Swingtrading is better than intraday.

[traider]

My pleasure.

Let's say you are one of the below "idiots" (myself included)
http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/2006/11/three-market-idiots.html?m=1

You want to quit your sucky/limiting job/place and gain freedom!
https://goo.gl/images/XVLVfW


What do you need? You need to be able to earn enough consistent income to support yourself (preferably you got no wife and kids). You got all the pressures while operating in an environment where the only certainty are the fees and HFTs. Unless you are a trust-baby, you are trading on a tilt from the get go!

But what if you are pretty happy with your carreer and just want to trade for extra money, intellectual challenge, and/or entertainment?

Well, you have lots of choices. You don't care about market conditions being too difficult ... Wait it out. You don't care if you are in a bit of a draw down ... It always comes back. Hell, you don't even care if you loose all of your "play" money ... The next bonus will cover that.

That is why you need to be very thoughtful with the strategy you choose to pursue. Can you survive bad times given the trading style's inherent pitfalls?

https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/choose-your-strategy-wisely.327742/

Hope it was not too grim. It's a worthwhile journey, as long as you don't put too much emphasis on the destination

My very humble opinion.

Lai are you now a corporate warrior or a testy trader?

 

[qlai]

Lai are you now a corporate warrior or a testy trader?

 

[digitalnomad]

In my opinion, swing trading is much harder .. you take overnight risks but, by definition, take profits quicker than long(er) term trend follower.

This is very true. Concentrated, or not, naked overnight risk is simply not viable for any leveraged strategy. I have in front of me, a handful of swing trading strategies that outperform my hedged strategies 4 fold, and wouldn’t dare risk good sleep on any of them.

 

[schweiz]

really good traders know how to trade both. Intraday has it's restrictions: for example it is not realistic to trade over 20 Dax futures. So if you got more money you need to 'invest', swingtrade. I know how to do both but my account is still too small so these restrictions do not yet apply to me. I am planning to hire someone to trade a second market if I reach my limits. After that I plan to trade longer term. (think weekly / monthly)

Maybe switch to ES, size can then grow to a multiple of your 20 DAX contracts.

 

[Nobert]

My pleasure.

Let's say you are one of the below "idiots" (myself included)
http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/2006/11/three-market-idiots.html?m=1

You want to quit your sucky/limiting job/place and gain freedom!
https://goo.gl/images/XVLVfW


What do you need? You need to be able to earn enough consistent income to support yourself (preferably you got no wife and kids). You got all the pressures while operating in an environment where the only certainty are the fees and HFTs. Unless you are a trust-baby, you are trading on a tilt from the get go!

But what if you are pretty happy with your carreer and just want to trade for extra money, intellectual challenge, and/or entertainment?

Well, you have lots of choices. You don't care about market conditions being too difficult ... Wait it out. You don't care if you are in a bit of a draw down ... It always comes back. Hell, you don't even care if you loose all of your "play" money ... The next bonus will cover that.

That is why you need to be very thoughtful with the strategy you choose to pursue. Can you survive bad times given the trading style's inherent pitfalls?

https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/choose-your-strategy-wisely.327742/

Hope it was not too grim. It's a worthwhile journey, as long as you don't put too much emphasis on the destination

My very humble opinion.

Yet, i would go short, on idea, that you belong to any of those 3 categories with zebra picture above.

Higly unlikely, any of them reads threads like this, many multiple reasons as well & one way or another, they already, know THE* secret as mentioned.

The pdf was a nice reminder as well, as i went through 5 different stratagies myself, in the past 18 months.

I think i saw quotes by J.R Tolkien and Ray Dalio in pdf.

Overall, thanks qlay.

 

[cvds16]

Yeah, I know and I am thinking that way too. But I prefer the dax trading hours since I live in Europe. At this moment I don't have any constrictions yet. I am first going to trade the size limit at Tickmill first (that's 100 lots. My current size is 26 CFD's. I was then planning to move to a real futures broker (I have infinty futures in mind).
I was then planning to hire someone that I trust and is intelligent and going to make him an offer to trade with me with my system mostly the morning part of S&p500. Doing two markets at the same does not seem too wise. As you state there are less size restrictions with S&P500 futures.
The next thing would be to start swingtrading off the daily charts with more or less the same kinda setups that I use intraday. But Rome wasn't build in a day.
Daytrading is hard but not impossible ... I used up 14 years to get to the stage I am now at.
My options vol arbitrage took me about the same time so don't be surprised if learning how to trade takes quite a while. It's not rocket science but it just ain't easy either.

