Questions and Answers

Below we have provided some answers to questions we have received from various traders, associates, and prospective users through social media, email, and offline. Click here to send us your questions today.

Our trading group has now been around for five years and the question and answer page (below) hasn’t been updated for some time. Starting now, as of July 2020 I will endeavor to post articles of conversations I have with traders that have questions about trading, how we trade, our services etc. The first of which I posted below today (July 2, 2020).

July 21, 2020: A Swing Trading Alert Service and Sunday Study Webinar Session attendee asking great questions:

RE: Learning to Trade, Study Sessions

Hi Curt,

Loving watching and learning from the STUDY sessions.

General Questions:

Q. Just to clarify how it works, you have certain filters set up for stock scans, then you chart and model the best setups?
A. We have about 200 equities modeled that are for the most part most traded or most structured for swing trading such as Apple, Twitter, etc.
And I also scan.

I use the scanner on Trading View “out of the box” version but you can set it to your liking. I review the hot stocks and sold off stocks on the day. See right of screen shot.

Q. Do you track active trades on the website or is that something we should be deciding and tracking on our own, based on the setups we like?

A. Jen and team are building a digital platform for our subscribers so our positions are all real time, but this takes time. Until then you can refer to the Swing Trade alert feed and email alerts (you can search tickers on either also). The P&Ls are near up to date and Jen will keep them more up to date in future.
I never really liked this idea because I think it is better for subscribers to handle their own positioning and size because everyone has a different risk threshold, account size etc but our subscribers have asked for this so we’re responding to the request with up to date P&Ls and a digital platform for real time view of our positioning.

Position Sizing & Entries Questions:

Q. 1. You mentioned in a blog post that non-full-time traders should aim for up to 10 concurrent trades.
A. Yes, I believe the more open positions the better and the more entries (dot plots, positioning) the better. But this requires some thought and Study and attention to the account. 10 positions is easily managed with alarms if you know your key levels of support and resistance. I manage up to 70 or so this way and it is about 1/10 of my work day. But it takes time to get efficient and get a system and flow.

Q. I am wondering about position sizing. You have written on this before and I’d like to confirm your advice. If I have a $100k portfolio, each trade should max out at 10k. I would enter a trade with 1k and add in increments of 1k with all pullbacks and trendline hits. (Unless it stops out – which I am still not sure about – i know that there is a long leash on these).
A. Generally yes, I will do a more specific video on this soon. But swing trading is just that, swing. Hence the description. However, I prefer position trading. Position trading takes a strong stock and takes a position knowing a pull back is likely before more rally, and then takes another position at the pull back. If that position fails then it is typically decision time to cut bait or not.

Q. Should I give any consideration to alpha in sizing?
A. This takes some time and experience, but yes. The riskier the stock or play the less our size. The more structured the chart is historically the larger the size.

2. When we are trimming profits, unless otherwise specified, is it also 1 position size? (10% of max position)?
A. We typically trim bits at every resistance but cannot alert every trim and add. But truth be told we’re trimming every single resistance on the charts published in bits. We alert as time allows adds and trims at key levels.

Q. 3. I noticed an alert on GNRC you are “10% of holding only trim”. Can you explain what this means and where you stand in this position right now? (Also curious because it was the “mortgage the house on” position, which sounds fun.
A. The alert read as follows “Swing Trading Alerts (Premium)
@SwingAlerts_CT
·
Jul 17
Trimming some profits here in GENERAC (GNRC) from our May 11 103s trading 134.60 (10% of holding only trim) — this is the one I said mortgage the house on  #swingtrading $GNRC https://tradingview.com/chart/GNRC/J75jmEHh-Trimming-some-profits-here-in-GENERAC-GNRC-from-our-May-11-103/ https://twitter.com/SwingAlerts_CT/status/1259834939224330241 ”
Sometimes it is very busy and our descriptions are poor. In this instance we were trimming 10% of our current holding size, not 10% of the total size of original position.
The mortgage the house trades is tongue and cheek saying within our trading group (our traders that have been with us for some years), I should use more caution in my descriptions haha. But it is code for hey guys, we’re sizing this one because we see high probability for a win.

4. In instances like ZYNE, a pretty rare reversal, it seems, do we add more because it has fallen back on support?

Q. We do add at first or even second support (depending on specific play) yes, we will dot plot our way to a win or cut for a loss, but considering our record there aren’t many losses as you see, but we do have some of course. The key is when the trade goes against you that when you do add at next support you need to protect that add and if it does not work get out of that add position or the whole trade because there’s always another that will work.

Modeling stocks outside of the lists:
Q. One of my favorite industries is FVRR and UPWK. Do you have a model already for these equities? Im looking to take a big position (unless charts suggest otherwise)

A. You can search the alert feed on Twitter, “@swingalerts_ct FVRR” and that gets you any historical alerts or charting etc on the ticker. We have done VERY WELL with FVRR and there is chart history on it etc. UPWK I will look at for you now and let you know. FVRR I will send you now also.

A. In Closing – a second set of eyes is always good, our most experienced do this before entering a trade, I do this often with our most experienced traders before I take a position, it is key, so before you enter you can send me your plan on Whatsapp and I will respond if I’m not in active trade myself. All our subscribers have direct access to me that way.

Thank you for your expertise!!

