Stock Patterns

Patterns - It's always wise to look at (day to day, tick-by-tick) price and
volume charts for any stock that you want to buy and trade. You'd be
surprised at how often a stocks trading pattern repeats itself. Study price
and volume charts that go back as far as three years or longer.

Familiarize yourself with the way the stock has traded in the past. This will
give you a feel for the way the stock might move in the future. There's no
guarantee of any pattern repeating itself, but if it does, then that's great.
This is where your trading software really comes in handy.

By using your software to run charts and graphs that show day-to-day, or
week-by-week trading activity, you can recognize any re-occurring trading
patterns. It's not unusual to see a pattern from two or three years back
being almost identically repeated in the current market.

Facing Mistakes - If you make a wrong decision then it's just wrong, so
face it and admit it and move on. You can't always be right. If you choose
a stock that just won't move up in a reasonable amount of time then get
rid of it. If you do your research you won't have many of these anyway.

Protect Capital - Your profits aren't as important as your capital. I'd much
rather miss out on a little profit compared to loosing any of my capital. If
you loose a whole lot of your (trading or investing) money, then you've
got to slow down or stop trading until you replenish your trading account.

Fear & Greed - For the most part greed and fear drive the markets. The
average investor lets these two emotions get in the way of making good
decisions. The average investor buys in too late and pays too much and
then holds on too long and sells out too late with an unnecessary loss.

Daily Volume - I would suggest to anyone who wants to be a active trader
in the market, that they stay away from thinly traded stocks, or stocks that
have very low volume. If you buy these stocks it's very likely that you'll
not be able to quickly sell, due to low volume (lack of willing buyers).

Trading Systems - (Technical Analysis) - Trading Software - You can put
together a multitude of trading systems based on an infinite number of
strategies and mathematical probabilities. Use every tool at your disposal
to gain an edge in the stock market. If you don't, someone else will.