Well, I offically entered into the daytrading world on May 22nd. I trade at a firm where they all scalp. You know, trade 100k shares, pay $1000 in commissions and take home $500-$2000 depending on the quality of your trades. They preach a tape reading approach. I have tried for one month now to get it. I am getting there, but it's tough. I battle all day only to come out just under the VIG. My typical winning day is like $10, my typical losing day is $50. Not a formula for success. I know I am just learning. But today I needed to stop. Everything I trade immediately went the other way. Any winners I had weren't even enough to cover the comms. This is a whole new mentality for me. I spent 5 years learning to trade futures. I do fairly well with that. Day trading just drives me nuts. My methods don't work because stocks move retardedly( and my methods don't deal well with that) I can predict small moves in stock prices, but the bid/ask spread and learning to play the finger tickle game eats me up. Is it me or is scalping in and out all day 95% execution? Feels that way. Are you other scalpers that rip off 100k shares a day blasting around a bunch of different stocks or are you focused on one? I wouldn't mind it mentally if my winning days and losing days were equal, it would be a small victory. Mentally, the 5:1 difference is killing me. Not to mention the number of days I was gross positive only to be a loser due to the vig. I know it can be done, there are people in my office driving brand new Benzs and Porsches. So I'll have a beer now and eat some pizza and tomorrow back to trying to find the flow. I am a math guy, I haven't yet figured out how to tickle the bid/ask, get the print you want. I was never good at fast fingered video games. So far I have noticed that the best scalpers.... 1) Type fast. 2) Act fast. 3) Make like 100+ trades a day 4) Somehow come out profiting 1-2 pennies a share. On days I try that, I end up a loser due to costs. Mental anguish. I'll get it. I can read the tape, I just don't act fast enough. Sadly, when I act fast I'm not reading the tape well. Now if I could just get those 2 together. Thanks for reading my vent. B
Im just curious. If you were doing well in futures why did you go to stocks. I only trade futures and couldnt imagine trying to trade stocks. I guess the old saying goes, "if it aint broke, dont fix it" -Nick
I daytrade and my usual is 12-20 roundtrips per day. I make over a $1,000 a day, NET. Today I am up over $4,000 today, best day in a long time. I trade Gold stocks. My normal profit goal is 15 -20 cents per trade with a 6 cent risk, so 3/1 risk reward. My normal trade is 1,000 shares. I posted my trades today in the Stock section under the Gold thread. I could never master the Art of true daytrading, 100+ trades per day. I have no idea how these guys do it. F the stress, I'm too old.
Why not try going for larger intraday moves? There are plenty of issues that have big range and volume. My stock watchlist changes weekly. Beware these stocks are not for the faint of heart...trade small and go for big moves is key. Plenty of opp. Screw that .01-.02 crap....halves and points get the job done. ATR>2 30-100 vol esa > 4million daily AAPL APA ATI BHI BTU DVN EOG FCX HAL KMG MRVL NUE OXY PBR PD RIG SEPR SLB SNDK TIE VLO X good trading to you!
A few quick points: 1 One month trading is NOT long enough to be getting this upset. You need to realistically give yourself 6-12 months before deciding whether or not you are getting "it". 2. Yes, speed is super important if you scalp. You will need to work on getting much faster if you want to compete. Good luck to you.
Why don't you just stick to the futures? It's not as if there isn't enough money in those markets... Don't be fooled by people who love to binge on credit to impress others. RoughTrader
Who cares what Others drive in your office. My wife and I have 6 cars incl a BMW and a Benz. I trade Daily but I do NOT know how to Daytrade (scalp) LOL. When people ask me if I am a daytrader I tell them "NO" but I do Swing trade Intraday.
All great posts. Thanks for the replies. It's funny my best day in the last month was with X. I went old school ES rules and did the ole opening range breakout trade. Never ceases to amaze me how well that guy works. Yep that day, 1 trade (X) +$103 (100 shares). Last Friday, 8700 shares, -$175. All I had to do to win the first one was have patience that in the end, the markets move and I'll get some cash. Probably just need to tweek my system for intraday one stocks. Tried it on SPY, but that dude goes crazy in a 3 min period. And doen't move enough relative to the average bar size. (For me anyways) Still studying B
Hi Bogwaluth, I'm not trying to be rude but at what point will your math background tell you that its time to go back to futures trading especially since you were doing well at it??? Further, why did you stop trading something that was making you money??? Mark