Is day trading worth it?

Laissez Faire said:
What's your approach to swing trading, may I ask?

Are you following a ton of stocks or instruments or do you concentrate on a few?

What I like with day trading is that you can really specialize and focus on one contract. I know some people like to spread out here as well, but I don't. For me, it was the ES and I felt I really started getting a grasp of how it moves.

Seeing that my current swing trade has been open for months and probably will be for at least another month, I was thinking perhaps I could combine day trading and swing trading.

I may have already mentioned it, but the difference from my approach to day trading now and then, is that I won't attempt to trade for a living or have pressure to perform. It will be a long term thing where I can and will skip days entirely. I had tons of days in the past where I was profitable, but I knew I had to make it big, so I would often end up losing it.
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I find daytrading to be much more erratic, more random. However, there's nothing random about swing trading or bigger timeframes.

Im a setup trader, I look for specific things in daily or higher charts and if the instrument is viable for swing trading, I will take the risk and follow the plan.

I prefer indices and/or etfs, less surprises there, although I would trade equities every now and then, i have to make up for the higher risk by using less capital.

Good luck to you, best wishes.
 
Autodidact said:
I find daytrading to be much more erratic, more random. However, there's nothing random about swing trading or bigger timeframes.

Im a setup trader, I look for specific things in daily or higher charts and if the instrument is viable for swing trading, I will take the risk and follow the plan.

I prefer indices and/or etfs, less surprises there, although I would trade equities every now and then, i have to make up for the higher risk by using less capital.

Good luck to you, best wishes.
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Thanks, man.

Not to start a debate on this, but I'm curious why you think there is nothing random about swing trading or bigger time frames compared to day trading? I'm not sure if I agree.

I don't have so much experience with other instruments than the ES. I did do quite a bit of research, demo and live trading with the CL, and what I observed is that this instrument is much more wild, disrespectful and unpredictable compared to the ES. Of course, that could be a reflection of my lack of understanding in respect to that particular contract.

ES tends to behave much more orderly and predictable on the daily timeframe. I think it's possible to exploit this.
 
Laissez Faire said:
Thanks, man.

Not to start a debate on this, but I'm curious why you think there is nothing random about swing trading or bigger time frames compared to day trading? I'm not sure if I agree.

ES tends to behave much more orderly and predictable on the daily timeframe. I think it's possible to exploit this.
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See you do agree, the higher the TF, the more you get rid of the noise :)
 
Autodidact said:
See you do agree, the higher the TF, the more you get rid of the noise :)
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Not really. When I said daily, I meant intraday.

Medium term I think the market is just as 'random' as it is intraday. In fact, I think it's easier to predict what will happen the next hour(s) in the ES, than to predict what will happen in the next month.

For instance, crude oil. I'm confident prices will get back up towards $80-90 in a long term perspective, but I'm clueless about the mid term or intraday (since I don't know CL good enough). A skilled intraday CL trader should however have a good clue about what's 'normal' in that instrument.

For me though, I never figured out the 'normal' part in CL. I did in ES though.
 
i am nobody said:
You cannot get rid of the noise by taking a higher timeframe I think. In every timeframe prices zigzag, that causes the noise. But finally the prices will go up or down substantially. These waves exist in any timeframe, so you cannot get rid of it.
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Do you think a 50 or 100 point move on the ES is the same thing as a 5 or 10 tick move?

They are obviously different, it takes a lot more commitment i.e money to move a market 100 points, whereas a 10 tick move can happen without any real change in commitment.

The lower the timeframe the less likely it is for there to be any meaningful movement, thus the more likely that the move is just noise.
 
i am nobody said:
You cannot get rid of the noise by taking a higher timeframe I think. In every timeframe prices zigzag, that causes the noise. But finally the prices will go up or down substantially. These waves exist in any timeframe, so you cannot get rid of it.
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ZIg Zag is not noise. Im referring to chop, if you are trading a 3 min timeframe and all you have is chop increasing the timeframe can help you understand why price is acting that way as well as isolate the range in an efficient manner. This simple technique works in any timeframe, when answers cannot be found, no matter how far out you look, you simply stay out, as flat is indeed a position.
 
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