Should I stop day trading?
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simple question, simple answer:
An emphatic yes!
If you have to ask, you already know the answer.
An emphatic yes!
If you have to ask, you already know the answer.
To position trade a futures contract properly, one must have acquired an all-round skill proficiency at the highest level. It takes years of experience, and will only ever be attained by a handful of very special people.
Outliers(lucky) in a mathematical sense, but the real reason for their astonishing success will undoubtedly be biological/psychological.
Genius.
Ending each day flat gives you a perfect vantage point to look at whatever market you are trading come the new day. You're not tied into a position (or positions) that represent yesterday's thinking. Money can be made in any time frame but for certain personality types flatening out by the close is a must.
+1
He did not state he does not get back in the next day.
Do you still trade currencies? I have not seen you in AUD/USD thread lately.
That's one of the great fallacy ever perpetrated on the investor/trader public.
Time frames for a directional outright trader are, by and large, irrelevent to actually making big money as opossed to riding big moves. What counts is consistency and the size of your edge. If you are consistent you earn and you develop confidence to increase size. As long as you view size as the pathway to riches the timeframe becomes unimportant. Always remember a 4 tick winner in ES is $5,000 for the guy trading a 100 lot. It does not take to many of those a day for a highly skilled price action trader to make very big money. Please don't misunderstand me: I'm not trading size ... yet. But just because I'm not yet trading it doesn't mean the math eludes me. The fact is guys love to make 400 or 500% on a stock in a year or catch a swing trade in CL that gives them 4 handles in CL over a month ... and who wouldn't?
But suppose you had 1000 shares of a $10 stock and you sold it for $60 and made $50,000 in the year or caught five of those great 4 handle CL trades in a year on a three lot and made $60,000 on those truly outstanding plays or better yet caught the great stock trade AND the 5 CL trades. Where would you be? You would have made barely six figures for the year if you broke even on everthing else. And, if your a long ball hitter, it is entirely possible to push on everything else. If you live in a big city the 100K (or so) does not go so far after taxes and a couple of meals out.
At some point most that make real money in life -- business, trading, whatever -- sober up and realize you need to be able to rinse and repeat. Wrigely made a nice pile selling penny chewing gum. Lot's of guys trading CL here on ET have an account that would carry five lot trades but down deep they know they are not consistent so they trade one and, if they love a trade, bump it to two. Yet there is a guy who is trading a one lot today and is ready to bump it to two next week because he is consistent ... not because he loves a trade. He has been building skill and he knows it. His numbers tell him he is running on all cylinders -- not for a month or two but running over time. And some months down the road if he is still consistent -- better yet a bit more consistent -- he'll bump to three. At some point he'll be trading say eight lots in CL and be on his way. His knowledge, his skill is the better part of his capital at that point. He is like any other businessman that knows his business.
Size counts. But the reality is size is derivative. What prevents futures traders from increasing size is generally not capital but consistency.
Time frames for a directional outright trader are, by and large, irrelevent to actually making big money as opossed to riding big moves. What counts is consistency and the size of your edge. If you are consistent you earn and you develop confidence to increase size. As long as you view size as the pathway to riches the timeframe becomes unimportant. Always remember a 4 tick winner in ES is $5,000 for the guy trading a 100 lot. It does not take to many of those a day for a highly skilled price action trader to make very big money. Please don't misunderstand me: I'm not trading size ... yet. But just because I'm not yet trading it doesn't mean the math eludes me. The fact is guys love to make 400 or 500% on a stock in a year or catch a swing trade in CL that gives them 4 handles in CL over a month ... and who wouldn't?
But suppose you had 1000 shares of a $10 stock and you sold it for $60 and made $50,000 in the year or caught five of those great 4 handle CL trades in a year on a three lot and made $60,000 on those truly outstanding plays or better yet caught the great stock trade AND the 5 CL trades. Where would you be? You would have made barely six figures for the year if you broke even on everthing else. And, if your a long ball hitter, it is entirely possible to push on everything else. If you live in a big city the 100K (or so) does not go so far after taxes and a couple of meals out.
At some point most that make real money in life -- business, trading, whatever -- sober up and realize you need to be able to rinse and repeat. Wrigely made a nice pile selling penny chewing gum. Lot's of guys trading CL here on ET have an account that would carry five lot trades but down deep they know they are not consistent so they trade one and, if they love a trade, bump it to two. Yet there is a guy who is trading a one lot today and is ready to bump it to two next week because he is consistent ... not because he loves a trade. He has been building skill and he knows it. His numbers tell him he is running on all cylinders -- not for a month or two but running over time. And some months down the road if he is still consistent -- better yet a bit more consistent -- he'll bump to three. At some point he'll be trading say eight lots in CL and be on his way. His knowledge, his skill is the better part of his capital at that point. He is like any other businessman that knows his business.
Size counts. But the reality is size is derivative. What prevents futures traders from increasing size is generally not capital but consistency.
A 4 tick profit on 100 contracts isnt the same thing as a 400 tick profit on one contract, far from it. The smaller your profit targets the worse you are affected by spreads (which is 1 tick, or a whopping 25% of your profit target if you are targeting only 4 ticks), slippage (could be a disaster if you are holding a huge position and the market suddenly spikes) and commissions, no retail trader can overcome such incredibly high odds in the long run, its suicide.
Besides, the HFTs already dominate these time frames, they have a clear advantage over retail on the lower time frames so good luck competing with them.
The reason why trading was so profitable a few years ago was due to the high volatility and very high "tradeable" range, it made the lower time frames work like the higher time frames. What usually takes days or even weeks to develop can happen in one day, I could easily risk 2 pts to make 20 pts even if it was just an intraday trade, comms, slippage and spreads become irrelevant in these situations.
There is still reasonable range and volatility in commodities and fx, but imo those instruments dont trend very well on the lower time frames. Massive price spikes that reverses almost immediately are very common on instruments like GC or CL, its too whipsawy for my liking, though I think it is definitely possible to develop strategies to trade them profitably because there is gd range and volatility.
