Any overnight traders out there?
- Thread starter Bankedout
- Start date
Well banker it looks like it's me again.
The only reason I have been developing the daytrade stuff is to relieve myself of the boredom of position trading. I like position trading because it gives me the freedom to do what I want, and I am not a slave to the screens.. But because I love the biz so much, I find myself in front of them anyway. And my wife is a doc too, so she cannot just take off and go as I would like to. Alas.
Now if you meant do I initiate a daytrade that turns into an overniter... no. All daytrades are just that, daytrades. I have carried trades into the post-market before, but not very often. In fact, rarely is more like it.
I would love to read your thoughts about the longer term approach. It doesn't seem too far of a stretch that your handle suggests you were a banker. As such, I don't think it is absurd to presume that you prefer the trend and the longer move to the scalp etc. You have spent the bulk of your time discussing the elements of db's method, which tends to be a longer move than many other strategies.
The only reason I have been developing the daytrade stuff is to relieve myself of the boredom of position trading. I like position trading because it gives me the freedom to do what I want, and I am not a slave to the screens.. But because I love the biz so much, I find myself in front of them anyway. And my wife is a doc too, so she cannot just take off and go as I would like to. Alas.
Now if you meant do I initiate a daytrade that turns into an overniter... no. All daytrades are just that, daytrades. I have carried trades into the post-market before, but not very often. In fact, rarely is more like it.
I would love to read your thoughts about the longer term approach. It doesn't seem too far of a stretch that your handle suggests you were a banker. As such, I don't think it is absurd to presume that you prefer the trend and the longer move to the scalp etc. You have spent the bulk of your time discussing the elements of db's method, which tends to be a longer move than many other strategies.
LOL, intentionally Holding positions overnight, "what a concept".
Most of my trades are "Position" trades, several days to several weeks (sometimes months).
I do "NOT" believe Big Money can be made Daytrading. I can name 100 Bigtime traders (Soros, Richard Dennis, Denesh Desai, Paul Tudor Jones, Peter Lynch, Warren Buffet, etc...) for every 1 Daytrader that makes it big.
In 2001 I earned 7 figures, in 2002 I earned over $700,000.
I daytrade to take advantage of opportunites that I see in the market. I've been trading over 25 years, I retired at 40, and now I trade Part time out of my home(s).
I trade individual stocks, indices, Futures (grains, meats, currencies, etc...) I am a technical trader
I read so many threads on this board where people are losing money daytrading, I for one am not Smart enough to consistently make money Daytrading. I enjoy Intraday trades, but only for a portion of my trading.
I am a Trader (not Investor). I trade to make $$$, not to Trade.
I suppose I should provide a reason for asking the question. Basically I'm trying to find out if there is anyone at this forum who has similar trading interests to me. I'll give a little bit of my history, and my current plans.
Basically I started "trading" at the end of the bull market in US stocks. Early 2000. I had no idea what I was doing. I bought shares in a company which I liked. I fell in love with the company and my shares. I added more shares as the stock fell, and eventually sold out just before the company went bankrupt. I lost about 75% of my account in my first experience with the market.
After that I took a break from the market for a few months. I read some books and talked with other market participants, and came up with a new plan. The plan involved stocks again, though this time I vowed not to fall in love with another stock or company. I tried to incorporate some rudimentary form of fundamental analysis with some very basic technical analysis. This time I actually started trading. I had no intention of holding a stock for the long term. I mingled in the down trending market only playing the long side on stocks. Since I didn't have intentions of holding forever, I was able to exit when I felt I was wrong. I made some small gains and some small losses over time, but overall my account didn't do too much.
Gradually I decided that I no longer liked doing any form of fundamental analysis. I figured that if I studied the general market's price and volume, and my stock's price and volume, that would be enough information to make money. This turned out to be true. So I focused on that and also incorporated studying industry group charts. As time wore on, the trend on the daily chart turned from down to up, and I started to make some money. I kept plugging away for most of the trend, and stopped trading after a while. I decided to spend the money in my trading account on some other things I wanted, and invested another portion in my business. All of this trading was on between roughly 5 minute to 60 minute charts, trading trends.
I took another break and read some more books (and enjoyed all of the goodies I bought with my trading proceeds). After some time I opened up an account with a different broker. This time I decided to play both sides of the stock market (long and short). I did some stock screening and poured over the charts of my results. I sold some shares short as the trend was down on the daily market charts, and on my stock's chart. This seemed to work pretty well. Soon thereafter I would find my trade ideas and attempt to sell shares short but would get messages back from my broker that there were no shares to borrow. This was very frustrating to me. In the end I threw in the towel when my broker couldn't even find some SPY for me to borrow anymore.
