Swing Trading and Momentum Trading

Swing trading aims to capture moves that last from a few days to a few weeks. It is the style most suited to people who have another job, because decisions can be made in the evening and orders placed in advance. It asks for patience instead of speed, and it carries a risk day traders avoid: the market can open far from where it closed.

How does swing trading work?

You look for markets setting up a move on the daily chart, plan the entry, stop and target before the open, and let the orders work. Most of the effort is in the selection and the plan, not in watching. The course builds a short, repeatable routine and has you run it on a simulated portfolio for twelve weeks.

How do you manage gap risk in swing trading?

By sizing for the gap, not just the stop. A stop placed 3% away does not protect you from a 10% gap on earnings. The course shows how to estimate gap risk for an instrument, how to handle event dates, and how to keep the total risk of several open positions within your limit.

What is momentum trading?

Momentum trading rests on one of the most robust findings in market research: assets that have risen over the past months tend to keep rising for a while, and those that have fallen tend to keep falling. Breakouts are the trader’s way of entering that move. This course teaches the evidence and the method together, including the painful parts.

Buying assets that have performed well recently and selling, or avoiding, those that have performed poorly, in the expectation that the move continues. Researchers distinguish time-series momentum, a market against its own past, from cross-sectional momentum, markets ranked against each other. The course has you run both by hand.

Who is this course for?

Traders who cannot or do not want to trade all day. No programming is needed.

What you will be able to do

• Build a scan and a watchlist routine that takes less than an hour a day.
• Plan swing trades with entries, stops and targets suited to daily charts.
• Size positions for gap risk and correlation across several open trades.
• Manage open trades through earnings, dividends and macro events.
• Summarize the evidence on time-series and cross-sectional momentum across markets and decades.

Syllabus, module by module

1. What swing trading is

   Horizons from two days to several weeks, and how costs and risks differ from day trading.

2. Scanning and watchlists

   Free scanners, liquidity filters and a short daily routine.

3. Swing setups

   Trend pullbacks, range trades, breakouts and mean-reversion setups on daily charts.

4. The evidence

   Time-series and cross-sectional momentum, and why the effect has persisted.

What every course contains

Every paid course comes with the first seven and the certificate, whichever level it sits at. The proctored exam and the credential come when the course is taken as part of a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship. Everything is self-paced: the material is yours to study in any order, at any hour, for the whole of the license.

1. Workbooks. Written to train the thinking patterns and the important concepts of the course, with worked problems and the reasoning behind each answer, so that you learn to think the way the subject is thought.
2. Audio edition. Focused, well-presented recordings with explainers and examples of the material, made to be interesting, relevant and entertaining, so that the general subject can be learned away from the desk.
3. Notes. Pre-produced notes with every fact the course relies on, written out in full, so that nothing has to be transcribed from the films or the audio.
4. Cheat sheet. One sheet with every important learning concept of the course on it, to keep beside you during the work and to revise from before the exam.
5. Named sources. Every fact in the notes names its source, the paper, the book or the dataset, for anyone who wants to dig in further.
6. Explainer films. Focused films, in the style of the sample films on the catalog page, that walk through the most difficult concepts of the course with visual explanations of a high standard.
7. Transcript. A full transcript of every film and every audio recording, searchable and quotable.
8. Proctored exam. Taken as part of a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship, the course ends in a proctored multiple-choice questionnaire, with a pass mark of 60% and three retakes included. A course taken on its own is assessed by its coursework and has no exam.
9. Verifiable certificate. A certificate of completion that a third party can verify: an employer sends the code on it to the credentials office and receives written confirmation of the course, the date and the result.
10. Credential of the program. The Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship of the program, track or path the course belongs to, awarded when every course in it is passed. Which one depends on the program you choose.

How the certificate is earned

Unit quizzes and two graded problem sets: a written swing-trading routine, and a twelve-week simulated portfolio record with a review. On a pass you receive the Course certificate in Swing Trading and Momentum Trading, issued by the Institute with a verification code. A course taken as part of a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship ends in a proctored online exam with a pass mark of 60%. The fee includes three retakes; each attempt after that carries a reduced proctored exam fee. A course taken on its own is assessed by its coursework and has no exam. Read how certification works.

Before you start

This course assumes the material of the courses below, or the same knowledge gained elsewhere.

• Technical Analysis: Reading Charts and Price Action
• Stop Losses, Position Sizing and Your Trading Edge
• The Trading Plan and Evidence-Based Trading