EP 044: Lessons from a decade of swing trading, and how to overcome early failure w/ Michele Koenig
Michele Koenig is the founder of Trade on the Fly, and is primarily a swing trader of technical chart patterns. She also takes an occasional intraday position whenever she sees an opportunity.
Michele reveals the first few years she when was starting out, where she had some early success, then lost almost everything shortly after. She discusses why it happened, how it affected her, and how she recovered from it.
Other things discussed in this episode include Michelle’s scanning process, her reminder to not “trip over dollars while trying to save dimes”, how to track watchlists, and other words of wisdom for traders who haven’t had a breakthrough yet.
What’s Covered in This Interview:
- What inspired Michele to begin trading stocks, and the trading landscape transformed over time versus when she was just starting out.
- How Michelle lost substantial amounts of money early in her trading career by being over confident, and what she did to lessen the chances of it happening again.
- Michele’s trading style and how she uses multiple timeframes to identify opportunities.
- How Michele has adapted to current market conditions.
- How Michele, around earnings season, treats swing positions.
- How traders can reduce overnight risk and what the advantage is of a swing trading approach.
- To what degree indicators used across charts influence Michele’s decisions to buy and sell.
- How Michele makes watchlists by looking at upwards to 600 charts daily.
- Why Michele warns traders not to “trip over dollars” and why she focuses on capturing the “meat of the move.”
- Which trades Michele holds out for a longer swing position.
- Why you shouldn’t care about what other people are traing.
Links and Resources:
- StockCharts.com – Michele uses this tool to vscan, store and manage charts on her watchlist for the past 13 years.
- FinViz.com – Michele uses this tool to see “percentage gainer” lists and to access information on individual stocks.
- ThinkOrSwim.com – Michele uses this platform when she spots a potential trade opportunity is close by.
- Traders4ACause.org – Michele in on the board is Treasurer and Director of this charity..
- MomoTraders.com – A new book by Brady Dahl, featuring interviews with traders who started from the bottom, including Michelle.
- TradeOnTheFly.com – Michelle’s website. Learn more about how she helps traders through her community, including webinars, trade ideas, a private Twitter feed, videos, a chat room.
- @OffshoreHunters – Follow Michele on Twitter.
