I think it may come down to context. One man's noise can be another man's signal, depending on his method, frame of reference and so on. But I am personally disinclined to believe that there are people for whom there is never any noise in the market. If there were no noise, then every moment would be tradable because, by definition, it would be all signal. And this would suggest an always-in approach, switching from long to short and so on. I have difficulty accepting this premise. Perhaps I am missing something?
Is day trading worth it?
- Thread starter Laissez Faire
- Start date
Every moment need not be tradeable to convey information. Every print tells you something. Just ask successful scalpers.
Take, for example, being stopped out (or stopping oneself out). Most beginners will consider that to be a failure. They never even think about what the market has told them by stopping them out, which is a chief reason why they rarely if ever re-enter a "failed" trade.
Okay, I think I see what you're saying. Perhaps your disagreement with Laissez Faire comes down to semantics. What he may view as noise or unacceptable price action, perhaps you see as information to not enter a trade or some such, assuming you were otherwise looking for the same setups, just for the sake of argument. Could that be it? (I must confess, I haven't followed the entire exchange.)
As we're not looking for the same things, I can't say. My disagreements with LF, however, are due to much more than randomness and noise.
Incidentally, can I assume that you're a Forsyth fan?
I read most, if not all, of his earlier books and enjoyed most of them. His more recent efforts failed to hit the mark for me. But I couldn't resist the twist on the name.
Yes, that was Forsyth's best book in my opinion.
And it was indeed Harry's clever name that prompted my moniker. I wish I thought of it first.
Getting back to the original subject...
I took an exit on my swing trade in Statoil today. I exited by trailing an aggressive stop. My stop has been looser in the past, but this time I knew that it should take out a given level on it's third attempt to do so if we were to see more upside on this leg up and I also took notice of the oil price stalling. Thus, I wasn't interested in giving back too much money to the market. My hypothesis proved correct and I was stopped out for a handsome return of 102,59 % after interest and commissions. This is an absolute return. Not annualized.
I took the trade on in late December, so that's a duration of roughly five months.
Time spent prior to initiating the trade: A few days of making up my mind that it was a brilliant opportunity and one week stalking the stock for a good entry making sure the bottom was in.
Time spent managing the trade: Just checking in every day during and after market hours. I won't consider it work at all. After being well in the green, I secured a profit and from there it was simply waiting for a top to materialize.
Is day trading worth it? You tell me.
The problem is that I'm not sure I can spot opportunities like this all day long, but I'll look into it.
I took an exit on my swing trade in Statoil today. I exited by trailing an aggressive stop. My stop has been looser in the past, but this time I knew that it should take out a given level on it's third attempt to do so if we were to see more upside on this leg up and I also took notice of the oil price stalling. Thus, I wasn't interested in giving back too much money to the market. My hypothesis proved correct and I was stopped out for a handsome return of 102,59 % after interest and commissions. This is an absolute return. Not annualized.
I took the trade on in late December, so that's a duration of roughly five months.
Time spent prior to initiating the trade: A few days of making up my mind that it was a brilliant opportunity and one week stalking the stock for a good entry making sure the bottom was in.
Time spent managing the trade: Just checking in every day during and after market hours. I won't consider it work at all. After being well in the green, I secured a profit and from there it was simply waiting for a top to materialize.
Is day trading worth it? You tell me.
The problem is that I'm not sure I can spot opportunities like this all day long, but I'll look into it.