A Retail's Day Trading Experiment

orbit23 said:
You need to figure out what's going to happen and then trade that. You need a context/idea to trade around. If the volatility is very high, then lower timeframes are more likely to work as volatility by itself can be taken as a context. But this is a rare occurence.


Always prioritize context. For example you could look at the higher timeframe charts and see that we are in a massive bull market. And then if you were just buying, you would be more likely to win than lose.


You have to figure out the context - some say you have to figure out the "game" market is playing.
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Thank you. This is very helpful and I will work on it.
 
ironchef said:
I trade stocks, individual names only. On average, 0.4% profit per day.

I only used ~ $1K per trade and only 1 trade at any time, sequentially. Mental stop loss is < $5 each trade.

Your third point, I agree.

I don't think I have any edge. It smells more like a type of "Martingale": like in a coin toss, I have a 50/50 of getting head or tail. If I stop everyday after a net positive head or stopped after X tosses, it duplicates my results.
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I don't know how you trade and I could be wrong, but from what you said I assume that you add size when you are losing and quit trading when you are ahead and call it a day. If that's the case, you are lying to yourself.

If you average down"Martingale", dont't average down more than once, and keep your size consistence, see how the result is, track your winrate and R:R, to see if you can produce a positive expectancy.
 
doubledoubledoublecup said:
I don't know how you trade and I could be wrong, but from what you said I assume that you add size when you are losing and quit trading when you are ahead and call it a day.
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No, just the opposite. I didn't add size, kept size fixed. Stopped when I became profitable and also quit when I had several losses in a row.
 
doubledoubledoublecup said:
good, then that's not Martingale, you just don't know your edge or confident to keep taking trades.
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It is sort of like Martingale: you trade until you win and quit.

Since the market is Markov, today has no memory of yesterday (mostly). Today the market doesn't know I won yesterday so I have equal chance again.

Am I making any sense?
 
But you just don’t know on a consistent basis. Where is the edge? My conclusion is if everyone or most people can see something it’s not a true edge.
 
After spending a year experimenting with day trading stocks, I have decided to stop. It has nothing to do with profitability, rather it is because of the following:

1. It is just a day job. I am glued to the screen everyday. Life is too short for that.

2. It feels like gambling. I have been profitable but entry and exit are based solely on gut feel. I think it is just guessing and I am fooled by randomness.

I will continue to position trade and trade options. But unlike day trading those trades are infrequent and allow me to maintain a very flexible schedule & the money is good.
 
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