My name is Paul Singh and I am a part-time swing trader with a day job. I have been trading and researching market strategies for over a decade. The following five tips helped turbo charge my portfolio and reach my trading goals. My hope is that they will do the same for you.

1. Swing trade your way to profits Swing traders hold stocks anywhere from a few days to a few months, depending on trading strategies and market conditions. While there are many different trading strategies, most seek to identify and capture a trending stocks sweet spot or the bulk of the trend. This type of trading is conducive to the part-time trader, since precise entry and exit is not the goal, and you dont have to watch the ticker around the clock.

2. Develop bread and butter trading strategies Every successful athlete needs a go to move, and traders are no different. Successful traders rely on bread and butter strategies to maximize their profit potential. My toolbox of strategies include break out-pullback, trend pullback and post earnings trades, to name a few. My quest to become an expert in these strategies has lead me to know the details of these trades better than I know the back of my own hand.

3. Build a strong watchlist Watchlist development is the key to successfully trading part-time. Every evening, I identify 10-20 primary watchlist stocks that will receive most of my attention the coming trading day. These stocks are culled from my master focus list, which is developed over time by an organic process that looks for stocks based on my bread and butter strategies.

4. Identify entry and exit points for primary watchlist stocks When picking stocks for the primary watchlist, write down the price that would get you to enter the stock, and the expected target and stop-out prices. Base these prices on your bread and butter strategies. For example, if a breakout strategy identifies $25 as the level that will propel the stock higher, mark this level as your entry point. If $30 is the level you would take profits, mark this as your target. Most important, figure out how much you are willing to lose and mark this as your stop-out level. Most traders want the stop out level to at the least match their target level, while risking no more than 1-5% of their portfolio. In this case, your stop-loss would be no lower than $25.

5. Let your target and stop levels do the work Once you have entered a trade, there is an overwhelming temptation to continually eyeball your positions. This can lead to over trading, which can be detrimental to the swing trader trying to hit that sweet spot. For this reason, my advice to the part-time trader is to turn off the quote feed once the trade is made. Youve already researched your positions and set target and stop levels. Its now time to let your analysis work itself out. With risk analysis and a stop loss order in place, the probability of a disastrous loss to your portfolio is minimal. So sit back and relax. Or better yet, focus on your day job!

Following these 5 smart trading tips will do wonders for your portfolio, evolution as a trader, and ability to manage time and stress levels. In future posts I will dig deeper into the intricacies of trading with these tips and detail what it takes to be a successful swing trader.

This was a guest post written by Paul Singh of The Market Speculator. You can also reach him on Twitter, @PaulJSingh .