My comment would be best addressed in the context of the quote by dbphoenix. I have no argument with what you say, nodoji, about the possible returns to be had by a well prepared day trader, and I likewise agree that the day trader is not exposed to overnight risk (though a day trader of individual stock issues is nonetheless exposed to the risk of a trading halt with an adverse re-opening).
Yes, the "could have" refers to a now known event, but it was based upon the particular and specific price action that has taken place on this stock, i.e. Facebook (FB), since this journal began - the 11/26 pullback to test $45 as support, a rally attempt that paused at 47 on 12/2, and a retrace of the rally attempt to saw a breakout to new rally highs on 12/4. That entry would have gotten many a price action trader long around $48. After that, there was no reason to do anything but to stay long until 12/27 where an exit on the break below the 12/24 high would have had me out (and "time" matters little - I'd have exited there whether the trade was several weeks long over a daily chart or several minutes long on a one minute chart - the price action implies the same behaviors). If one did not take an exit based upon the 12/27 price action (understandable in the context of an on-going bull market) then one would nonetheless have to have been a bit rattled by the 12/30 break of the demand line drawn from the 11/26 low. And I do realize that the price action of 12/27 through today (12/31) may all be part of a test of the $54 level as support, in which case a new long entry may materialize in the coming hours or days. This of course all gets into the minutiae of a particular trader's particular trading plan, assuming said trader has such a plan.
The point of my original post was simply this: If you want to day trade individual stock issues, and especially if you are going to limit yourself, as the thread author has, to one single ticker, then, as dbphoenix said, you need to be there all day, every day. Unlike futures, where much of the volatility occurs in the morning alone, individual stocks can lay there dead all day, even in the face of a strong morning rally in the broad market, and then give you your entry at 12:15 PM, or 1:30PM, or 2:45 PM, or 3:15 PM or whenever the market for that stocks decides it is going to get active. If the thread author cannot be there from bell to bell, then he would likely find more consistent success trading over a longer time frame.
