A stock watch list is very important to a stock trader. It is a list of stocks that you think you can make money off of, either on the upside or the down side. These are stocks you keep on the side and check regularly for a buy signal. Suppose you find a great stock that is in an uptrend. This stock just hit resistance. You really like this stock, but chances are it will come down from resistance to support. You don't want to buy it right now. So, you wait. You put it on your watch list and check it every day to see if it will look better later. You wait for it to be on support, or maybe even a break in resistance and then you buy it.

Creating a watch list is easy. Every time you hear about a stock write it down and pull up a chart on it later. If it looks like something you can make money off of go ahead put it on your watch list. I have occasionally just typed in random symbols to see what pops up. Sometimes I like the stock that pops up so I put it on my list. Keep a list of stocks you like some were and keep adding to it. In no time you'll have a plenty of stocks you're watching.

Now then, How big should our watch list be? The answer is, drum roll please, it depends. Each trader has a different rule for this. One trader might want a watch list of 10-20 stocks another trader might have a watch list of 100 stocks. The answer to this just depends on you and how many stocks you can handle. If you can't watch 100 stocks try to watch 20 see how that works. In fact there are even great traders out there that watch just 1 stock.