Another break from the market. I remembered Teresa Lo talking about Interactive Brokers, so I decided to check them out. Through emailing they confirmed to me that I could do what I wanted to do with their firm. I opened up an account. While I was waiting for my check to clear with them, I looked into some of their other trading vehicles they offered. Options, futures, foreign markets, etc. The mini futures caught my eye. I decided that day trading would be the best use of these vehicles. I had explored day trading when I was trading stocks, and never really settled on it as my favorite thing to do. I figured I would give it a shot with futures, and see if that was a good choice for me at this time.
I day traded for a while and realized I don't like getting up in the morning just because the market is opening and quite a bit of activity seems to happen in the early hours of trading. Basically I like to wake up when I'm done sleeping, not for any other reason. Another thing I did not like was the "need" I felt to watch the market for much of the trading day. This felt too much like work to me. I also did not enjoy entering and exiting the market repeatedly during the day. I'm just not that flighty of a person. The only option I could think of that would allow me to get up when I wanted and not watch all day was scalping. I have no interest in exploring that option though.
What I do like is the ability to short on a down tick. I also like the idea of trading what is essentially a group of stocks at once (ES & NQ & YM were my futures trading vehicles). Eventually I realized those two advantages were offered in ETFs as well. So I have made up my mind to try them out for a while.
I'm not interested in going back to regular stock trading for a few reasons. The first being that I don't enjoy searching for stocks to trade. Whether that means screening and then looking at charts, or whatever. I don't get paid directly for that time, so if it's possible, I'm going to try and avoid that. For this I'm using a fixed universe of 10 ETFs to choose trades from. I also don't like the fact that single stocks can at times implode or explode in prices. Meaning under certain conditions, the price can move maybe 20% or so in one direction in very little time (maybe a day or less). I have never seen an ETF do that. My goal is steady profits over time, and I would rather have less volatility to get there. In the past I made some good money on that type of volatility, but I would rather avoid it this time around, if at all possible. Of course I also don't like the shorting rules with regular stocks.
In the past I have made the greatest amount of money when holding an average of about three days per profitable trade. Some were held longer, some were held shorter. Basically I was trading intraday charts to capture what most people would consider price swings on the daily chart. I made the lion's share of money when my intraday charts were trending in the same direction as the daily charts were. Meaning swinging in the direction of the trend.
I intend to do this with ETFs as well. I know how to do it already, and I know I have done it profitably many times before. I have even done it with ETFs in the past. Since I just explored the day trading realm of holding periods, I would also like to revisit some longer holding periods. Meaning holding something for weeks to months at a time. For this I intend to trend trade on the daily charts. So my intentions are to both "swing" trade and trend trade the "daily" charts of ETFs. I want to do some longer holding period testing, just to see if it fits me these days. I know my original encounter with longer term holding did not work out well. But of course I have a different set of skills this time around.
I was just wondering if anyone else is doing anything similar.
I also have an interest in trying currency trading at some point, as well as other trading vehicles like commodities and foreign markets. It's a process though. I'm not in a rush.
Banker
Basically I started "trading" at the end of the bull market in US stocks. Early 2000. I had no idea what I was doing. I bought shares in a company which I liked. I fell in love with the company and my shares. I added more shares as the stock fell, and eventually sold out just before the company went bankrupt. I lost about 75% of my account in my first experience with the market.
After that I took a break from the market for a few months. I read some books and talked with other market participants, and came up with a new plan. The plan involved stocks again, though this time I vowed not to fall in love with another stock or company. I tried to incorporate some rudimentary form of fundamental analysis with some very basic technical analysis. This time I actually started trading. I had no intention of holding a stock for the long term. I mingled in the down trending market only playing the long side on stocks. Since I didn't have intentions of holding forever, I was able to exit when I felt I was wrong. I made some small gains and some small losses over time, but overall my account didn't do too much.
Gradually I decided that I no longer liked doing any form of fundamental analysis. I figured that if I studied the general market's price and volume, and my stock's price and volume, that would be enough information to make money. This turned out to be true. So I focused on that and also incorporated studying industry group charts. As time wore on, the trend on the daily chart turned from down to up, and I started to make some money. I kept plugging away for most of the trend, and stopped trading after a while. I decided to spend the money in my trading account on some other things I wanted, and invested another portion in my business. All of this trading was on between roughly 5 minute to 60 minute charts, trading trends.
I took another break and read some more books (and enjoyed all of the goodies I bought with my trading proceeds). After some time I opened up an account with a different broker. This time I decided to play both sides of the stock market (long and short). I did some stock screening and poured over the charts of my results. I sold some shares short as the trend was down on the daily market charts, and on my stock's chart. This seemed to work pretty well. Soon thereafter I would find my trade ideas and attempt to sell shares short but would get messages back from my broker that there were no shares to borrow. This was very frustrating to me. In the end I threw in the towel when my broker couldn't even find some SPY for me to borrow anymore.
