Is day trading worth it?

[Maverick74]

Exactly, NoD!

All we need as traders is have our trades make money over time. Some entries may have 60% hit rate, some may even have 30% hit rate (though, I prefer the higher probability signals ), but as long as profits cover losses and put something on top, business is going well.


LOL, I love this one too... uh oh, most breakouts fail... SO WHAT?

I will not even touch the fact that there are many forms of breakouts and some of them are probably the highest probability trades I have ever met...

But seriously, are we trading to make money or to whine about the existence of losing trades... If most breakouts fail, but those which don't make more profit than all losses which are brought by failures combined, that's a GREAT BET!

Somehow people find it OK to buy lotto tickets or play casino knowing odds are way not in their favour, but find it absolutely unacceptable to ever, ever have a losing trade in the markets, even if the system has obviously positive expectation...

What a great game for psychologists to observe interesting phenomenons.

Frankly I tend to just scalp the immediate momentum myself, but I have seen others do as you said: take a few tries to catch the big swing with scalp-like fine-tuned entry... My experience is, it still pays off very well overall, because even if you try say 3-5 times, get 2 losses of 4 ES ticks + comm, 2 breakevens + comm, which would total roughly 11-12 ticks of costs and on the 5th time catch the move of 50 ticks, you still have a much better equity curve shape than if you risk 10 ticks from the start to get the same 50 ticks, because some losses happen there too...

Cannot say definitely which way is better, it seems to be more correlated with particular trader's comfort zone indeed, but both ways "work" if applied consistently.

Brother Oily, you are surprised that trading setups are not infallible or what? Maybe you're also embarrassed with the fact trading losses exist?

Of course TA setups fail at times, which are usually great opposite setups. What's the problem I don't get... Just TRADE THE CRAP and make money already, ha.

As my great old friend, who also mentored NoDoji once said "how many traders fail, because they are always seeking instead of just performing".

Watch the market until you "see things" and just trade what works more often than not, how easier can it get?

Hahaha... No, actually I ask myself why the hell did I spend my time trading Euro for 9-10 hours every day when can make more trading CL for two hours...

Also about to trade NQ, which is liquid enough, but not as fat (and slow) as ES. Yesterday morning was a beautiful day, one of those you don't care not only about the spread, but also some slippage doesn't hurt you at all.

Speaking on the matter of the thread, I think HFT seriously harms scalpers who exploited the smallest possible moves in the markets thus competing with HFT in the same niche.

For us, momentum traders, algos provided a lot of additional liquidity and exaggerate some moves, which is rather good than bad news.

Why do you keep denying reality, Surf? I indeed showed you 50+ trades live track record, all real-time, all 3rd party verified. Out of those 50+ trades done over the course of a couple of months most days were profitable and it's not just a lucky coincidence.

Did countless amount of live trades in front of other people, many of whom are years old members of ET from different areas of the world. NoDoji did pretty much the same I believe.

We do it to show people that successful trading is possible for anyone who really is ready to deliberately learn this craft. What scares you so much about this fact?

I seriously care.

So Cornix, what gives? I thought Nodoji gave you a clear cut can't lose surefire way to make a killing like her. You talked a pretty tough game to Surf for many months on here. These greatest hits almost seem comical now in hindsight don't they?

 

[cornix]

yes, yes... because $8m commercial real-estate deals are so easy for realtors to find here in 2014. Why not just sell one a month and make some real money? So easy.

That may be a bit of extreme sample of course, but it surely is pretty easy to sell a truck driver who broke rear lights on his DAF new lights and make 50% ROI without much risk. Repeat 20 times a day.

My point is: typical human to human sell side business is really easy (for me at least) provided you really have some value to give in exchange for buyer's money.

Don't mean to say I don't like financial markets. They provide excellent opportunities, especially at the turning points of major business cycles (what was the risk of total US default in January 2009 if one wanted to buy S&P?). But day trading became much more difficult for me since past years of enormous volatility.

 

[cornix]

So Cornix, what gives? I thought Nodoji gave you a clear cut can't lose surefire way to make a killing like her. You talked a pretty tough game to Surf for many months on here. These greatest hits almost seem comical now in hindsight don't they?

Things simply changed. I did make good profits day trading. Which quite a few people can confirm. But then it got worse. And I am not going to lie to anyone here saying black is white. It WAS easier for me when volatility was there. Now it is not. Plus I have something else to compare with now, after 10 years of almost solely trading.

No contradiction. Surf could be right in some of his points and I could be wrong.

 

[Maverick74]

Things simply changed. I did make good profits day trading. Which quite a few people can confirm. But then it got worse. And I am not going to lie to anyone here saying black is white. It WAS easier for me when volatility was there. Now it is not. Plus I have something else to compare with now, after 10 years of almost solely trading.

No contradiction. Surf could be right in some of his points and I could be wrong.

