How many day trades do you manage simultaneously?

F

frank123

After half a year's struggle, I am finally able to rather consistently breakeven or make profits now. I day trade only. This is a question for day traders:

How many trades do you feel comfortable handling simultaneously?

The max number of day trades I ever simultaneously had is just 2. I feel that I have to watch it like a hawk. However, the opportunity cost for doing so is considable. For instance, I entered a short position of 500 shares this moring at 9:50 EST. The stock moved against me immediately but the basic pattern still holds and my stoploss never triggered. I am in the red anywhere from $25 to $125 for three hours before the stock break its support and I took my profit of $150. During that 3 hours, I found myself being unable to trade any other stock but to watch the position I am already in.

Could that 3 hours have been put to better use? What is your take on this issue?

Frank
 
good question... me I like doing 3-5 positions simultaneously using cyberx2 on sector breakouts/breakdowns..

Q for anyone with experience daytrading w/IB, do they have an open running P&L that's easy to point n click scale in/out of multiple open positions like cyberx2 does? haven't used tws in 8 mos+


thx..


ken
 
Ken,

Do you even have enough time to enter 3 to 5 positions when a sector breaks down? A major breakdown usually happens so quickly.

Frank
 
Frank, I think you wasted 3 hours of trading time. You said you had a protective stop in place, so you staring at the screen didn't help or take away from the trade at all. If you're using protective stops, I would recommend you look for other opportunities instead of micro-managing the trade. Now, I'm no expert trader so take this for what it's worth. But I've found through my personal experience that it's better to be in multiple positions. I'm still a beginner but the most positions I've been in is 4 at a time. Every trade was entered with an attached trailing stop. 3 were profitable, and one was a loss. Now, if I had been stuck in a single position and that turned out to be a loss, it would have been a down day.

FastTrader :cool:
 
Fasttrader,

I think you are definitely right. I used to have stop market order to protect myself. Now I like to use mental stop better. Why, becuase I suspect some market maker intentionally move the price to "eat" my stop market order just becuase he sees it there.

But I agree with your assessment of the whole situation. Thanks.

Frank
 
Frank, some brokers hold your "stops" on their servers so the MM doesn't see them. Ofcourse, if your stop is near support, the MM already knows it's there, but at least he won't be able to see the exact price. Check with your broker on this.

-FastTrader :cool:
 
Quote from frank123:

After half a year's struggle, I am finally able to rather consistently breakeven or make profits now. I day trade only. This is a question for day traders:

How many trades do you feel comfortable handling simultaneously?

The max number of day trades I ever simultaneously had is just 2. I feel that I have to watch it like a hawk. However, the opportunity cost for doing so is considable. For instance, I entered a short position of 500 shares this moring at 9:50 EST. The stock moved against me immediately but the basic pattern still holds and my stoploss never triggered. I am in the red anywhere from $25 to $125 for three hours before the stock break its support and I took my profit of $150. During that 3 hours, I found myself being unable to trade any other stock but to watch the position I am already in.

Could that 3 hours have been put to better use? What is your take on this issue?

Frank
More...
Frank123:

I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with just focusing on the one trade you are currently in and not trade anything else IF your strategy and style dictates so. Personally, I much prefer to handle one trade well at a time than to juggle several simultaneously and possibly messing up on all. Maybe I’m just not at that level of sophistication yet. Once I am in a trade and placed my stop loss, my strategy demands that I keep my eyes on what that market does afterwards, because depending on how it moves, my strategy may further indicate that I perform additional steps with the trade. Attention-wise, I can’t afford to be juggling 2 or 3 others (not in day trading anyway). Perhaps there are other strategies that allow you to “fire and forget” and possibly with those, having multiple simultaneous trades is feasible.

Kermit
 
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