There is a time to trade and a time to stand aside. There are times when the technical stock market analysis indicates that you should definitely be trading a nice move, the odds strongly favor successful trading.

But there are also times when the technical stock market analysis indicates that the risk of loss far outweighs the potential reward. Entering any new trades at this time is extremely risky. The odds are against successful trading.

Knowing when to trade and when to stand aside is vital to long term and consistent success, no matter what trade system you use.

Those who always have trades in play seldom achieve substantial returns.

In general, the broad market moves in the direction of the majority of shares being traded. When the majority of shares are trading higher, the market moves up. And when the majority of shares are trading lower, the market moves down.

The greatest mistake a trader can make is to trade AGAINST the momentum of the broad market.

A proper technical stock market analysis helps prevent you from making this grave mistake. You can make money when the market moves up and when the market moves down. But you must first know which way the market is likely to move.

The technical stock market analysis identifies the dominate and subordinate trends of the market. This enables you to know which direction you should trade to achieve maximum profits with minimum risk.

A proper technical stock market analysis not only defines when you should trade and which direction you should trade, it can also indicate how aggressively you should trade.

A strong stock market move should be traded very aggressively while weaker moves should be traded less aggressively.

The trading strategy is to match your financial exposure with the strength of the broad market move. And the technical stock market analysis tells you the expected strength of the move.

Additionally, stock trades should be entered more aggressively at the beginning of a strong stock market move. As the move matures, one should be less inclined to enter new positions since a pull back is likely to occur soon. This avoids the problem of entering long trades at the top or short trades at the bottom of a move.

Support and resistance levels greatly effect how aggressively one should be stock trading. As a support or resistance level is approached in the broad market, one should refrain from entering new positions since the level could stagger or even reverse the direction of the move.

You want to avoid entering a trade just before the market turns against you, right?