Swing Trading VS. Day Trading

How many points did the YM just give back over the last two trading sessions?

All of it. The answer to your question seems clear.

It is NOT easy money.
But if I day trade, I would be shorting YM and made a killing the last two trading sessions. :D

I was expressing the view of some of my fellow retails, coming to ET thinking they can make a good living day trading.

A retail's dream is to quit our day job, becomes a digital nomad, travels around the world day trading for a living. :cool:

I actually agree with you sir, it aren't easy!

After 18 months' paper + live day trading experiment, I am quitting. And I have a positive expectancy. :banghead:
 
I think the distinction between blindly
adding to losers and "premeditated" scaling in needs to be made.

If one approaches scaling in with proper money management and risk control,I see nothing wrong with it..




Respectfully, I think that adding to losers is a losing proposition, no matter the time frame.

I'm not talking about mean-reverting strategies that sell overbought, buy oversold and have their own stops and risk managing parameters. I'm only referring to trades that go against you, yet instead of getting out with a loss (or even reverse), you stubbornly add because you priorize "being right" vs. making money.
 
I think the distinction between blindly
adding to losers and "premeditated" scaling in needs to be made.

If one approaches scaling in with proper money management and risk control,I see nothing wrong with it..

Agreed.

That said, adding to losing trades as part of a scale-in plan doesn't make much sense to me unless you're putting on huge size (funds, very thinly traded stocks, etc.)

And of course, people cost-averaging in their 401k's who just add X amount of dollars every month is different, etc.
 
Crushing it is relative,so it's hard to define...IMHO,if you can knock home 17 percent plus on AUM, with consistency,you are crushing it..

I get that there are a handful of guys doing far better,but for everyone one if them ,there is a truckload of "belly up" traders
I have been around ET since 2014. Lots of new retails came in with the idea of day trading for a living. Not too many are still around.

I position trades and speculate with options and am one of the lucky few, started in 2010 with a good size AUM and rode this bull market for a decade and a half.

It is pure luck. Time to retire a second time.
 
Well once again I have learned the hard way the Day trading is just not the way for me to trade. I go back and fourth on this. Yes, I can make money day trading. But it is very intense, very up and down,, and most importantly I do not enjoy it..

So then this leaves me with Swing trading. Boring.. yes,, but boring is good. I can take my time with analysis, entry and exit. My biggest issues on swing trading is staying in the trad long enough and occupying my time during the day..

I would love to hear thoughts on this...



I feel for you. I have been going back and forth between two entirely different trading styles (option spreads and intraday FX) for a long time. I can make far more money in FX than in options, however I just love options.

After I decided to live in a different time zone, trading options in the US in the middle of the night made me sleep deprived, so I went back to FX. However, always few weeks later when I was sleeping well, I always went back to options again! This ‘back and forth’ freak show lasted couple of years! It was absolutely ridiculous!!! Finally, I decided letting go of options and US markets in favour of FX and few indices which are more my timezone friendly, and I feel “free” again.

If your trading style is not enjoyable, then don’t be afraid to switch to try different trading style, follow your bliss. :thumbsup::)
 
I wouldn’t say swing trading is easier than day trading and day trading is hard enough. It’s all about your personal style. For example I only do day trading since I cannot sleep at night with a (big) position in the market. Technically, they are quite different. In day trading you never ever average down. Swing trading averages down on dips in an up trend is very common. Look at Nvda in the last few weeks.
actually you have hit it on the head as well. I do not sleep , check after hours ,etc... maybe day trading is good after all
 
UGH... update... turns out over all my trades in 2024 I have made a net profit on day trades and a net loss (and not a small one) on swing trades. As much as I hate it, maybe day trading is the way to go.
 
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