But isn't Nodoji still printing greenbacks in this low vol environment? I mean her words not mine, she can have 5 tick stops in CL and make 100 and do this day after day after day.

Look, kudos to you for being honest and humble. I'm probably guilty of over stiring the pot here. It just seems odd that she still is sticking to this story of free money and you were one of her students. I mean her method seemed so simple even a 5 year old could do it.

 

[cornix]

But isn't Nodoji still printing greenbacks in this low vol environment? I mean her words not mine, she can have 5 tick stops in CL and make 100 and do this day after day after day.

Look, kudos to you for being honest and humble. I'm probably guilty of over stiring the pot here. It just seems odd that she still is sticking to this story of free money and you were one of her students. I mean her method seemed so simple even a 5 year old could do it.

Must be she is much better than me at it. We better ask her.

To her defense, I have never heard about her taking money for mentoring anyone. Only rumors, but never a proof of anyone saying she/he paid her to teach trading.

 

[Scaleout.Scalper]

Yes, I'm talking about edge, not BS TA. Squiggly lines is not an edge.

You sound so convinced.

 

[Maverick74]

Must be she is much better than me at it. We better ask her.

To her defense, I have never heard about her taking money for mentoring anyone. Only rumors, but never a proof of anyone saying she/he paid her to teach trading.

I'm not trying to indict her as a vendor. She may or may not be. That's been hashed out already on here. It just seemed like her method was so simple, so straightforward, so easy. She says anyone can do it. Requires no skill or brains. I'm paraphrasing here obviously. I wouldn't give her a hard time about it if she just admitted she was a scratch trader soccer mom who made her dough elsewhere, but she comes on here and makes no apologies about it, it's EASY...SIMPLE....even a caveman can do it. Day after day after day. No stress. Very little risk. No real skill required, just follow her simple rules. I'm just curious what you find so hard about her system.

I mean don't get me wrong, I don't buy a word of it and I think you're a stand up guy for being honest. And I think you understand now what many others already know, that without an edge, you are simple long variance. In the right market at the right time, that variance will give you a very compelling argument that you have it all figured out when the reality is, it's just random luck. I debated this already endlessly on the TST threads. I'm not trying to get you to testify against her, it's just you two now are really diverging on thought. It's rather interesting. At least to me.

 

[RedTankEra]

To Cornix,

why dont you tell these losers you are surrounded on a daily basis by traders who constantly milk it using TA?

To the rest,

i wish i was not scared of strangers, would invite a few of you sorry ass clowns show you how good TA can be

 

[NoDoji]

I'm not trying to indict her as a vendor. She may or may not be. That's been hashed out already on here. It just seemed like her method was so simple, so straightforward, so easy. She says anyone can do it. Requires no skill or brains. I'm paraphrasing here obviously. I wouldn't give her a hard time about it if she just admitted she was a scratch trader soccer mom who made her dough elsewhere, but she comes on here and makes no apologies about it, it's EASY...SIMPLE....even a caveman can do it. Day after day after day. No stress. Very little risk. No real skill required, just follow her simple rules. I'm just curious what you find so hard about her system.

Mav, please link me to a post where I intimate that anyone can trade the methods I use, that it requires no skill or brains, that even a caveman can do it. I've stated just the opposite again and again and again on ET.

I've never shared my rules on ET. I've illustrated in detail a couple of setups/entries I use daily. Studying them, learning to identify them at the hard right edge, mastering the context (price action environment) under which they are more likely to work than to fail, having proper trade management rules once positioned, requires a lot of work. I spent thousands of hours getting to a consistently profitable day trading plan. I wouldn't share my written plan with anyone, nor would I sell it (I've had a few offers).

Cornix is not my student, nor was he ever my student. I met him in ET's chat room when I was a total noob with about 3 weeks of day trading experience. I knew nothing about how he traded (he traded Forex) and he knew nothing about how I traded. Bighog was there and I basically ignored everything he tried to teach me because I thought I could do better.

Cornix does not know my system. He spent some time daily in a Skype group with me back in 2010 and, if anything, I learned from him. I learned how to use a 1-min chart to take entries that allowed for much less than the 20-tick stops I was using at the time. Thanks to him calling several 6E trades during that time and my ability to quickly see what was going on between the 5- and 1-min charts during his entries, I modified my core plan to focus on second entries following a signal and now trade with stops as small as 3 ticks and never more than 15 ticks (trading CL).

You do have a couple things spot on:

My trading involves very little risk and, as a result, is indeed low stress.

 

[NoDoji]

To her defense, I have never heard about her taking money for mentoring anyone. Only rumors, but never a proof of anyone saying she/he paid her to teach trading.

I never formally mentored anyone and never took money from anyone for any trading help I've given at any time.

The distraction of formally mentoring someone would cost me more in missed trading opportunities than I could comfortably charge for mentoring. If I had a trading room like Al Brooks and could guarantee a couple hundred subscribers every month, that would definitely be easy money...