Another break from the market. I remembered Teresa Lo talking about Interactive Brokers, so I decided to check them out. Through emailing they confirmed to me that I could do what I wanted to do with their firm. I opened up an account. While I was waiting for my check to clear with them, I looked into some of their other trading vehicles they offered. Options, futures, foreign markets, etc. The mini futures caught my eye. I decided that day trading would be the best use of these vehicles. I had explored day trading when I was trading stocks, and never really settled on it as my favorite thing to do. I figured I would give it a shot with futures, and see if that was a good choice for me at this time.
I day traded for a while and realized I don't like getting up in the morning just because the market is opening and quite a bit of activity seems to happen in the early hours of trading. Basically I like to wake up when I'm done sleeping, not for any other reason. Another thing I did not like was the "need" I felt to watch the market for much of the trading day. This felt too much like work to me. I also did not enjoy entering and exiting the market repeatedly during the day. I'm just not that flighty of a person. The only option I could think of that would allow me to get up when I wanted and not watch all day was scalping. I have no interest in exploring that option though.
What I do like is the ability to short on a down tick. I also like the idea of trading what is essentially a group of stocks at once (ES & NQ & YM were my futures trading vehicles). Eventually I realized those two advantages were offered in ETFs as well. So I have made up my mind to try them out for a while.
I'm not interested in going back to regular stock trading for a few reasons. The first being that I don't enjoy searching for stocks to trade. Whether that means screening and then looking at charts, or whatever. I don't get paid directly for that time, so if it's possible, I'm going to try and avoid that. For this I'm using a fixed universe of 10 ETFs to choose trades from. I also don't like the fact that single stocks can at times implode or explode in prices. Meaning under certain conditions, the price can move maybe 20% or so in one direction in very little time (maybe a day or less). I have never seen an ETF do that. My goal is steady profits over time, and I would rather have less volatility to get there. In the past I made some good money on that type of volatility, but I would rather avoid it this time around, if at all possible. Of course I also don't like the shorting rules with regular stocks.
In the past I have made the greatest amount of money when holding an average of about three days per profitable trade. Some were held longer, some were held shorter. Basically I was trading intraday charts to capture what most people would consider price swings on the daily chart. I made the lion's share of money when my intraday charts were trending in the same direction as the daily charts were. Meaning swinging in the direction of the trend.
I intend to do this with ETFs as well. I know how to do it already, and I know I have done it profitably many times before. I have even done it with ETFs in the past. Since I just explored the day trading realm of holding periods, I would also like to revisit some longer holding periods. Meaning holding something for weeks to months at a time. For this I intend to trend trade on the daily charts. So my intentions are to both "swing" trade and trend trade the "daily" charts of ETFs. I want to do some longer holding period testing, just to see if it fits me these days. I know my original encounter with longer term holding did not work out well. But of course I have a different set of skills this time around.
I was just wondering if anyone else is doing anything similar.
I also have an interest in trying currency trading at some point, as well as other trading vehicles like commodities and foreign markets. It's a process though. I'm not in a rush.
Banker
Yes, position trading is boring. All of the time is spent waiting. Waiting for conditions to change. Either you are waiting to close the position or waiting to open one. Action doesn't happen very often, that's for sure. Even on small time period charts.
Nope, I'm not a banker. That was a nickname given to me on another message board long ago (in internet time). I'm a trader and business owner. The business is not a bank.
I'm glad there are people on this forum who do not have a phobia of holding something overnight.
Banker
Quote from LongShot:
you say you don't like to get up early but you're up every morn scalping futures and posting charts here
LOL some of those days I didn't want to be awake. I felt it was my duty though, considering what I was trying to do. Other days that's just when I woke up naturally. I don't mind getting up early, as long as it's natural, not via an alarm clock.
Sorry for any confusion,
Banker
thats a very good point. I hated waking up at 3 am to trade the markets, maybe thats why I lost money.
what I like to do is wake up at about 5am, go for a walk to the beach, do some exercise in the sunrise, eat , then make a plan to trade, then trade.
I think finding out what you want to do and doing it is how to get into the flow.
thats what I'm doing now. I still have an oanda fx account from a year ago. I'm trading that. Cut back to three days a week working p/t at a grocery store.
will swing trade currency pairs and keep my risk down by always having positions in several different currencies based on TA not fundamentals.
seems the charting and platforms of forex brokers have progressed since I last checked it out.
hell some even have gann, and fib tools.
best of luck, I really enjoy reading this thread.
I am a day trader by training, but love the longer term time horizon when that environment presents itself. As the market environemnt changes so should our tool bags.
You may want to look at the narrow bases index futures that will be rolled out very soon. Very similar to the ETF and tradable out of your futues account. Good Luck......
You may want to look at the narrow bases index futures that will be rolled out very soon. Very similar to the ETF and tradable out of your futues account. Good Luck......