Shouldn't need any additional help. Just go do it. You already understand technicals just try the same thing on a smaller scale and be diligent with your risk management and trade small at first so it doesn't kill you if it doesn't work well.
Day Trading for a Seasoned Swing Trader
- Thread starter systematictrader
- Start date
I think that if we look at why most people fail at trading, and then we look at what the difference between swing trading and day trading is, then we can perhaps get closer to an answer.
If you are swing trading, and are truly systematic, then you must already have a good handle on stats. You must know what you need to look for, you must have no fear when entering, and you must be able to do it over and over again. Assuming that you aren't swing trading over such long lengths that you are essentially just an investor and only ever buying during a bull market, then we can assume you have the fundamentals down pat.
Looking at the charts, sometimes it really is difficult to distinguish a 1 or 5 min chart from an hourly or daily chart. For day trading, things of course happen faster, but this cuts both ways, for the good and the bad. Saying this, I really don't know why a person couldn't figure out a strategy for a 1 minute chart, if they have a good strategy for an hourly or daily chart. All of a sudden, you may have many more setups, which is a good thing, and only if you've learned to take each and every one will you be successful if that is in fact according to the plan.
I think those people who fail at day trading even though they claim to be really good as swing trading simply haven't really learned to trade, and its more of a matter of luck, along with just buying in a bull market.
It is a valid question. Where to start? I think the first place to start would be your broker, to understand what their requirement might be when it comes to day-trading positions. This allows you to know what you must add to your risk-management plan. As far as strategy for your day-trading layered into your swing-positions?...That would be better answered by folks more experienced than I in that field. As I mentioned earlier, I am only now delving into the live bit of it, and it sucks and hurts. I have psychological issues cropping up that I thought I had conquered, but hey, that is part of the process. I still have you, Rufus, tilted on a spoon measured with a grain-of-salt.
Here's a tip...Stop liking posts you don't agree with. You are just spam-liking, and it is untoward. (That is advanced English comprehension, I know. Sorry) Please also understand that your consistent use of text-speak is awful for me to consider you to be serious. At least I am not calling you Shirley.
gotcha that makes sense, and iam havent just yet got to apply my systems on day trading just yet, the reason is which is what brought me here is that in my swing trading i PLAY EVERY HAND and whether i know its a loser or winner its always played with same position size, commission doesnt add up to anything since the trades can go from 1day to 3 months sometimes, on average its 3 weeks, but iam always in the instrument that i trade either long or short,,, i know with day trading that wont be the case and i cant afford it to be the case cuz the frequency of signals and commission will pile up, additionally iam not automated in terms i still enter my orders manually which is not an issue for swing trading cuz i only need to check end of day, in day trading obviously that wont be the case and the time commitment will be required to be more as well as timed (ie market hours)
and on the bull subject i dont trade stocks, i trade currencies and its where my success has generated from, at least so far,,i do invest in stocks none the less and i dont count those gains as trading gains, they are simply investments gains, old fashion way buy n hold with some salt and pepper (as described in other threads)
if i can conclude correctly from u, a person who succeeded in trading in any time frame can succeed and transition to others as well,
iam going to test my methodologies there soon, but the reason i created this thread is not so much to see whether i will succeed in day trading or not but more so to see how to accelerate that process from experienced people in that criteria, as i dont plan to spend 10 years learning day trading as i have in swing trading (8 years losing, 2 succeeding)
good advice, i appreciate it, both on trading and the typing,
Yes thats what iam hoping from this thread is that one or more individuals who are successful in day trading as their primary endeavor casts a light into it for me to start off of.
You might want to keep an eye out, or search, for day-trading threads with people posting successful results. Trading-bees looking for pollen have to fly to the flower to get it, and not expect the nectar to come to them as they sit in the honeycomb. (Sorry, another English analogy or metaphor or whatever. My bad.)
I would think this should be possible but adjustments will have to be made for sure. When you look at how the market moves, tick for tick, its pretty apparent that HFT firms can and do push the markets in a certain direction. Call it stop runs or whatever, but there can be quite violent moves that are often counter to the actual move. I don't watch currencies enough, but I imagine the same thing happens. At the same time, since currency trading isn't centralized, unlike the ES, then this more than likely changes things.
I think when you switch to a higher time frame, things get smoothed out so you don't see this as much. With day trading, getting the timing right and order entry is much more critical. If one would use a 2 or 3 point stop in the ES, then certainly, waiting a few point for price to take off from a level means that you aren't even allowing room for price to retest wherever it took off from. But if you were to swing trade the ES, with lets say a 20 point stop, and enter 10 points above some key level, then you have more breathing room.
Clearly you can have breathing room in day trading as well as your stop can be whatever you want it to be, but if the range of the ES is only 10 to 15 points, then using more than a 5 point stop will not result perhaps in great performance. Not only will price perhaps be ready to retrace after it has moved 5 points in a direction, but you also might not have enough range left in order to recoup losses and such.
But the key is that all of these things get analyzed in advance, and if you have done this for swing trading, there is no reason why you couldn't do this for day trading. In the end, the trade either works or it doesn't, and you either take the next trade or you don't. The psychology and mechanics of trading is what is most difficult to master. The actual plan really isn't too tough in comparison.
good analogy though
Good luck there. I see nothing here at ET in the past few years that shows this. A successful thread would show at the very least 50 or 100 trades, each with clear entry, stop and target. Doesn't even have to be posted in advance, but it has to be posted so that you can get a sense of how someone is entering, what risk they take, and how much profit they strive for. This is what is the shittiest part of ET. The most important thing for trading is consistency, but this is something nobody talks about. They make a random call here and there, maybe they get it right, maybe they get it wrong, but any one random trades means nothing. All those guys making lots of trade calls in some of the journals don't tally it up, they don't show their totals, their average win, average loss, win rate, etc. New traders needs to see how the stats add up. (ie. -2, -1, +1, -1, +3, +4, 0, -1, and so on and so on)
ur top point is very sound and i believe it, in matter fact at one point it used to be a central arguments i had with people i knew in the past that USED to trade, they used to argue HFT moves the market which i agreed with them, But my argument was they can only do it in the short term, 1-5 days top, and in the long term the market will move where its gonna move,, this is all very productive, iam going to keep an eye for day traders who are successful in their filed and or institutions that seem decent and not simply after selling a product for the sake of selling