Welcome back to our blog post, where we educate traders and investors about the exciting world of cryptos and share our advice on capitalizing on the volatile crypto markets with the power of automated trading.
Today’s post will discuss swing trading, one of the most popular methods for trading volatile assets like cryptos.
What swing trading is, how it differs from day trading, and the most popular trading methods and crypto bots swing traders use are some of the questions we’ll be answering today. By the end of this blog post, you’ll have all the information you need to launch your automated swing trading strategy.
Before we start swinging, there is no better time to remind you that all the information presented in this blog post is intended solely for educational purposes and shouldn’t be considered as any financial advice. Crypto trading is complex and involves inherited risks that must not be disregarded; do your research and trade at your own risk.
Swing Trading is a method that attempts to capitalize on cryptos’ price swings through short- to medium-term trades. Identifying potential swings and the best entry and exit points for capturing them heavily depends on technical analysis.
In general, swing trading aims to enter trades only if the market trend is already established and to exit the trade once it shows its first signs of weakening. This means swing traders don’t try to capture the whole price movement but only the middle part when momentum is at its highest.
In swing trading, positions can be either long or short, depending on where the market is heading. They usually range from a couple of days to a few weeks. This type of trading is often viewed as somewhere between fast-paced day trading and long-term buy-and-hold investment strategies.
In traditional markets like the stock exchange, where trading hours are limited, any strategy that involves closing your positions before the markets close is generally considered a day-trading strategy. In contrast, methods that carry positions overnight when the markets are closed are known as swing strategies.
In the nonstop, 24/7 trading hours, it might be harder to differentiate between swing trading and day trading, but there are still some key differences between them.
Most day trading strategies focus on capitalizing on price movements through numerous short-term trades that can last a few minutes or hours. This structured, fast-paced way of trading offers a great option to mitigate overall risks but at the cost of paying more fees due to the high number of trades.
On the other hand, swing trading strategies focus on more extended periods, usually from several days to weeks. At least in traditional markets, swing trading is considered less appropriate at times of high volatility due to the risk of price gaps in off-trading hours.
From a design standpoint, the duration of the trades also dictates which charts and indicators the two types of traders use. Day traders, for example, usually focus on short-term price charts such as one-hour or four-hour, while swing traders might use daily or weekly charts as part of their work.
For technical analysis, day traders often opt for indicators that are more sensitive to real-time market price action. This may include using shorter-term moving averages like 7 or 14 days and exponential moving averages (EMAs), which are more susceptible to real-time price movements.
In swing trading, traders often use longer-term moving averages, where traditionally 20 days, 50 days, and 100 days are the most popular choices. Simple moving averages (SMAs), commonly used in swing trading, are considered more accurate in predicting long-term trends as they are less affected by the latest price action.
Although swing trading considers fundamentals, on-chain data, and tokenomics, most of this trading method is based on technical analysis. This includes almost any technical indicator you can think of, but most notable are the ones we’ve previously covered, including Fibonacci retracements and expansions, MACD and RSI, Bollinger bands, and more. Each of them can stand alone, but when combined, they have the potential to be an excellent foundation for your swing trading strategies.
As for more general guidelines, we’ve gathered a partial list of some of the most popular tactics that crypto swing traders tend to follow:
Occasionally, chart patterns are determined by drawing two lines on the price chart. The two lines represent one that connects all the high points of the chart and one that connects all the low points of the prices. These lines are often referred to as trend lines or T lines.
Once drawn, trend lines are commonly used to identify bullish and bearish chart patterns useful for crypto swing trading.
Popular bullish patterns among swing traders include formations that indicate a trend reversal upwards, like double bottoms and inverse head and shoulders, and patterns for identifying long-term trends, like cup and handle and ascending triangles.
This is also true for the downside. This time, we have bearish chart patterns like head and shoulders and double tops to indicate downward reversals, rising wedges, and descending triangles to identify weakening trends.
This swing trading strategy aims to identify when the prices cross above a key resistance level or below a key support level in the market. In most cases, key support and resistance levels are determined by looking at the chart and finding the key areas where prices seem to tip over to the other side on past occasions.
