can refer to what they call as the “skimming” of small profits regularly. This is being done by going in and out the positions for few times in a single trading day.

One of the major advantages of scalping when it comes to CFDs, stocks trading and spread betting, is that it is a way of slowly but surely gaining profits. This is considered as the most effective way to surely earn some profits little by little on a regular basis. In other words, this is like always grabbing the opportunity when the tide is favorable on your side. However, the negative side of this is that the amount of potential short-term income is the minimum. This can only be maximized if the trader will carefully and consistently make good decisions.

10Oct

The elementary principles of swing trading stocks

Posted by trader on 1st August 2011

The concept involved in swing trading is all about trends in stock markets and in fact, swing trading is basically a strategy that grounds decisions of investments on prevailing trends such that, when the trends predict rise in share prices, investors will buy the shares and while the trends look otherwise, the stocks will be offloaded. In other words what this means is that, trading is done on the basis of the changing trends otherwise known as swing in market trends and thus the name swing trading is derived here.

How swing trading works in stock markets is all down to market trends and the strategy in most cases if not all will recommend entering in to a market with a very strong trending stock which presumably as it has been the case in many instances has a very genuine chance of earning good profits in just a matter of time. The strategy has been vindicated to have a good number of benefits and some of those have included:

  • The nature of the strategy is that it is very quick and you can finish and close business in very few hours and take home some good returns making it very flexible.
  • Secondly, the trends in stocks occur within a very short timeframe in that, investors can trade on high profit shares within a matter of hours or even minutes and keep capitalizing on the changes minute by minute. If at all this is repeated for the whole day, you can be sure to take home very huge amounts.
  • Trading in this strategy is not necessarily on a daily basis and as we have noted, it is based on trends and in most cases transactions made in this approach are very limited but very profitable and that said, in the process of making good money you still cut down on brokerage fees.

When to start trading

As an intelligent trader taking the swing strategy, you will have to be well informed on the appropriate time to start trading and one thing that will determine your investment decisions is the rising or falling market trends. During the rising trends, prices keep rising and even if there is a drop, the value reached still is on a relatively high range compared to previous levels and that is the best time to buy. The reverse opposite of this would be a continuous downward trend with prices hitting rock bottom, this is not the time to buy but actually to offload. During the rising trend, here is when a buying order is placed on shares and the reverse is equally true for the downward trend such that selling orders are placed on shares.

The truth about swing trading is that it has a lot of opportunities only for those with the patience of a cobra, never rush things and always stick to the principles of the strategy and you will be guaranteed positive returns for your investment. The way the market changes is like a rollercoaster, as much as there will be a low, there will always be a high trend.

8Aug

Investing in High Cap Stocks

Posted by trader on 26th June 2011

Among the most wanted topics when it comes to stock market trading are the strategies that people can do in order to profit from their investments. After all, the end goal of investing is to gain something from an instrument that you spent for. This is also true when it comes to investing in high cap stocks. With this, it is best to know the different investment strategies that most people do in order to make money.

As a matter of fact, there are two (2) main classifications of investment strategies, which are the fundamental analysis while the other one is the technical method of analysis.

On the one hand, if you are interested in investing to high cap stocks and you want to employ some fundamental analysis strategy of stock market trading, you need to understand its basic and components. In general sense, fundamental analysis can refer to the way of analyzing the companies by using their financial statements and standings. You can find this financial standing through their SEC filings as well as to the following:

1. Business trends – this means that you can judge them and make a conclusion on the company based on the trends happening to their specific industry or market. For instance, if the company you want to out your investment into is engage in real estate, you need to make sure that there is no on-going crisis affecting that specific market. Otherwise, you are putting your money in the wrong place.

2. General economic conditions – what this means is similar to the previous what. What this wants to highlight is factor, not only financial and economic conditions in the international arena, but also the specific situation in a country. This also includes analysis on the risks currently associated with the issuer of stock you want to buy.

On the other hand, the technical analysis usually refers to the different studies and analyses involving the movements in the prices in the stock market. This is being done through the use of different types of charts, diagrams as well as other quantitative measurements. This is in contrary to the first one, wherein the qualitative situation of the market is being analyzed. For instance, when you are investing in high cap stock, what you are going to do to execute this kind of strategy is to forecast and predict the price trends, without necessarily factoring in the financial aspects or standing of the company.

Another popular strategy that is emerging in the stock market trading is the index method, which you can also apply in investing high cap stocks in the stock market. What you need to do here is simple and just to minimize the impacts of possible risks to the instrument by way of diversifying your portfolio. What this means is you must not concentrate you investment to high cap stocks only. You might also want to invest on other instruments.

6Jun