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A few things I am considering

I am considering a few things in the context of my trading strategy and trading business plan. I mentioned the other day that I am going to at a overall trading strategy to my business plan, Trend/Momentum trading. This will act as the overall theme to my trading and all my trades will be in the context of this strategy. So I guess that then the strategy has to be broken down on a more micro level as to how I trade the trend, I guess these would be called tatics? I haven't ever written a business plan but I vaguelly remember the elements from a marketing class I took. To me the tatics would really be comprised of the different options strategies that I would use to play up, down, or sideways markets. And I think if I break this down with more granularity than I will also need to break down my risk/reward constraints. Because I think a position like and Iron Condor is much different that a flat out buy. In an Iron Condor I may be looking for a minimium return on capital to put the play on. I know on flat out Call and Put purchases I want a minimum 1:2 risk vs reward (based on my stop loss, not on the capital required to put the trade on). Although a call/put purchase in itself is also a limited risk trade by nature like the Iron Condor I find it more likely that I would leave an Iron Condor on and potentially let it expire vs letting a call or put go to zero. With Calls and Puts I am trading directionally and if it doesn't go in the direction of my position than it makes sense to get out of the position when the stop is hit and not loose all the premium. But with an Iron Condor when you are betting a stock will close in between two ranges it may make sense to hold onto it even if it briefly trades out of the range. This example is limited in scope but I hope I make sense at where I am getting at.

I guess I am just trying to get at the fact that I think I am ready to take my business plan through its next iteration and add more detail and clarity.

Another thing I am thinking about is a way to limit my scope of stock to trade. As we have found out there is an endless pool of ideas out there. So one thing that I am considering is Focusing on the stocks that are in the IBD 100 which is a list that I look at regurally and are realeased every friday which I can then download and upload into a watchlist. These stocks are ranked and rated based on multiple fundemental and technical criteria. I will elaberate on this further as I explore it more. But I would also leave it open to make trades on ideas that come from IWO.com and a few other sources that I get ideas from. I would just be limiting my own search and would rely on these other sources to put ideas in front of me that I may not have seen on my own. In addition I would leave also include the SPY and VIX open to trade as well, mostly as hedging vehicles to my portfolio.

Please share your thoughts.

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