I appreciate that, and look forward to learning something in this thread. You've got more knowledge about day trading than I do by far.
Same to you in the investing thread. I love reading it as it's a world I'm learning but that isn't my current focus. Great reading material and I appreciate the thread.
I guess I should've clarified. What you are saying is absolutely true. My experience was with some high $ traders (of which I am not) the stakes were very elevated, the highs were high, the lows were- well, what's lower than low?
You belong to a different group and sounds like you are trying to transition a hobby into a living. I don't have anything against that. I look forward to your results.
Sorry I didn't mean to tee off. Several members on here are kinda biased towards me these days for my political views and that steeps into other areas. I had just gotten back from taking a break after being attacked and then I saw this post. Apologies if it came off personal.
Alright Entoptic, my question is how do you go about this from a work standpoint? Are you "working" however long the market is open on a given day? Is it fun or is it work?
My frame of reference is that I can make money playing blackjack at Casinos. Not big money but I play with small stakes. My goal was always to pay for my trip so that's what I did. Buy in at $200 or $300, win $300-800 and get out. I have done it maybe a dozen times and paid for all my trips passing through Las Vegas when I lived in NM and would come back to CA for a holiday or whatever. People ask me why I don't do it more. The reason, because to make money takes a shit ton of discipline and it feels like work. It takes the fun out of gambling. Just wondering if day trading is the same feel of work and stress.
It's work 100%. I'm super focused at points and at other times I'm relaxed and just enjoying life. Very similar to what you described with blackjack and/or any work situation. The biggest roadblock in trading is yourself. If you are not mellow and calm it will be reflected in your trades. You are your worst enemy. Just like any job, what you put it is what you get out or at least I hope.
The most volatility is in the first hour of the day. That is my "work" hour. If the market is going crazy and there are massive opportunities I'll "work after hours" but my focus is the first hour of the day. After the first hour of the day you usually just have the following people day trading.
1. Revenge traders
2. Traders trying to make trades happen instead of letting them happen
3. Novices
4. ambulance chasers
All in all everyday is fun. Even the days in which I lose because I'm looking at the long game. As long as I'm able to recognize I'm losing or the market sucks for trading I close down my system and walk away. Stress free because I took action to stop what could have been larger losers. I take pride in the fact that I was able to stop. That is the sign of a good trader. Don't get me wrong. There are days that hurt but like I said it's all about the long game. I plan to lose 30% of the time and for me, realizing my losses and understanding it's ok to lose was the hardest part. If I have 5 days making 500.00 each day and 1 day of 200.00 loss I'm ok in the long run. It's all about risk management. I made 2500.00 and lost 200.00 over a 6 day period. I'll take those odds!
I'm a hunter of volatility and manager of risk.
Also, i assume you are up and researching your plays well before the NYSE opens, so, 5:30-6AM start?
West coasters have that time difference disadvantage to deal with.
You are correct in a sense. Since I am a day trader I don't care about FA at all. I'm strictly TA and that advantage allows me to focus on my scanners 15m before the bell. I check the scanner, plot my charts, find entries, enter them into my trading platform and wait for the bell to ring.
Personally I enjoy the fact that the market starts at 6:30am. It allows me time to get up, meditate, pet my cats, drink a nice coffee and everything around me is silent and or not open. It's a calm point of the day and that works great for me. Then when I'm done trading I go to work and do the really stressful stuff for 8 hours. I'll take losing 200.00 over management that doesn't understand tech and asking for the impossible any day of the week.
The picture below is a scanner I have. Those are the top stock prior to bell that fit my strategy. I've posted the top 3 on that and remember Friday is horrible for trading so the movement is rather weak.
When you see something like AMC, I would apply something called and Gap and Go strategy, it's a high level trading strategy not for the weak of heart because it's high share size within a limited amount of time. If you nail it right you win big but if you are slow you lose big as well. That takes timing and practice. It's why I spent a year in a simulating losing millions of dollars.
GENE was a much easier play. Within the first 30 mins of trading you can see a clear red to green pattern playing out with a nice entry just under 2.00. That would then rise up and give more opportunities to buy in more and sell along the way.
DNJR is ugly but a seasoned trader would find small scalps. It's not a nice chart until around 9am when it picks a direction and goes. If I was watching DNJR and got in with 3k shares around 2.60 before the big run and closed out at around 3.00 before the run was over I'm looking at 1200.00 profit for 15m of sitting in a trade. With 3000 shares every .10 is 300.00. You can see how this gets crazy fast when trading up to 10k shares at a time. That is why I said AMC is a high level trade. Look at the first 5m candle range. You could easily loss 10k if you played that wrong and didn't have proper risk management.
