16th June the day after - Trading in challenging times

I noted yesterday that to project this month one could compare with second half of April. Today is a difficult day for any one as projected, why because after too much of optimism or pessimism a reaction is obvious.

How to go in a difficult environment?
Any asset, commodity or stock require some knowledge of broad markets direction.
Once we know that more or less for one week, it is then good to select just one day to decide the direction for a swing trade. Then follow through that. When markets do not have much of a trend, volatility is caused by uncertainty the best approach is to go cash or if have some time to focus, decide the direction and go for max 2 days. I have found that an overnight or two days swing trade makes more sense.
If we know the direction of one whole month and more or less know where the markets are heading it is good to go with a week to two swing trade and keep a watch.

Going on long term that is 2 to 3 months is only good in exceptional cases where we know the seasonality, trend or some particular reason. If you notice the experienced traders are recommending not to go long term. When you are an institutional and you have other objectives you could have a different approach but lately you will notice even larger players are careful in speculating.

Please write your experience and ideas on the best way to trade.

Stocks, Options/Leaps or ETFs

Whether we do futures, index or any sector or stocks there are many options obviously.
In current environment choosing the mode or instrument is another challenge.
As per my experience and few other traders going mid term to long term options makes more sense.
If we do options some people only do calendar spreads and other do credit/debit spreads.
Whatever we decide if we do not know the timing or our direction or bias is wrong we could lose in any way. I have noticed that one could even lose in so called safe bets like iron condors if your timing is wrong.

After thinking and experiencing a great deal I concluded few months ago that the KEY to success in trading is timing and then secondary is choosing the right mechanism.

Please share your experience and opinion.