Daytrading used to be the way to go until recently, I would say within the last year or two with the Asian markets becoming more and more active, I am seeing HUGE and I mean HUGE swings in the overnight futures market. So if you have realtime futures data and enough capital and stomach for huge swings, the overnight market can be very very lucrative if you feel like staying up all night up and then all day during the North American market, basically staying up for 20 hours.
I agree. Since the market is 100% manipulated 100% of the time, the bigger question always evolves around "what is the intention, at this moment, of the big money moving the ticker, or the Dow?" It's human intention, not technicals, that move the market, all the time. How can the Dow start at 34 K, dip to 33,500, but suddenly climb back to 34,200 in th last 1/2 hour to the close, and why? It's simply big money buying up to take the Dow up to a point where traders won't lose confidence by a drop. What's next? Everybody comes back in in the morning, and the big boys just sell sell it down, "Gotcha," right? My question is always, "what's the game behind the game?" Humans move markets, not technicals or fundamentals, 100% of the time. Understand the human, you see the game. You sound like a good man, easymon1.
I guess you mean : Since the market is 100% manipulated 100% of the time, it is easy to earn $$$ by day trading. the bigger question always evolves around "what is the intention, at this moment, of the big money moving the ticker, or the Dow?" It's the human intention, not technicals, that move the market, all the time. So just follow the human psychology (the fear and the greed thing), and you will be able to earn $$$ by day trading. You sound like a good man, easymon1.
Correct, but it's only fear. Greed is simply the fear of missing out. All fear, all the time. Yes, if you understand what they're up to, where they're trying to steer the lambs to slaughter, then it is easy to make consistent profits day trading by executing properly through good technique, position size management, and understanding the current price within the band of MMs and big money, and being able to read the early session tops to detect the start of their selldown, and get out clean. MMs know traders love technicals, so it's easy to "paint" things that will get traders to move in a direction they think is safe, then, whammo! It's why technical trading doesn't consistently work, but being agile, flexible does. Super-fast trading software also helps. So, yes.
Excellent points. MMs gun for stops at obvious s/r levels. I always trade sets at offset prices, eg if obvious resistance is 21, I'll hit 21.17, .37, .55 etc., using OTO orders to automate.
It took me a while to learn this. Finding a good setup and riding it all the way until a profit target. At the same time, a setup from a 5-minute chart could also lead to a major move. IE: Crude oil.
Hello Jdesey, I feel the same. The market only gets 1 to 2 hours of my effort, energy, time and predictions per day. I keep it very simple. If I can predict well during those 2 hours, I make money, if my predictions are wrong, I lose money. The rest of the 22 hours of the day, I go do other things besides trading.
If the market only gets x-hours a day ... helps to know when the best hours are. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/charts-for-no-reason.344272/page-20#post-5565609 https://fourminutebooks.com/the-4-hour-workweek-summary/