Just what the subject says. I’m a bit confused. When going live, I will swing trade on higher timeframes due to work. Until then I’ll practice in weekends with the replay function and intradays on my demo account in the evenings. But I’m very confused about the difference between swing trading and trend following. They seem like the same thing…
Swing trading is about catching those short-term moves in the market. Meaning that you’re typically in and out within a few days trying to get profits from price swings. Trend trading is a bit different because you’re riding the wave of a longer-term trend, sticking with it for weeks or even longer, no matter the smaller ups and downs. In other words, swing traders are looking for quick hits, while trend traders are in it for the long haul.
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From my very limited understanding, I thought you also could do intraday swing trading and intraday trend trading. Is that wrong?
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No, you’re right.
Absolutely everything that Amy said above is very mistaken.
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Thanks for replying. Just to verify or discount my understanding. Is the difference between swing and trend traders that swing traders go with both the upwaves and downwaves in a trend, and trend only goes with the trend?
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Hi @MagSSS - Following the trend is certainly what all my long-term positions are, though as you will have seen, I am using swing highs and swing lows as entry parameters. But I’m not swing trading.
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More or less. The key concept is that a trend exists - by definition - only within a specified timeframe.
It’s completely normal for any financial instrument to be trending one way in a defined timeframe while also either ranging or even trending in the opposite direction in a very different timeframe.
For this and other reasons, “trend”, without any timeframe being defined or suggested, doesn’t in itself really mean much at all.
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I have no idea where you got any of that from, Amy, but I’m afraid you just couldn’t be more mistaken (about all of it, actually) if you tried.
In an area where such a tiny proportion of people ever eventually achieves success, consensuses of opinion among others learning are naturally quite often completely wrong.
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Thank you for all the replies. There’s a lot of terms to get under my skin and you are all very helpful 
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The bots post quite a bit on Saturdays when hardly anyone else is here to see. They provide fresh content for search engine optimization (which forums need, to generate traffic and sell advertising space).
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They are the same thing. Bull trend = bull swing, bear trend = bear swing.
That’s how I see it.
And if anyone disagrees, who cares?
@MagSSS You can make up your own words if you want. You’re the only one behind your computer taking trades. So, nothing else matters. You can call them Scooby Doos, and Kikipapas if you want. These are your trades, it’s your computer, it’s your journal.
When you try to explain your trades to other people, of course, they won’t understand your terminology. haha
The people who are posting to try to help others, and to make all the other stuff they encounter a little easier and less confusing to read and understand, are probably the ones who care.
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I think conventional definition of “swing trading” is holding your trades for more than a day, several weeks up to several months. The other terms in this category would be a “day trader” who enters and exit their trades in a day. And an “investor” who set and forget until years later.
“Trend trading” is just identifying higher high higher lows and follow along with the trend / momentum of the market.
The opposing terms in this category is “reversal trading” which aims to predict when price has it’s momentum exhausted and ready to revert to the mean.
You can do reversal trades on a swing time frame, and you can also trend trade on a intraday time frame.
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Intraday swing traders look for short-term price changes within a day, using technical analysis to catch quick movements. Trend traders focus on longer trends over weeks or months, using indicators to ride sustained price movements in the market’s direction.
No, that’s completely incorrect. You are mixing up Swing traders with Scalping traders who are short term daily action traders…
Swing traders are looking further than daily traders, and for example, only close their trades when reaching T/P or S/L which are usually longer than daily trades.
I am a fx currency trend trader and I seek out weekly charts that contain price action movement in one candle direction at a time. The aim is to seek out how long the trend will last and that’s where order flow weakens. I always ensure determining that 4hr movement is in the same direction to the weekly movement.
However, there are differing trend actions, e.g. stocks etc. and as long as the trend continues, it could last for a long time. Really depends on the type of trading you choose.
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That part is correct.
That part is also correct (if you call within-a-day “quick,” which few would argue with).
That’s wrong. There are fast, intraday trends, too.
That’s also wrong. Only some use indicators. Many don’t.
The thread is (like many) filling with misinformation.
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It’s becoming very clear that if we even can’t agree upon our own lingo, the majority will fall. To me it’s obvious that in order to learn from each other, we need to agree upon what words mean and how they apply. I would highly recommend people who want to contribute to please do an inventory before replying to subjects they are unsure about. If you pass on misinformation, it will just keep the bleeding open. Probably better to ask questions and get clarification before passing on unsure information 
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That hits the nail on the head.
It appears, partly from reading the Feedback section but in other places also, that the very longstanding issue here is that unsurprisingly it’s always been the minority of more experienced, successful traders here who eventually get fed up with the misinformation, the rudeness, the spam, the bots and the lack of any effective moderation.
So they, the exact ones who can most easily help, are always the ones who leave in despair.
The obvious effect of that is that there are fewer people to correct all the misinformation, which then multiplies, making everything worse instead of better.
Other trading forums seem to have no problem dealing with this, simply by deleting all the junk, misinformation, spam, bots and rudeness more or less as it’s posted.
We can all see that that’s very regularly discussed (or at least “complained about”) here, but equally clearly it’s never solved, nor apparently acted on at all. I haven’t even been posting here for a month yet (though I was a reader here, before that) and even I’m already exasperated by it. As are others I know.
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Got it, you’re a trend trader focusing on FX currency pairs. You analyze weekly charts for directional movement, aiming to gauge trend longevity. You ensure alignment between weekly and 4-hour chart movements. Trends can vary in duration depending on the market, like stocks. Your strategy involves holding positions until reaching take-profit or stop-loss levels, distinct from the short-term approach of scalping traders. Thanks for clarifying!
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Hi, you are on the right way! Couse swing traders indeed capitalize on both up ward and downward movements within a trend, While trend traders focus solely on riding the overarching treand direction. It’s all about the timeframe, And approach each trader adopts to navigate the market.