Daytrade only a portion of the whole session, does it work ?

J

joesan

Recently I have been curious about something.

I often hear some traders mention that " I trade the last two hours of the ES " , " I traded this morning and went out of office from lunch" .
My trading style requires me to stay near the computer during the whole trading session. So I am a bit curious that are there such ways that allow you to successfully trade just a part of the whole session. And what's more, you don't have to trade the same period within the session day after day, say today I have time from 10-12am, so I trade this period, tomorrow I have time from 2-4pm, so I trade 2-4pm, And agin ,next week I have all the time available, okay then I will trade the whole sessions the whole week, etc.


My question is :can you have this kind of freedom in trading ?
 
I find it's best to just trade my setup(s) when they occur.

Quite often, but not always, that will be in the morning or late afternoon sessions, but not always.

I think it's better to just know your setups and hit the button when you see them.

Having said that, the afternoon (lunch) session will tend to be dull ... but not always.

My two cents.

Later,

Jimmy Jam
 
u can trade the first hour or the first 5min..squeezin' it further, even the 1st min...then forget about it and go enjoy life; typin' crap on et that is..
 
Quote from joesan:

Recently I have been curious about something.

I often hear some traders mention that " I trade the last two hours of the ES " , " I traded this morning and went out of office from lunch" .
My trading style requires me to stay near the computer during the whole trading session. So I am a bit curious that are there such ways that allow you to successfully trade just a part of the whole session. And what's more, you don't have to trade the same period within the session day after day, say today I have time from 10-12am, so I trade this period, tomorrow I have time from 2-4pm, so I trade 2-4pm, And agin ,next week I have all the time available, okay then I will trade the whole sessions the whole week, etc.


My question is :can you have this kind of freedom in trading ?
More...
I trade (currently off for the summer) all day. Or at least I'm looking for new trades, reading news, and monitoring open trades all day.

Most of my trading takes place shortly after the open. On winning days, I'd say a good 50% of the days profit comes in the first hour, the rest coming over the rest of the day. On down days, 75% (or more, if I was way off) of my losses come in the first hour. I make fewer trades from late morning to close. Conversely, I'm in longer trades from late morning to close too.

Can you have this kind of freedom in trading? Probably if your a swinger, but I don't know very many traders who only trade a couple of hours at any time of the day they feel like. I do know some people who'll wait for their appropriate setup before trading, and sometimes they don't enter a single order all day. But they're not leaving for lunch or playing golf either...

Should you try to find this kind of freedom in trading? If you want to, go for it. But it doesn't sound like this bag will fit you though...

Maybe I'm not the one to give advice, after all I spend at least 12 hours a day doing something related to making, or managing, $$$. I couldn't imagine being successful doing what I do for only 2 hours of the day. Maybe I'm just ÜberGreedy?...
 
I have found to my cost that the key to successful intraday trading at least is the quality of the time you spend at the screen not the quantity. This does not mean less is better btw.

When trading you must be 100% focussed as soon as you feel this level drop through excitement after a winner or fear/despair after a loser it is time to take a break away from the screen and recover emotional composure. The smaller the time it takes to recover after a winner or a loser the closer you are to the level of master trader.

All wins and losses have an emotional impact that disrupts focus and focus is the key to profits. It can be had for many non traders to understand that the best thing you can do sometimes is go for a walk. It almost feels like your are cheating or not working properly as we are all brought up to believe that hard work is the key to success and hard work means sat by that damn pc screen and never moving but it just doesn’t work that way imo. If you trade when tired, not focussed or frustrated you get creamed.
 
Thanks for all the comments.


Suppose one can always stay focused when he is trading, (all his method is a mechanical one and has a computerized warning whenever a trading setup is complete), and suppose his rules has a statistical edge, my guess is, then he can trade whenever he wants, he may miss some good trades and he can run into some consecutive losses, but still in the long run, he will come out better than break even. Of couse, he should control his trading size so that some bad trades in a line will not wipe him out.

Does this make sense ?
 
Quote from joesan:
Recently I have been curious about something.
I often hear some traders mention that " I trade the last two hours of the ES " , " I traded this morning and went out of office from lunch". ..
More...
Well of course there is the greater pace & assumed volatility in the first hour&half and the last 2 hours (eg YM).

If you trade just the pacy morning part, you are really saying that is as much emotional confrontation with the market you can take in one day. I can understand that. If you trade just the morning initial part and the last part of the market you believe that is where the pace & volatility is which is all you want to trade. You are saying you need a long break in the middle period.

In a whole day approach you will experience some great moves going into the lunch hour; equally there can be a lot of action many times coming straight out of the lunch hour. But taking the whole session means being comfortable & relaxed for the whole course.

The market is a continuing feast. If you want stay away from the table some of the time then you are going to know less and will be avoiding ruthlessly & logically amassing more capital.

But, as in all things, horses for courses.
:)
 
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