Understanding Trading Strategies
Understanding
Trading Strategies
A trading strategy
includes a well-considered investing and trading plan that specifies investing
objectives, risk tolerance, time horizon, and tax implications. Ideas and best
practices need to be researched and adopted then adhered to. Planning for trading
includes developing methods that include buying or selling stocks, bonds, ETFs,
or other investments and may extend to more complex trades such as options or
futures.
Placing trades
means working with a broker or broker-dealer and identifying and managing
trading costs including spreads, commissions, and fees. Once executed, trading
positions are monitored and managed, including adjusting or closing them as
needed. Risk and return are measured as well as portfolio impacts of trades and
tax implications.
The longer-term tax results of
trading are a major factor and may encompass capital gains or tax-loss
harvesting strategies to offset gains with losses.
Developing a Trading Strategy
There are many types of trading strategies, but they are based largely on
either technicals or fundamentals. The common thread is that both rely on
quantifiable information that can be backtested for accuracy. Technical trading
strategies rely on technical indicators to generate trading signals. Technical
traders believe all information about a given security is contained in its
price and that it moves in trends.
For example, a simple trading
strategy may be a moving average crossover whereby a short-term moving average
crosses above or below a long-term moving average.
Fundamental trading strategies take fundamental factors into account. For
instance, an investor may have a set of screening criteria to generate a list
of opportunities. These criteria are developed by analyzing factors such as
revenue growth and profitability.
There is a third type of trading strategy that has gained prominence in
recent times. A quantitative trading strategy is similar to technical trading
in that it uses information relating to the stock to arrive at a purchase or
sale decision. However, the matrix of factors that it takes into account to
arrive at a purchase or sale decision is considerably larger compared to
technical analysis. A quantitative trader uses several data points—regression
analysis of trading ratios, technical data, price—to exploit inefficiencies in
the market and conduct quick trades using technology.
Special Considerations
Trading strategies are employed to avoid behavioral finance biases and
ensure consistent results. For example, traders following rules governing when
to exit a trade would be less likely to succumb to the disposition effect,
which causes investors to hold on to stocks that have lost value and sell those
that rise in value. Trading strategies can be stress-tested under varying
market conditions to measure consistency.
Profitable trading strategies are difficult to develop, however, and
there is a risk of becoming over-reliant on a strategy. For instance, a trader
may curve fit a trading strategy to specific backtesting data, which may
engender false confidence. The strategy may have worked well in theory based on
past market data, but past performance does not guarantee future success in
real-time market conditions, which may vary significantly from the test period.
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