Other popular methods for estimating key support and resistance levels include using different types and durations of moving averages, trend lines, or round numbers, which are often viewed as significant price marks.
As the case may be, breakouts refer to times when the price of a crypto manages to break through these key levels on the price chart.
The logic behind this strategy is that once the price of a crypto manages to “conquer” a significant price level, it starts gaining more momentum and is thus more likely to continue moving in the same direction as the breakout.
Japanese candlestick patterns, mainly when gathered around key support and resistance levels on the price chart, are also among the most popular tools among swing traders for determining when to enter and exit trades.
Like any other technical indicator and chart pattern analysis, candlestick patterns can be bullish or bearish. More often than not, these patterns are identical, only in the opposite direction.
Popular twin patterns among crypto swing traders include distinctive names like bullish or bearish engulfing, morning or evening star, three white soldiers or three black crows, and more.
While candlestick patterns are not commonly used as the foundation of a swing trading strategy, they are considered a powerful complementary tool for making better and more accurate trading decisions.
This trading strategy is based on monitoring the behavior of moving averages of different lengths and acting on the moments when the shorter-term moving average we chose to work with crosses over our chosen long-term moving average.
A bullish crossover, also known as the golden cross, occurs when the short moving average crosses above the longer one, signifying momentum building toward an upswing.
A bearish crossover, often called the death cross, is the same, only in the opposite direction. This means our shorter moving average is below our long-term moving average, which might lead to a continuing downfall.
Our designated bot for swing trading needs to deliver two main things. The first is to support a variety of technical indicators and chart patterns, as well as any combinations of them. The second is to let traders enjoy all the benefits advanced automation offers.
This is why our TradingView Bot is an excellent option for anyone interested in swing trading. Combining the best of both worlds, this unique crypto bot offers an exceptional balance between complex analytics and advanced automation.
On the one hand, it allows traders to utilize the full spectrum of the renowned TradingView Platform for advanced technical analysis. As the leading platform for charting, with hundreds of built-in drawing tools and technical indicators, crypto traders have all the tools required for designing a swing trading strategy that is tailor-made for their specific risk tolerance.
On the other hand, our TradingView Bots also offer all the advantages of advanced automation. This includes non-stop market monitoring, fast and accurate executions, advanced features like advanced stop losses and trailing stops to dynamic take-profits, customizable leverage preferences, and much more. With all your bases covered, this bot enables traders to swing trade the volatile crypto markets without taking unnecessary risks.
For traders who feel they don’t have the time or expertise to manage their swing trading scheme, signals trading is an excellent option that crypto traders would be wise to explore. Signal channels are closed platforms where expert crypto traders share immediate trading alerts called signals. As one of the most popular crypto trading methods, many are devoted solely to this specific trading.
After you’ve found a few swing trading experts to follow and copy, you can easily create a designated Signals Bot that will take care of the rest. Once connected to a signal channel, our Signal Bot will automatically convert any received signal into a market order in the blink of an eye, ensuring smooth sailing as you swing along with the volatile price action of the markets.
Swing trading offers a slightly different approach to trading cryptos. It allows traders to expand their collection of trading strategies and build a diverse portfolio of automated trading strategies.
With each method having its advantages and disadvantages, it’s best not to think of them as rivals but rather as complementary trading methods that allow you to capitalize on the potential of the crypto markets in more than one way.
Whether you wish to become a day trader, a swing trader, or ideally both, Cornix offers crypto traders an all-in-one solution that enables them to build a well-balanced portfolio of automated trading strategies.
This includes our TradingView bots for swing trading, our DCA Bots and Grid Bots for day trading, and our Signals Bots for both, or everything else. As part of our flexible pricing plans, users can access our other advanced trading tools, like demo trading, backtesting, portfolio trackers, trading terminal, and much more.
Still have second thoughts?
We invite you to enjoy our two-week free trial and explore firsthand how we can help you become a more successful crypto trader.