Top 5 Popular Trading Strategies
Position trading
Position trading takes the momentum style of trading and further eliminates the importance of the entry. The primary concern of the trader here is to be in the market when the price does eventually make its move. Traders often build their position into the market over a period of days or weeks as the price moves. The main component of this strategy is a confidence in the prevailing fundamental conditions driving the price, and the anticipation that the market will eventually move in the desired direction.
This sounds extremely similar to the momentum style of trading but the key difference is the approach to entries that position traders very often take. When the market is expected to move in a single direction over a sustained period of time, traders will very often begin trading that asset almost immediately in extremely small sizes.
The reason for this is because during the long term move there will almost certainly be short term retracements and temporary adjustments to sentiment. These events will provide traders with multiple opportunities to trade the asset as it pulls back against the overall move.
These will be used as opportunities to trade at a better price and build up their position in the market while these temporary events cause confusion and loss of confidence. Position traders are effectively taking advantage of human emotions which causes most traders to liquidate positions and take profits during short term market moves against the prevailing trend.
Because the market moves in this way, traders will try and add to their positions as the price gives better prices so that they can gradually build up a better average entry price. This also means that their initial positions may enter sustained periods of draw down, which is why each individual position is usually extremely small in relation to the amount of capital they are trading.
Position trading should only be carried out on assets that have a very clear fundamental sentiment that is likely to last over the approaching weeks or months. Having the confidence to not only hold your position, but add to it is the key to this style of trading.