July 16, 2020: A lengthy thread with excellent new subscriber in depth questions and answers from Lead Trader:

July 2, 2020: Why Winning Percentage Matters: Trader Question & Answer (Also Time Cycles, $VIX, Market Extremes)

Below are older Q&A’s that we will delete soon (as soon as there are a number of articles posted above)

Here’s a good example for a newer trader (the answers for him to navigate our platform offers) from June 6, 2018.

Howdy Jen or Curt,

Have a question about The Day Trading.

Is the day trading run on Discord? How much information goes out during the early session while alerts move, like is it live on audio with what he’s doing getting into, thinking about exiting etc? or is it just a watchlist with minimal guidance. You see id like to join the day trade room, but im hesitant due to prior experiences where i don’t have any idea on when the POP will DROP, etc.

Just wanted to get a sense of how its operated.

Can you give me a little playbook on how its run?

Like what is included with the overall picture of the daytrade alerts.

Thanks.

 

Hey!

Great to hear you are enjoying your experience with Compound Trading so thus far!

There are posts listed on the home page that have recently been put up (I know, we have many offerings on the platform, it took me some time to learn it all but it makes sense when you understand it all).

Compound Trading Home Page (with links to relevant articles)

The important ones and others I will list in my response below for you:

Here is a general member memo that went out recently that explains some of what you are asking:

Important Changes at Compound Trading – Pricing, Trader Services, Trader Procedure, Invoicing. #IA #AI #Algorithms #Coding

We used to run a live daytrading room for beginners but don’t anymore because it feeds bad habits – it just doesn’t work well… we have a better way to get folks beginning to learn to trade or traders that need to get green from red than conventional run of the mill trading rooms. I’ll explain below…

We do (for future consideration) have a daytrading room for full time traders that are trained up and able to function in a pro environment, you will find it here:

Live Trading Room Bundle

And there is the all access Legacy Membership here that allows unfettered access to our lead trader trading terminal 24 hours, that is available here:

Legacy All Access Membership

So that is the goal for you and anyone else starting with us – to get to the pro day-trading room level or Legacy All Access Membership (but you have to be winning because it is expensive, not so much for the traders that win most of their trades, but…

when you are learning to trade and be profitable consistently it is expensive)…. so Curt does private coaching with beginners (he’ll even finance part of your initial few hours to get started if you’re needing help getting started)… he does that because you first need to know how to structure trades properly. The few hours you spend with him will provide a lifetime of skills that will pay massive dividends.

He guarantees it and has hundreds of client references and I have yet to find one unsatisfied student of his market knowledge. That says a lot.

You can find the trade coaching registration here.

We also have member discord server chat rooms, in your case (in addition to some trade coaching) I’d recommend the swing trading discord room (it comes with the Swing Trading Bundle of newsletter, alerts and room). It isn’t fluid with lots of chatter but there is a tonne of data from Curt and techs loading the plays in there. This comes with the swing trading bundle here:

Swing Trading Bundle

For those that have already paid for a service a la carte and then register for the bundle (in your instance I think you are registered to swing trade alerts only https://compoundtrading.com/product/swing-trading-alerts/ … I simply apply a credit to your account for the original purchase and that can be used anytime at a later date. So you would then register for the bundle and send me an email for the credit and I’d send it to you. I help you with your account as needed.

Also, there is an overview informational about our swing trading platform options here:

Information About our Swing Trading Platform Options

It is also important to note, the swing trading platform chart data and trades can all be used for daytrading, so it is recommended to enter the swing trading side of our platform even if you are a daytrader.

All of our platform offerings are listed here and broken down in to trading rooms, newsletters, alerts and coaching sections:

Compound Trading Pricing and Trading Services Options.

I hope that helps you some.

Reply with any questions anytime I am happy to help.

Jen

Will your algorithms be available à la carte?

Yes, they will be available on a per-order basis.

Are your algorithms designed to be automated?

No, our design goal is oriented around being a “cockpit” for our traders to use as a probability indicator. As with any other trading tool, they are designed to provide an “edge” to human-triggered trades.

Will your algorithms integrate traditional chart indicators?

Yes, the algorithms which are currently in development stages are math-based only. Integration of traditional indicators and geo-based “Big Data” tools will become available as they are developed.

Do you expect to continue to maintain an effective target hit-rate on longer time dimensions for your various models?

With swing trading, no. Algorithm development for oil is much more complex than other commodities,

I have attended three sessions so far, and wondering if there are specific $WTI trades, as most of trades I have no background about, and none of them appear my broker list.

Until the election, oil won’t do much. $WTI itself is not trade-able right now, and we are waiting for the election results to come in. Refer to @EPICtheAlgo for new time/price cycles.

Will each of the different algorithm subscriptions have their own rooms and moderators?

They will each have their own daily pre- and post-market report. The charting associated with each algorithm will only be available to subscribers. For now, they will all be presented in the same room.

As we continue to roll out algorithmic charting during early release, the use of these subscriptions will become more clear during our live broadcasts.

Regarding your thesis of turning $10,000 into 1M in 26 months… do you know of anyone who has actually done that?

No, it’s my goal for retirement. Part of our mandate during the startup phase will be to get my trades verified through a third-party verification source for full transparency. So, in short, we will see if I actually get there. And of course, the compound trading discipline is one many aspire to in the business if you do some web searches. I’m simply sharing my journey here.