There is a difference between trading and investing. Trading is always short term while investing is long term. The time horizon in trading can be as short as a few minutes to a few days to a few weeks. Whereas in investing, the time horizon can be months to years. Many people day trade or swing trade stocks, currencies, futures, options, ETFs, commodities or other markets. In day trading, a trader opens a position and closes it in the same day making a quick profit. In swing trading, a trader tries to ride a trend in the market as long as it lasts. On the other hand, an investor is least pushed about the short term swings in the market. He or she has a long term time horizon like a few months to even a few years. This long time horizon matches their investment and financial goals!
Now a company’s stock may have a good long term prospects supported by strong fundamentals. But the stock may stay still for a long time before it catches the attention of the media and the investing public before it’s price get’s bid up. So an investor might have to wait for a long time before realizing a return on his or her investment. Many investors can learn a few tricks from day traders that can help them make a quick profit in a matter of days orn weeks instead of months or years.
There is a general problem with so many investors. They fall in love with their investment after doing so much research and committing so much time for the position to work. Now, day traders are always hit and run types. They have developed an innate sense of discipline among themselves that teaches them when to commit money to a trade and when to cut and run. So, many investors when they fall in love with their investments on the long run forget this cardinal rule of trading that you have to cut your losses. Market least care who you are and how long you have been in it.
Now as a momentum investor, you need to look for securities that are going up in prices especially if accompanied by the underlying growth. What this means is that instead of buying low and selling high, what you will be doing is buying high and selling even higher.
One of the tricks that you can learn from day traders is momentum investing. In momentum investing, you look for securities that are expected to go up in prices accompanied by the underlying momentum. When investing, you try to buy low and sell high. In momentum investing, you buy high and sell even higher!
Now most serious momentum investors are infact swing traders who hold positions for a few weeks or a few months. Most of them employ some sort of momentum indicators to help them identify when it is good time to buy a stock. Some of the indicators that can be used is the Relative Strength Index (RSI), Moving Average Convergence and Divergence (MACD) and the Stochastic Index.
Now, when doing momentum investing, you need to also do some fundamental research behind the company. As most of the momentum investing done during the dot com bubble was on hearsay without being supported by any strong fundamentals! However, if too many investors start practicing momentum investing, it sometimes leads to bubbles like the tech bubble that happened at the end of 1990s.
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