Crypto glossary
Swing trading
Swing trading is a style that holds positions for several days to a few weeks to capture a single price swing within a broader trend or range.
Swing traders sit between day traders and long-term investors. They typically use 4-hour and daily charts to find setups such as pullbacks to support, breakouts from patterns or bounces in a range, then hold until the swing plays out or a stop is hit. Because positions last days, they do not need to watch the screen constantly, which makes the style popular with people who trade alongside a job.
In crypto, swing trading suits the market's tendency to move in strong multi-day legs, especially in large-cap assets with deep liquidity. Many swing traders use spot positions or low leverage, since holding leveraged perpetual futures for days means paying or receiving funding every few hours.
Overnight and weekend gaps in liquidity mean prices can move far while the trader is away, so stop placement and position size matter more than precise entries. News events, token unlocks and macro data releases can also overturn a technical setup within hours.
Example
A trader buys LINK after it pulls back to a former resistance level on the daily chart, sets a stop below the level and sells nine days later near the previous high.