What Works For Me:
A Personal Trading Strategy

Riding The Trend

I have the most consistent success by riding trends. My approach is to spot trends on a monthly timescale and then drop down to a lower timescale, like 5 or 15 minutes, to time my entry. I personally never bet against the prevailing long-term trend.

Timing Your Entry

There are several ways I like to time my entries.

Corrections and Retracements

I often time an entry by waiting for a correction back into a support/resistance level, or simply a retracement from a recent high or low. I wait until this correction runs out of steam and seems ready to reverse, and then I bet on the trend resuming. This can sometimes be indicated by several candles that have long and symmetrical wicks. I've found that I can use more leverage when timing entries on a higher-frequency timescale like this.

Breakouts

I also like to bet with the trend when there is a clear breakout in that direction after a period of consolidation. This represents the bulls or the bears beginning to overwhelm their counterparts, signaling that the price is ready to move again. For instance, if there were a long-term bullish trend that had recently flattened out, and then a large green candle appeared, I would go long after seeing that spike. My expectation is that the upward momentum hasn't been exhausted yet, especially on a deeply liquid stock.

The Market's Rhythm

I often think of the market as "breathing." It can only go in a certain direction for so long before it must take a breath and retrace. This mental model helps me focus on the rhythm of the market and reminds me not to stay in a trade forever, but instead to close my position and await a higher-probability moment to get back in.

Core Principles

• Trade Selectively: Don't try to trade every moment. It's better to focus on fewer, high-probability setups. At the very least, drop down to 1x leverage if you don't have strong conviction in your trade.
• Leverage with Caution: Using more than 20x leverage is really playing with fire. Remember that this game doesn't take bid-ask spreads into account, so be mindful of that when carrying your strategy over to the real world.
• Beware the Weekend: Be very wary of leaving a trade open over the weekend. The movement after hours is often greater and more unpredictable than during normal market hours.
• A Note on Day Trading: I recommend against day trading. But if you must, refine your strategy and intuition until you can consistently get on the leaderboard. And for goodness' sake, learn to size your bets properly by understanding the Kelly Criterion.

What's Next?

Contact me if you want to see anything different on this site. I plan on adding news stories and earnings reports to begin with.