The third key to a winning swing trade is to define your goal.
You need to set a well defined goal to measure yourself.
This not only show you how your doing currently, it does also allows you to have a reasonable, standard expectation of normality and what types of gains/losses are abnormal for you.
Examine the deviations carefully and understand that quick huge gains are not the norm, nor do they need to be.
Modest percentage gains compound quickly and the better you get, the less likely your losses will offset even minimal gains.
People think that astronomical stock gains in short periods of time is the way most traders stay alive, but the truth is, steady small gains work much better and hold much less risk.
You don't want to swing between home run stock trades and strikeouts where you lose a bundle.
If you're looking for all or nothing situations, go to Vegas.
If you want a career in trading, take regular gains, and smaller losses.
The fourth key to a winning swing trade is one that I feel should be considered the most important.
CHECK THE CHARTS.
Charts are a non biased guide to a company's stock history.
If you don't know how to interpret charts, learn.
Buy books, watch videos, ask another trader, any way you have at your disposal will help you tremendously.
Charts not only give you a better insight into the current action in a stock, they also tend to take some of the emotion out of trading (which is good).
Identifying patterns that have a good chance of working out in your favor also ultimately gives you a better chance of making more money with less risk.
While fully explaining chart reading in itself is beyond the scope of this article, it is nonetheless very important, and a skill that most failed traders decided to go without.