 

[gurucandidate]

This thread could be titled: For some traders Swing trading is better then intraday.
Clearly, one's skill set, personality and time schedules and number of other factors influence the choices of how to approach markets.

If someone felt swing trading should be their thing it would still benefit them to bone up on daytrading skills because from time to time the market offers opportunities like fading gap openings, etc. that can improve a swing trader's bottom line.
I look at this as moving to the fast lane when driving when the need arises. One should have the skill and confidence. Not that swing trading is an armchair style, one can over leverage swing trading and experience the intensity of daytrading.

Everything being equal one should settle on the most intense style that one personality and schedule allows because the shorter time frames offer proportionally more opportunities.
These days one can trade ES or CL off 15 second bar charts as they show well formed patterns and there is good liquidity.
For example if one doesn't mind getting up at 2 or 3 am (ET) one could identify 5-7 good trends by the time the am news cycle kicks in or the US markets open.

One task is to decide to what degree one should let trading invade, take over one's life. When I traded commodities and index options in the pits in my younger years I would literally leave trading out of my mind when I left the building until next market day morning. These days, since I am doing more swing trading, I spend a good bit of time after hours and weekends studying, honing my skills and I probably could not get trading out of my mind even if I tried to. (I get so absorbed in it "Honey, is everything OK?", my girlfriend may ask.)

Regards,
GC

 

[traider]

Yeah, I know and I am thinking that way too. But I prefer the dax trading hours since I live in Europe. At this moment I don't have any constrictions yet. I am first going to trade the size limit at Tickmill first (that's 100 lots. My current size is 26 CFD's. I was then planning to move to a real futures broker (I have infinty futures in mind).
I was then planning to hire someone that I trust and is intelligent and going to make him an offer to trade with me with my system mostly the morning part of S&p500. Doing two markets at the same does not seem too wise. As you state there are less size restrictions with S&P500 futures.
The next thing would be to start swingtrading off the daily charts with more or less the same kinda setups that I use intraday. But Rome wasn't build in a day.
Daytrading is hard but not impossible ... I used up 14 years to get to the stage I am now at.
My options vol arbitrage took me about the same time so don't be surprised if learning how to trade takes quite a while. It's not rocket science but it just ain't easy either.

How did you feed yourself during those 14 years?

 

[qlai]

Yet, i would go short, on idea, that you belong to any of those 3 categories with zebra picture above.

I appreciate your kind words. Unfortunately(or fortunately), I have not proven to myself yet that I am not "Idiot #2 : The Gambler." I just said to myself ... F@#$! it, I am going for it slow and as steady as possible ... no regrets.

 

[cvds16]

How did you feed yourself during those 14 years?

Not easy to tell: I was 'destined' to become a market maker in options and wrote a book about that. That forced me to do thorough research. I worked for a subsidiary of what is now called KBC securities as an option broker and alternate market maker in options. I always remained optimistic (in spite of otherwise seeing my account not grow). I by accident stumbled on semi-options market making in DIA options when I wanted to hedge something. From then off it was easy sailing and I made something like 15000 USD a month with about 2 days losing money in the amount of 50 USD. I have always been good at 'feeling math' That lasted till IB started asking cancelation costs.
At that point I had to start all over again from scratch. I tried forextrading intraday but that didn't work out all too well. I then joined a group of traders with several members of ET. We were all put in delusion for 7 years by a would be mentor that turned out to be just a booster for his own ego and I highly expect doenst know how to trade. So that was 7 years wasted. I then tried several things and only after another few years things started to click in my head. I came up with a 4 dimensional model on how the markets should be traded. All my charts staring did help in the end. What helped me through the bad periods was the fact that I had another source of income and my true belief in myself that I was 'born to trade'.
I had feelings of dispair at times but always came back mentally untill I found my setups I am using now. I know I have a pretty high IQ but the markets don't care about that. It's more my determination that helped me in the end and my not willing to give up. It's not for everyone. The fact that I had been succesfully once before helped me to believe in myself as I considered the option model I had build in Visual Basic to be top notch. Futures trading is however totally different to what I did then.