Contents

  1. Stock Coaching
    1. Definition of Success
    2. Watch List Criteria
      1. Bullish
      2. Bearish
    3. Entry Rules
      1. Bullish
      2. Bearish
    4. Exit Rules
    5. Portfolio Management
  2. Basic Options Coaching
  3. Advanced Technical Analysis Coaching

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Stock Coaching

Definition of Success

Having reasonably proven success in long stocks trading, we plan to apply our coaching now to bearish strategies and timing.

Watch List Criteria

We will also watch securities we have recently exited trades in for signs it may be time to re-enter a trade (eg after a correction; bullish -or- after a rally; bearish). Watching takes little time, but when the trend is broken for the criteria (bullish or bearish) we’ll drop the symbol after a while.

Bullish

Stocks that break their trend beyond a normal correction, or Industries that develop a reverse trend will cause a stock to be removed from the watch list.

Bearish

Entry Rules

We have been using more advanced technical analysis to do trading in this relatively flat market of the last few years.

We have added the Slow Stochastic (80,20) as another technical indicator we use for decision and confirmation of entry and exit points.  Here a green arrow is a positive crossing or an upturn and a red arrow is a negative crossing or a downturn.

We look to 90-minute intervals to anticipate moves on the daily chart, and to the weekly chart looking for longer term trade entry points. We have observed that on the 90-minute intervals there are about 3 cycles of technical indicators for each daily up or down signal.  This is helpful for anticipating signals on the slower daily scale.  The same principle applies from the daily to the weekly intervals.

We are active in the market during the day and make decisions intra-day.  We generally make buy decisions near the end of the day based on the technical signals the toolbox tells us to use for the next day...

We qualify a Short List from the Watch List based on buy-qualified stocks that are about to present buy signals.  We confirm these qualifiers intra-day and generally buy near the close of the market given entry conditions met during the day.  We will short-list a stock for 2-5 days and re-evaluate the short list in mid-week.

Bullish

Short List Qualifiers:

Entry Condition:

Bearish

Short List Qualifiers:

Entry Condition:

Exit Rules

Exits are generally from stops, but in a flat and channeling market we will be willing to take profits when things look towards reversal.

Stops are evaluated/adjusted upon new entry signals and upon technical reversal signals.

Portfolio Management

Our investing portion of the portfolio is divided by about 59% retirement (14% ROTH) and the rest in Rollover, and 41% savings (13% reserved for Options strategies).  Of the retirement funds 100% of the ROTH and 60% of the rollover is allocated for ETF related trades while the rest is for single stock trades and other strategies.

We have been dividing our stock purchases into roughly equal parts, and generally entering trades with about 1/2 part.  If the trade takes off we may increase the stake to a whole part, if the trade does not take off then we can exit.  This complies more or less with the 3% rule (don't risk more than about 1-3% loss on any single trade) and the 10% rule (don't risk more than 10-15% of portfolio on any 1 trade).

Basic Options Coaching

Advanced Technical Analysis Coaching