2001issue C151
Swing trading with trailing stops and fixed loss exits
The archive treats swing trading as one written sequence: wait for a cyclic counter-move inside the trend, enter only if a trailing stop is taken through the prior session extreme, place a stop-loss at once, reduce a winning long by half, and close a gapped position instead of waiting for the next trailing stop.
- Swing trading here uses cyclic counter-moves inside a trend and holds from a few days to more than a week on intraweek price changes.
- A long swing waits for a higher-low pullback and activates a trailing buy-stop one sixteenth above the prior day's high; a short swing waits for a minor rally and activates a trailing sell-stop one sixteenth below the prior day's low.
- A stop-loss is placed as soon as the position opens and exits at a 4 percent loss; a 7 percent unrealized gain on a long swing sells 50 percent of the shares.
- A gap exit sells a long that gaps higher or covers a short that gaps lower, and even one or two substitutions of emotion for the written sequence are treated as failure.
What counts as a swing
A swing is a price move that runs against the immediately preceding move, even while a larger trend remains intact. Swing trading in this archive means entering and exiting on those intraweek cycle moves rather than on same-session noise, with a holding period measured in days. The archive frames that hold as lasting from a few days to more than a week and as using cyclic counter-moves inside a trend.
How a long swing or short swing is activated
A long swing is a buy setup that waits for a higher-low pullback inside a sequence of higher highs and higher lows. Once that pullback is in place, the plan activates a trailing buy-stop one sixteenth above the prior day's high. That trailing buy-stop is a buy stop placed just above the prior session high so the long is filled only if price continues through that high.
A short swing is a sell setup that uses a minor rally inside a sequence of lower highs and lower lows. The plan then activates a trailing sell-stop one sixteenth below the prior day's low. That trailing sell-stop is a sell-short stop placed just below the prior session low so the short is filled only if price continues through that low.
The stop-loss written at entry
The written plan places a stop-loss as soon as the position is opened and exits if a 4 percent loss is reached. In this procedure a stop-loss is a protective exit written at the moment of entry so a losing swing is closed at a pre-set loss bound.
Partial scale-out and the gap exit
On long swings, a 7 percent unrealized gain triggers sale of 50 percent of the shares. That partial scale-out is the rule that reduces the position by half once the unrealized gain threshold is reached.
Gap handling requires selling a long that gaps higher and covering a short that gaps lower. The gap exit is the contingency that closes those positions instead of waiting for the next trailing stop.
Consistency as part of the procedure
The procedure treats consistency as mandatory. It describes even one or two substitutions of emotion for the written sequence as a failure mode.
All readings on this track · 35 readings
- 2001Swing trading with trailing stops and fixed loss exits
- 2003Linear regression swing alerts and trailing stops
- 2005Range-width gates for swing entries at base edges
- 2006Beyond setups: a six-factor trading process
- 2007Angle of ascent, chart scale, and style-fit
- 2010Stacking a short-horizon oscillator with a moving average and swing hold rules
- 2010A weekly contest long treated as one swing procedure
- 2011Four-color volume-price states for long-only swing actions
- 2012Classify momentum, velocity, or volatility before the swing signal
- 2013Swing rules as a portable entry and exit procedure
- 2013Constructing paired percent-b and stochastic swing oscillators
- 2013Give the fast band line and the slow stochastic complementary jobs
- 2013Smoothed percent-b divergences for numbered swing-wave rules
- 2013Portable swing rules for candle turns and a 1-2-3 wave count
- 2013A three-average swing and breakout case study
- 2013Constructing swing trades with a fifty-day average and a five-bar exponential average
- 2014From aliasing and dilation to a roofed stochastic swing
- 2014Channel width and trend-filter lookback as separate swing-trading choices
- 2016Constructing volume-confirmed multiday breakout swings
- 2017Constructing swing signals from a volume-weighted average cross
- 2017Golden-cross swing entry with a trailing-stop exit
- 2017One swing procedure: group leadership first, then a volume-price leave
- 2017Four-day green-candle breakout entry as one swing procedure
- 2017Swing pivots need a 100-period crossover and a breakout candle
- 2017Supply and demand zones as bounded swing maps
- 2018Three-bar volume-confirmed swing breakout
- 2018Tight stops first on swing breakouts with a range filter
- 2018Constructing trend and swing rules from horizon to crossover
- 2019Decade-level breakouts as one closed swing procedure
- 2019Inverse-pair swing trading with a shared buy-stop
- 2019Week-range next-day breakout on bitcoin pairs
- 2019Ranking strength before confirming a multi-timeframe breakout
- 2019Forty-five-degree multi-week swing breakout as a closed procedure
- 2020A dual pending-stop pair as one bitcoin swing construction
- 2020High-low activator, directional oscillator, and momentum swing agreement