Holding positions for days to weeks to capture a single move within a larger trend.
Swing traders work mostly from daily charts, entering on pullbacks or breakouts and holding through intraday noise. Stops are wider and positions smaller than in day-trading; there are fewer trades and fewer costs.
The main risk is the overnight and weekend gap, especially around earnings-reports. Many swing traders avoid holding through earnings.
Example: a swing trader buys a pullback to the 20-day moving-average at $50 with a stop at $47 and a target near the prior high at $59. The trade takes nine days to resolve.
Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.
Breakout and retest. Price stalls under the same level several times, pushes above it, then drops back to touch it from above before carrying on. That touch is the retest, where the old ceiling is tried as a floor. A break that falls straight back under it is a false breakout.
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