Just jumping in on the question of time risk, as somebody who...

Just jumping in on the question of time risk, as somebody who has started to trade for a living (rather than in spare time) I have become more and more conscious of the time value of capital. Whereas when I was working I could afford to let trades sit and wait for them to play out if it took longer than expected because I had an income, now I can't afford to do that - that capital if its not appreciating has an opportunity cost (application to other trades) - so in addition to my price level stoploss I now also apply a timeframe stoploss. If a trade hasn't played out within my trade timeframe, I exit after a fixed time. If I have another trade opportunity pending I will the have it available to apply to that but even if not, its costing interest.

On another topic - the reason I logged on to this thread today - I have a question about the accumulation process which I have been studying much more in depth recently. The Wyckoff/VSA theory teaches about the "smart money" accumulation and distribution and how to recognise it, trade it, etc.

The question I have about the "smart money" is would they typically be expected to show up in the substantial holders register once they've accumulated more than 5%. My intuition is that they would not - would that be correct generally, some of the time or all of the time? My reasoning for that is this - once you accumulate more than 5% each move up or down of 1% or more has to be reported, so there is some transparency to the position. That's probably ok for many investment funds who are simply taking long term positions in companies. However my sense is that the Wyckoff/VSA "smart money" doesn't want to be exposed to that transparency, because their play is more short term than that - accumulate over a period of months, mark up the price to the target level and then distribute, get out and move on to the next target - a process which may play out over a year or so but exposing the process to sub holder notices imo gives the game away to what they're doing.

Anyone have a view on that question I would appreciate somebody else's perspective.

The reason I ask is because that being the case, then if I am looking to identify accumulation processes underway, I can estimate whether the volumes involved are less than 5% of issued stock and therefore whether the particular setup I am looking at on a chart does indeed fit into the category I am looking for.

Cheers, Sharks.