Is day trading worth it?

[austinp]

Good post. In addition, it's day traders that compete with bots (good luck taking on the machines), macro traders like me couldn't care less about bots.

you are directly competing with algo-bots in the CL which consistently hammer you out of -100 cent / -$1,000 per each CL contract in your trade calls here

you might better concern yourself a whole lot more with bots than you currently do. By your own admission, your trading account tells you so.

 

[Scaleout.Scalper]

you are directly competing with algo-bots in the CL which consistently hammer you out of -100 cent / -$1,000 per each CL contract in your trade calls here

Can you please post a chart example of a similar case ?

 

[austinp]

Can you please post a chart example of a similar case ?

a similar case of what? this poster stated in the C&L Thread that CL trade results so far for 2014 are negative, and multiple CL trade "calls" there using -100 cent initial stops have been hit.

 

[Scaleout.Scalper]

a similar case of what? this poster stated in the C&L Thread that CL trade results so far for 2014 are negative, and multiple CL trade "calls" there using -100 cent initial stops have been hit.

No, I mean a bot interfering with trading.

 

[austinp]

No, I mean a bot interfering with trading.

Bots don't "interfere" with trades directly, they create abrupt, often explosive v-turn price moves in wide-range fashion. The solution to that market is definitely not trying to use mile-wide stops while holding for rare, directional trend moves.

 

[Scaleout.Scalper]

Bots don't "interfere" with trades directly, they create abrupt, often explosive v-turn price moves in wide-range fashion. The solution to that market is definitely not trying to use mile-wide stops while holding for rare, directional trend moves.

Everything seems highly tradeable in that chart, don't see any issues with HFT or Bots or whatever the designated fear of the week might be in ET.

 

[NoDoji]

But with a day trade you're up against a lot of BS too like stop hunting and daily volatility that can stop you out early.

What does this sentence mean?

What is "stop hunting"? Are you referring to the situation where inexperienced traders buy/sell in the middle of, or near the inappropriate edge of, a chop/range price action environment and place their stop loss just outside the range, get stopped out by a tick or two and watch price go to the other range extreme without them? Or something different?

What does it mean to get stopped out "early" due to daily volatility?

I mean, as a day trader, I only enter a position when I can place a stop loss order at a level where my acceptable risk:reward and positive expectancy on the trade would no longer be valid. If I have to use a wider stop loss, then I skip the trade unless a second entry sets up that allows me to preserve the R:R/win % requirements of my plan.

This thread is full of opinion based on personal belief instead of evidence.

 

[NoDoji]

Everything seems highly tradeable in that chart, don't see any issues with HFT or Bots or whatever the designated fear of the week might be in ET.

The only thing that annoys me about the bots is that they never tell me in advance when they're going to run price well over a point from my entry

 

[tiddlywinks]

The only thing that annoys me about the bots is that they never tell me in advance when they're going to run price well over a point from my entry

In another thread you said you use a data feed that tells you who is buying and who is selling. I guess that's of no use since Bots don't have names? Im so confused and disillusioned. Now you need to know price movement in advance! arggg.

 

[cornix]

With a job you have consistent income even if you have a bad day and you don't have to worry about a market that's consistently changing (I hear you complaining about volatility a lot).

It's not necessarily a job vs. trading. I am heavily involved in sales business for the last year and must say "material" business is simply MUCH less demanding than day trading. In other words, small mistakes don't matter so much and are easily fixed without serious consequences, process itself is simply natural human-human interaction.

As one (good by his own claims at least) trader once put it on one forum:

"After all I've seen, I believe there is more opportunity available to people (risk-adjusted) from human-to-human sales than trading. Tell me the downside of convincing someone to buy a $5M building (worth $8M) with you getting a $250,000 commission. If they don't do the deal, there will always be someone else. Compare that to the actual market risks you have to take to make the same $250,000."

I was so long in trading that indeed almost forgot how easy it is to make money in the "real world".

Now I view financial markets as still full of great opportunities, but tend to look for slightly different opportunities than grinding livelihood staring @ screen every day.