tigerman,
There is no scientific definition for swing trading. Like everything else in trading, it's more art than science.
I consider myself a swing and trend trader. I hold trades anywhere from 1 hour to three weeks or more, although my average
time in trade is 4.2 days.
You mentioned the indicators and how you would like to stick with them. If anything, I would encourage you to eliminate most of them. My profession is to assist traders with designing systems and strategies - I have never seen anyone develop a success system using more than 2 indicators. Anything more complicated than that is usually overoptimized and more likely to fail.
The first step in designing a strategy is to decide which tools you are going to use. It is much more exciting to jump in and get your hands dirty, but in my experience that is not a recipe for success.
I recommend narrowing the list to a handful of candidates. Watch the market and how those indicators behave in response, look for patterns, etc. You want to make yourself a master and expert of 1-2 indicators, or perhaps even the raw price action. Almost everything displays patterns. The problem is acquiring the experience to recognize them amidst the noise.
The best analogy I can think of is a schoolkid timing a jumprope before hopping in the middle. You have to understand the tempo or else you fall on your face.
Forex Pros:
- It trends longer and harder than other markets, generally speaking
- Rollover potentially adds substantial income to position trades
- Margin trading allows you to allocate similar position sizes to your trades in other markets without tying up as much capital. I say this encouraging you to bear the usual risk disclosures in mind. Margin is not a license to trade a million bajillion dollars with a $1,000 mini account. Discipline is critical when using this tool
- I think spread costs are more fair to the little guy. Forex is the only market I know of where someone with a mini account can execute a trade for $2. That type of pricing in stocks is usually reserved for high volume, big money traders.
Forex Cons:
- Limited number of instruments. There are only 8 major currencies listed on most brokers. Most of my strategies look for very specific market conditions, making it more difficult to find opportunities.
- Rollover works both ways. Try going short GBP/JPY for two weeks. You quickly realize that rollover gets expensive very quickly.
- Since forex is OTC (over the counter) instead of exchange traded, there are more shenanigans with slippage and arbitrage. This is especially true if you trade with smaller firms. I recommend sticking with the brand names as you are less likely to encounter problems.