Can anybody give me tips on how to improve my short term day trade setup

Quote from rolando87:

Hi guys,

I"m a new trader and hope to be trading for the next 10 years of my life at least. I'm pretty new and so far my account is down 10%, but i'm not sweating as I made some really newbie mistakes early on and didn't set any kind of stop loss. Lesson learned there.

Anyways, i'm trying to fine tune by day trading setup, and i only look at 1 minute candle sticks and prefer to be in really short trades of a few mins maybe an hour at most.

So far all i got is an RSI of 9 (9 mins), MACD of 6/13/9 ( all minutes), and EMA of 10 and EMA of 20 both minutes as well.

Any other recommendations/ should i decrease the time frame or increase the timeframe in any of these indicators to prevent whipsaw.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated, I plan to be in these forums for a long time so i will return the favour once i get better at this.

Thanks!
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Are you 22 years old? Then you're like me 2 years ago.:(
Stop daytrading, start swingtrading. You are wasting away your life becoming a screen monkey. You are going to lose 200% of the money you have now. Because you first lose 100%. Then you get so mad you save up money or rack up a debt to pay a guru to teach you how to trade, then you go in the market again and lose again 100% of your money. By this time you realize you have approached the whole idea wrong, but then you realize you just wasted 2 years of your life are in debt or broke, no resume, no way to make money trading.Then you either quit and become a mailman, or 1 in a 10,000 chance succeed. Good luck:cool:
 
Quote from failed_trad3r:

Stop daytrading, start swingtrading. You are wasting away your life becoming a screen monkey. You are going to lose 200% of the money you have now.
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Come on, trading is trading! Day trading is swing trading in a short time frame.

The way you swing trade off a daily/weekly chart is the same as the way you "swing" intraday off a 1-, 3-, 5- or 15-minute chart.

You swing trade smaller positions because you run the risk of a gap against you (or you trade options). You day trade larger positions to capture decent profits off smaller moves. But the technicals that back up the trades are the same.

I attached 2 charts, a 5-min intraday and a 3-month daily. What is so different about how you would trade them other than position size and the need to hedge overnights?
 

Attachments

Well thanks to those who responded with some constructive criticism and trading setups.

I guess i gave the wrong impression that I use the indicators exclusively. I just use them to help me make a decision. Normally i look at the level 2 and the volume before going in.

My plan is to day trade nasdaq or nyse stocks in the 30 to 100 dollar range, with 100 shares a piece, paying about 2 to 3 dollars (roundtrade) in commission and a stop at a 15 to 30 dollar loss. But immediately attach a trailing stop and slowly increase the trailing stop to give it more room for retracement as the trade is going my way. The will ensure that i will be able to catch the slow but steady rises that last for about 30 mins to maybe an hour at the most i see all the time in some of these stocks. It will also ensure that if a major trend is occuring i will ride it almost the entire way without giving up a profit. Although it hasn't happened yet, i dont' have a problem with a day trade suddenly turning into a swing trade if the trade is going my way.

I dont' trade always the same stock, although I have shorted TM repeatedly recently and made some nice gains. I look for stocks that gain or loose 10 cents every 10 mins or so. I prefer these faster stocks because I don't like to be in trades for extended periods unless its going my way of course. I also avoid chaotic stocks that have no real trends up or down in the short term.

I will try some of your suggestions like having the longer timeframe chart for referencing. And the other suggestiosn liek removing all indicators except for 20 EMA.

My favorite indicator is probably the MACD histogram and i would not trade a stock if the moving averages are not lined up in my trade direction. meaning the faster one above the slower one if i'm long. I also wait a few mins after they've crossed and have some distance between them so i don't get whipsawed.

I've purposely kept my account small about 5,000 and plan to see how i do over the year. While I agree its not going to be easy and there's a good chance i might loose that amount, its not going to deter me, from trying to make a full time living off this. I plan to get a job in the meantime as well. My savings are in the 50,000 range and i didn't make that money being stupid with it. I understand i don't know everything but constantly read books trying to learn as much as I can while practising what I just learned.

For the tip mentioned above about not trading for 2 years minimum. That doesn't seem to make much sense, are u suggesting i paper trade for 2 years? I'm fully aware of the unrealistic trading that comes with paper trading, I have done it in the past and its a joke, when a trade goes against you, your much more likely to continue with the loss and before you know it "wow i was right all along, and that 1000 dollar drawdown was nothing". I do have a paper trade account in IB which i will trade after my day stops are triggered, which are very low at the moment only 50 bucks. (meaning if i loose 50 bucks in a day i have to call it quits.)

So any additioanl comments are welcome, I really appreciate the feedback i've recieved so far, even the shitty and discouraging types haha.

BTW, anyone have any suggestions on good standalone charting software, preferably desktop based not broswer based. Preferably under $50 a month? I'm thinknig of getting esignal live charts but I hate that its browser based.
 
I use daily, 5min, 1min charts to get a macro/micro perspective of future price action. For setups I look at 5min price action mostly along with stochastics to determine which side Im on. My 1min includes bollingers which along with tape gauge my entry. No hard stops algos seek them.
 
Quote from rolando87:

BTW, anyone have any suggestions on good standalone charting software, preferably desktop based not broswer based. Preferably under $50 a month? I'm thinknig of getting esignal live charts but I hate that its browser based.
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QuoteTracker's free and desktop-based.
 
Thanks NoDoji and neveralone, for your charting tips so far. I will definitely try quotetracker now.


If money is no object, whats the best charting software you guys have used or heard about?
 
Quote from BSAM:

Step #1: Immediately dump all indicators on your day trading chart.

Step #2: Don't trade for two years minimum.

(You don't believe this do you?)
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sage advice. 100% of the new traders seem to think they will be in the 1-2% who actually retire to life as a fulltime, successful trader.
 
Quote from TraderZones:

sage advice. 100% of the new traders seem to think they will be in the 1-2% who actually retire to life as a fulltime, successful trader.
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And of those 100% of new traders who think they'll be successful, 1-2% are!

And if Rolando follows Kedwards advice, he will be among those success stories!

Quote from Kedwards:

At the least, understand Higher High - Higher Low / Lower High - Lower Low (HH HL / LH LL), and trading with the trend.
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Quote from BSAM:

Step #1: Immediately dump all indicators on your day trading chart.

Step #2: Don't trade for two years minimum.

(You don't believe this do you?)
More...

Yep...I study the price action of only a few futures trading instruments (treasuries, energies and metals) for 5 years prior to my very first trade in futures (treasuries).

Mark
 
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