Sleeping issue with day trading, Should I continue?

[mervyn]

your problem is not lack of sleep, your problem is that your account is too small to buffer the drawdonw, even temporary, bite off more than you can chew so to speak.

have a detail plan of your active hours are and focus on that. other insutruments you can put them on the watchlist and swing (only when your margin allows), or trade micro contracts without worries.

 

[doubledoubledoublecup]

Welcome to day and night trading.
I am doing it full time.

I trade the early ASIAN/EUROPEAN/US sessions.

I was a WORKAHOLIC trading extremely long hours.
Nowadays I trade about 6 hours a day, and I sleep alot, and exercise 2 or 3 times a DAY

Soon you will find the appropriate timetable

Welcome to day and night trading.
I am doing it full time.

I trade the early ASIAN/EUROPEAN/US sessions.

I was a WORKAHOLIC trading extremely long hours.
Nowadays I trade about 6 hours a day, and I sleep alot, and exercise 2 or 3 times a DAY

Soon you will find the appropriate timetable

So you only trade the openning where there is momentum? And only take trade base on openning now?

 

[doubledoubledoublecup]

The whole point of swing trading is so you don't HAVE to spend all hours of the day staring at charts.

What you have is "open-trade anxiety", where you obsess every waking moment over where your position is, even when trying to sleep.

You just set your targets and stops and let it be, and get on with your life. The trade will resolve as it will without you staring at it, egging it on, which is a scalpers' mindset.

You have become stuck in what I call the "transition trader paradox", where you try to distance yourself from scalping by going longer-term, but cannot shake the habit of looking at charts.

I once was where you are now. Even though I had the stops and targets in place, I would WANT to check the positions as often as I could, juts to "see where I was at".

With my trading on hold, I still do it while I am out and about during my day, just to see "where the market is at right now", for the hell of it.

I understand your issue, and you're going to have to face the fact that you must take some form of sleeping aid until you can convince your mind to not wake you up every 90 minutes to "check the markets".

Although I now look for bigger TF swing, sometimes I just couldn't help scalping and scaling out part of the position at S/R, adjusting stops managing trade middle of the night kills my sleep time. But even when I don't have a position, I still always wake up middle of the night, when you get older you just couldn't have a perfect sleep.

 

[doubledoubledoublecup]

Hello doubledoubledoublecup,

Will the 3-4 hours of sleep per day last for more than a year?

Not everyday, my sleep time is more normal on weekend.

 

[doubledoubledoublecup]

What exactly are you trading that you must monitor them around the clock? Sleep deprivation is not only bad for your health but it can literally mess up your cognitive ability to think fast, which is absolutely critical as a trader.

My advice is that if you are so stressed out about your position that you can't sleep, reduce your risk exposure by lightening up the lot size. Moreover, don't trade so many instruments. Focus on just 1 or 2 that you know like the back of your hand. Also know that there are many other ways to trade than just directional. For example, pair trading (eg. wheat/corn) or trading the spread (eg. calendar spread) are strategies that can offer profit potential with relatively low risk.

a lot of time I don't have fix stop, so once my initial order is fill, I need to wait for price action confirmation on my entry and then set stop, or wait for my 1st target to get fill. So sometimes it could take hour and I am left with few hours of sleep before the US open. Do you only trade ES on RTH?

 

[doubledoubledoublecup]

So, how profitable are you doing this...?

It goes without saying that this isn't sustainable. Anyone who tries to function on too little sleep over time will learn it the hard way. Additionally, your stress levels are highly likely elevated both during day and night.

Bottom line is it can work for a short period of time, but not as a way of life. So, I'd strongly advice you find a new schedule.

Personally, as a (day) trader of US index futures, I skipped Asia completely as it's rare anything happens there. The European session is usually a good one, but I have other responsibilities during the day, so I pretty much skipped that one, too, and focus mostly on the US RTH session.

Maybe you just need to accept that you can't catch every single move?

PS: I still sleep too little myself, but make sure to get a very bare minimum of 5 hours of interrupted sleep. Usually I get 6 in the weekdays. Occasionally 7. 8-10 in the weekends. Anything less in the weekdays and I'm a zombie just struggling to function.

I burned out severly in my early 20s and I attribute most of it to a lack of sleep over a long period of time.

European provide very good trading opportunity, High and low of the day are often made during that time and the move is less zigzag. I just found it harder to daytrade ES on on in RTH, because it limit to 3-4 entry per day on most days, and they are not always winner, so my profitability in terms of days drop. But I do agree I can't give up sleeping to trade, my body just don't feel young if I do that.

 

[schizo]

a lot of time I don't have fix stop, so once my initial order is fill, I need to wait for price action confirmation on my entry and then set stop,

Well, that explains it, right there. You're clueless.

Okay, let me break it all down for ya. So first, why do you need a confirmation before placing a stop? Usually, you place the stop at the same time as your entry. Those who place it afterward (or don't place it at all) means that they don't have much faith in their entry, so they need to constantly monitor it. And since you don't trust your judgment, I also know that you will be arbitrarily changing your stop whenever the trade moves against you. That is, my friend, the reason why you can't fall asleep.

This is not to belittle you or your trading style. I'm merely indulging in a psychobabble to show that you need to fix what's under the hood, as it were, and not just try to change your sleep pattern.

 

[ajacobson]

Get a pulmonologist and do a sleep study. It could not be related to your trading

 

[maxinger]

So you only trade the openning where there is momentum? And only take trade base on openning now?

I mainly trade the first 2 hours of the opening as there are relatively fewer trading
opportunities during the Biden Era compared with the Trump Era.
Of course, if there are trading opportunities during the mid or closing session, then too bad for me.


If Trump is the president again, please trade 24x7 and don't sleep
as there will be tons of trading opportunities.

 

[doubledoubledoublecup]

Well, that explains it, right there. You're clueless.

Okay, let me break it all down for ya. So first, why do you need a confirmation before placing a stop? Usually, you place the stop at the same time as your entry. Those who place it afterward (or don't place it at all) means that they don't have much faith in their entry, so they need to constantly monitor it. And since you don't trust your judgment, I also know that you will be arbitrarily changing your stop whenever the trade moves against you. That is, my friend, the reason why you can't fall asleep.

This is not to belittle you or your trading style. I'm merely indulging in a psychobabble to show that you need to fix what's under the hood, as it were, and not just try to change your sleep pattern.

I am not saying I don't have stop before I place trade, I do all the time that is the initial risk as Al brook would call it if you are into his thing, but that doesn't mean I just let my stop get hit all the time, I will tighten my stop when price action say it shouldn't come back, and the is the actual risk of my trade.
I guess everyone trade differently. This is just my method of managing a trade, and I need to constantly monitoring the price action, if it doesn't move my way after certain amount of time, I am taking BE or small lost.