the current market, page-11

OK, here's what I have been doing the last 10yrs or so ...

I initially started with Sharefinder (now Sharewealth) and followed their trading plan with reasonable results, averaging about a 20% ROI per year. This was back in the days when you actually had to learn how to read their indicators, ie SIROC and RSI, although now they have the usual green and red signals overlayed on the chart.

I 'enhanced' my plan by also looking at a MACD chart (although this is also a momentum indicator), and a P&F chart to confirm support and resistance lines. I also look at the candlestick patterns for clues.

My trading was basically buy and then watch on a daily basis, not trying to finesse my entry and exit points too much; the average trade might have been 1 - 4 weeks in duration.

I am now using the Commsec CFD trading platform which enables me to use a MACD in much shorter time blocks, although the shorter the time frame, the less reliable the indicator seems to be. I am interested in the 1hr MACD as this seems to predict the daily activity of a share reasonably well, and this would enable a trade to be entered and exited over a single trading day.

However, I seem to be missing the entry points - this may be because I am waiting for a confirmed signal and as the daily movement is relatively small, it all seems to be over before I have pulled the trigger.

Other CFD traders seem to look for breakout points which always look correct in hindsight, but which require a lot of confidence (faith?) in real time. In order to remove the emotion from it all, I suppose I am just looking for the most systematic trading plan I can devise.

I would be interested in others thoughts.