Swing or Stick?

⚖ Active trading
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Just wondering what the general consensus is on the manner in which people typically trade?

I’m a complete novice so for the foreseeable I will certainly stick. I’m reading some books on value investing and the swing method and can’t decide what kind of trader I want to be long term. Or is it all about context?

That said, a number of companies are very easy to analyse. Due to this do you guys tend to stick on value and holding for a number of years? Or come in and out on the support and resistance and other methods of analysis?

Any feedback greatly appreciated.

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I buy and hold about 90% of my portfolio and either swing trade or speculate with approx 10%.

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Bit of a half and half for me. Started in stocks at the COVID crash, like a lot of folk, with the original plan to go long hold (5-15 years) through to retirement and beyond, using a combo of value, growth and dividend stocks. However I saw a lot of small accounts growing in quick time and decided I’d like to retire sooner if I can. :wink:

Tried a few strategies over the past several months; day trades, short swings, long swings, FDA and Earnings plays, IPOs, SPACs.

Have finally settled on a strategy that works for me and is a combination of some of the above.
My ISA has now become my hyper-growth account due to the tax-free nature. That’s not to say there isn’t some anchoring in that account, currently 50% long term holds in steady stocks (AMZN, MSFT, SMT, TSLA, GOOGL) with the other 50% dedicated to long-term (>30 days) swings.

My Invest account is even more weighted to steady growth but with more speculative (but sensible) choices (SQ, GGP, SPOT, STNE, PDD, MELI, SHOP, et al). This is also my experiment account where I test out my own DD picks for validation (NIO, BEKE, APPS, PACB).

The idea is that my Invest account can grow steadily and fund my ISA when the tax year turns over.

A few notes;

  • In the early days I tried Twitter pump penny plays. Followed a bunch of pumpers and chose a few that crossed more than one account (ie. more than one person pumping it). Didn’t like it; 1 success story, 3 bags currently held and 3 breakevens. Not for me. I’ve subsequently unfollowed 90% of these accounts as I now trust my own analysis much much more than these idiots.

  • Day trading is WAy too stressful. Even though I am far more comfortable with reading the quicker timeframe charts now, I’ll steer clear of this from now on. Access to AH might bring me back for another dabble but highly unlikely.

  • Not sure I’d recommend high profile IPO plays. Just another form of Day Trading. With the exception of a very small few (BigCommerce, Rocket Group), I’ve found the best approach is to leave it a couple of days to a couple of weeks, and monitor daily as most will spike and dip. Take LMND as a prime example of even high profile IPOs from doing this - massive initial spike, been slowly dropping almost ever since.

  • By far my most successful hypergrowth plays have been SPACs. Admittedly the only completed merger I’ve been subscribed to is NKLA, I made 120% on that stock, however I’m currently up 120% on SHLL in my Invest acct and 180% in my ISA. Once that merge goes through I’m selling off teh ISA and putting 100% into either SPAQ or FMCI to do the same. And I intend to domino it with others. They aren’t sure fire, but there are loads of high profile ones out there right now to ride and you can time it right given that the majority offer a rough timeframe as to merging. If you time it right, and get the right profile stock, you’re looking at a good 250-300% by merger +1 week.

So while I’m mucking about with the bad half of my ISA, the rest of my holdings should be ticking away in the background with regular top ups from monthly income and funds from vacating my bags when they finally break even!

Not advice… my strategy.

PS. 15% of ISA is held in cash. 10% Invest held in cash.

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If you’re a beginner you should start with popular index ETFs.
As they are basically a mix of top companies, they are pretty safe to hold or to trade. A good way to learn how the market moves.
To trade, keep it simple: price action, an indicator to show you momentum (MACD for example) and longer timescales like the hourly chart or something.
I’ve found indicators to be more reliable when used on futures or CFDs charts rather than the actual index. So when I trade, I always have one of those charts open in tradingview on a second screen (SPX500USD).
That about it. Hope it helps :slight_smile:

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Personally I believe that stocks follow random walk theory. This effectively means that stock prices are random and past performance can be disregarded. Once you believe in that then buying and holding is as good as any strategy out there as any technical analysis or fundamental analysis wont give any advantage.

Controversial topic as people like to think they can pick winning stocks for X reasons and would never like to think they get lucky when a stock they picked went up.

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Psychology is the biggest barrier that a successful trader has to overcome.

I don’t even need to do the math, had I just held 90% of the positions I had even 2 months ago, I would have made a lot better returns.

Now I mainly use the pie feature, and day/swing trade for very small amounts, as soon as I hit 5% im good. At least I know that was the plan from the get go, no flipping in the middle, depending on anything that has distracted me.

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Thanks for the detailed reply. It’s really appreciated.

My initial gut says that in the end I’ll also use a small portion to swings but generally have a long term strategy.

I have an EFT pie set up for my daughter for when she’s 18(hopefully it’ll make!). I only have the vanguard s&p 500 etf in it. What’ll be interesting is to see if my retirement pie beats it!

The retirement pie is also long term and pretty diversified, with 35% committed to the aforementioned vanguard ETF.

A few of the guys at work are on Twitter in the AIM market and the swings they have is crazy! But you’re right it is all pump and dump!

You’re right on day trading! It would be pretty stressful and requires a lot of knowledge. I think you’ve got to be a certain person to like it, because you’re just trading on numbers opposed to investing in a company.

On the IPO front, do you have an opinion on Snowflake? I’ve only ever traded in 2 IPOs, lemonade was one that went really well as I only held it for a day or two, until it hit around 85. However, now if you look at lemonade you wouldn’t want to be left holding it!

Then JAMF was a complete disaster.

SPACs do seem like a good play as well. I have around 8% of my portfolio in workhorse, spaq and Nikola (although I appreciate this isn’t a spac anymore).

Thanks again for the detailed reply!

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I’ve given this a read, it’s pretty interesting!

I’m not sure I :100: buy into it though.

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I’m with you there on the phycology factor!

I made the same mistake of watching Bloomberg whilst working and the tech had a few hour crash which was sensationalised so I was pretty fickle and didn’t ride the wave! Wish I did as I had amazon at 2600, NVDA at 340, FB at 208.

Lessons learned though!

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No worries.

Likelihood is I’ll play the SNOW IPO but only for profits. I’ll double back round once it finds a base.

Made that mistake with LMND already, not that I mind averaging down. Long hold so who cares, right?

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That’s fair on lemonade, they seem to have a good business model.

Motley Fool recommended it the other day, but they do have some howlers.

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Not a fan of Motley Fool. “Buy this and retire a millionaire”.

Pumping in blog form.

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I’m not into there picks at all if I’m honest so far.

There podcasts are pretty good though. They just covered Berkshire in a recent industry focus that’s worth a listen too.

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Thanks I’ll check it out.

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Motley Fool.

1 day ago - want to retire at 50, here’s one share id buy, Lloyds.

Today - 3 Shares I’d avoid, Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC and why.

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Ha ha - I rest my case.

There’s one guy that works for them who gives good food for thought on Twitter: Brian Feroldi I think his name is. Good for fundamental advice and growth insights.

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When I started I was reading their articles and tried couple of ideas which helped me to realise that it’s always better to decide yourself where to invest. I no longer waste my time on their articles.

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