I guess this thread title is repeated. Well I've been happily trading E-mini's for quite some time now. I was thinking if I could make some extra-bucks on the side daytrading stocks. I am not planning to be rich daytrading stocks. I am looking for any that has at least an average volatility to make some money on the side, as I said. I've been looking at some etf's like QID but not sure Any recommendations??
This is strange. Normally I see stock traders who are switching to e-minis. Be careful. There are almost endless amounts of stocks. It can get over wealming.
I think daytrading is too risky for a beginner, besides you'll need many thousand dollars to make significant gains. More money=more risk At lest in your earliest stages. Learn by doing fake trades "papertrading" for at least 6 months before betting your hard earned money.
You can't really learn anything papertrading intraday equity strategies because, unless you're risking 30 cents to make a point and trying to hold postitions for four hours, your success will be contingent (among other things) on your executions and emotions - both factors negated in demo trading. The way to learn is with risk capital, small size (100 shares, 200 shares when you stop losing money and need to be able to pair out of positions), and tight risk management... if you can get low fees, you need not lose more than a few hundred bucks per month trading 100 shares.
Very few simply "daytrade" any longer, opting to engage only in daytrading when being included in the new "sweeps" with the hybrid system. Focusing more on the lower risk, higher reward strategies. FWIW, Don
I don't understand why daytrading is not a lower risk, higher reward strategy. In the first month of the hybrid, the risk was absurd as no one knew how to put in orders and market participants could not act in their own best interests. However, as traders have become used to the hybrid market, much of the chaos has disappeared - I would even go as far as to say that the hybrid market is less risky than the specialist system. I notice now that extreme price movements between ticks are less frequent now than they were in the specialist system - that is to say, market sweeps to an LRP occur less frequently than the specialist spreading up or spreading down a stock to fill a large order. This is primarily because of the added liquidity from black boxes and from people trying to take advantage of the sweeps. Since the full implimentation of the hybrid market, my biggest loss has been 40 cents - and that was in a thin stock (I am an active scalper who makes between 30 and 90 trades per day). Whenever I take a loss of more than 10 cents, it is because I am trading a stock that is too thin in a risky situation. Institutions entering orders tend not to like giving themselves the fuck print by triggering LRPs as the moves are faded with extremely high consistency. Even if a stock spreads down to you at an LRP, you can buy more if you're long or sell more if you're short and usually get out either break even or with a small loss. I've only once had to average down in this manner, and it works, because the move triggering the LRP is usually a cleanup print - it's an instutition saying "I'm done with this order, finish me off at whatever price." I'm not saying scalping, or daytrading, is the best strategy at all. The old games of following size stepping down on the offer, leaning on bids, blowing up market shorties to squeeze people... clearly don't work the way they used to. There is a whole new world of strategies and trades - short term, low risk, high reward, scalp-based trades, which DO work, however. People who say scalping is dead are traders stuck in their old ways who cannot adapt to the tremendous opportunity the hybrid market offers. People who claim that the risk is higher now than before are simply wrong; ask any daytrader who did not give up within the first 1-2 months of the hybrid who had experience trading with the specialists, they will tell you that extreme moves to LRPs occur less frequently than extreme specialist spread ups/spread downs. If the risk isn't any higher (which it isn't), the only problem with day-trading is that the older strategies don't work. The prints are still reliable indications of supply/demand intraday, even though they're noisier and more filled with random spurts of black-box induced panic. As long as institutions are working their orders with discernable patterns, there will be room for the adaptive daytrader.
The hybrid sweeps replaced "price improvement" as the preferred way of entry among my automated traders (and a bunch of the manual guys). All I'm saying is that we have very few who "just" scalp...we'll always do it probably, but more as an adjunct to automation and and pairs/mergers at this particular moment in time. Don
thanks for the responses You know isn't that bad an Spectra no I am not switching from e-mini's by any chance. Mini Russell is my weapon of choice and always be my first love. I've been checking at qqqq and you can scratch 10-20 cents a day. I mean, I am not planning to get rich or anything , just make something on the side. I don't see stocks moving as fast&wild as indices. I see&hear some people here say no but if you look closely, especially on a high-liquid stock like the cubes, it's possible to make something on the side. I am not in a game to screen zillions of stocks looking to the hottest. I thing trading something that you can get in and out quick with a minor scratch or maybe a couple of bucks if you get on the right side can be done. Paper trading is a bitch, at least is useless for me. I prefer to start diggin with some money, even if is little. I 'll go as far as ....throwing some options to the mix...why not?? It's a big speculation here as I am not an expert in options and I don't trade them. Just an idea. Maybe there's something outhere that can be combined and create a little leverage, I don't know...again just speculation here