One of the most difficult aspects for new traders and investors to come to grips with is that there are so many trading and investing strategies open to them. How do they decide which is the 'best' one?

Firstly, the answer is that there is no one 'best' strategy - traders need to to work out what type of strategies fit best with their personality.

Next, traders need to develop a trading plan that encompasses perhaps two or three strategies, each from a different group, so that when one trading strategy isn't working well due to market conditions, another strategy more suited to that market condition is performing well.  Combining strategies is a sound approach that can smooth overall results over the long term.

Getting to the point of having a suite of trading strategies that complement your trading personality can be a good goal for any aspiring trader. To help, here are a few ideas on the types of strategies that might be considered and what is involved.


Breakout strategy

Breakout strategies are momentum based - that is, they are long when momentum is strong and a stock is trending, however, they differ from pure momentum strategies in that they ...
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Swing strategy

Swing trading strategies focus on capturing a portion of a larger move by trading shorter term legs of longer term trends. Swing traders enter trades at points where price action ...
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Passive strategy

Not everyone wants to actively trade or invest and there is always scope for a more passive investment strategy. Passive strategies might not necessarily be set and forget strategies, but ...
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Momentum strategy

Momentum trading strategies focus on capturing longer term moves in stocks that are already trending. They believe that because price is moving strongly in a given direction it will continue ...
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Mean reversion strategy

Mean reversion strategies assume that a stock's price will tend to move to the average over time.  Mean reversion strategies work well when momentum strategies aren't working so both these ...
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Other strategies

There are quite a number of trading strategies that have been developed by other traders. Here is just a few for you to explore further ...
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