There are many forms of trend trading, but the most direct one is probably to first spot a trend and then enter it. Simple. You think that is the only way? No! For instance you could try to catch the very beginning of a trend before there is hardly one. It is even possible to trade the trend before there is one at all.
But the normal operation for a trend follower would be to select trading targets being in a trend and then look for a good entry spot.
Trading means having and executing a stop loss. This is especially important for trend trading, which necessarily is riding high. Having no stop would all too often result in deep diving thereafter.
The typical trend trader looks for sizeable trends and then tries to find a safe entry. One idea is to have short-term pressure in the right direction, so that even a tight stop will not yield to many small but, measured in accumulated values, severe losses.
After getting in this way the name of the trading game is hoping. Yes, indeed! The point of using every short-term strength for the next entry is that the trader doesn’t know whether an enduring new trend phase will follow or not. Instead of hoping it could be also called playing the probabilities if you like that more.
Another idea centers around finding the grand entry spot, the one trading signal that gives the trader the long trend run for which he became a trend trader. What, if there is no master signal like this, or you miss it? Sadly, this great trading method seems to be a one-shot, perhaps one that lands in your own foot.
Then there is a third system. Instead of looking for short-lived strength, accept that often there is no such thing when you need it and even more rare is the grand entry signal, if there is one in a given trend at all.
This third system tries to combine short-term trading and long-term holding. It uses a swinging oscillator, indicator, or some other AI based trading software that gives you daily buy and sell signals. These daily trading signals are the base for a convenient trend trading system that also switches the trading mode so that long running trends can be exploited, which is the final goal.
An interesting piece of software is this neural net trader for the daily signals. It was originally designed for short-term scalping or swing trading, but perhaps it is even more suited for usage in trends as in the probabilistic system described above. Probabilistic trading system? It is called like that, because it handles the entry more relaxed by simply going on swing trading until it catches the next coherent trend phase.
