Good question, Dominick. I'm looking at the trend and position of the market. Position is looked at from a daily perspective. The determination for position for each day is arrived at by looking at the intra-day data for the past two weeks, with emphasis on the most recent data.
Trends are a series of waves that begin on an intra-day basis and can flow in a general direction for weeks, months or even years. Basically I'm evaluating it on a day by day basis since it can change at any time.
From a trading time frame perspective my focus for speculating purposes is for short, intermediate and long terms. Opportunities for long term moves (approximately 6 months to several years) for at least a 50% appreciation occurs only once or twice a year. Intermediate term (3-4 weeks up to six months) for appreciation of at least 20% occurs three to five times a year. Short term (one week up to several months) occurs about once a month.
The determination of what time frame that I'll likely be speculating from is dependent on the potential targets for the market. For example, the potential in March of last year for the Nasdaq when it was at the 1350 level had an aggressive target of 2150. With over 50% upside potential I was looking for stocks that offered over 50% potential so all my speculations were long term in nature.
Recently, at the end of March, the market was in an oversold condition. Again, using the Nasdaq as an example, the potential across the 1950 line offered 130 points for a target to 2080. That's about 7% so I was focusing on short term speculations on the long side that would offer at least 10% appreciation.
Of course, regardless of the time frame any speculation must meet the five steps that are mentioned on the home page.
The stocks that are mentioned will offer targets with different potential. As you know, Wyckoff users have different time frames that they feel most comfortable with. Some will always trade in the short term, even if a long term speculation opportunity is available.
Personally, I like to trade in harmony with the market so I'll trade in the same time frame as the market but I don't make recommendations to anyone to do it my way. The best way is what the speculator is most comfortable with.
The information that I provide assumes that the individual understands the Wyckoff process. For those that don't, I have recommendations on the home page where one can get further information.
Hopefully I've answered your question and any others that might come up as a result of it. If not, I'll try again :-). |
