Short term meaning that you often buy and sell during the day weather its many times or just a once. In your experience is it wise to hold overnite? Lets say you were trading off 15 or 30 min charts and the index still looked strong into the close. Or is it better to close the trade out before 4:15 then re-enter if it still looks positive in the morning? I can see how a large gap down if you were long would be a surprise; ie like after july 7th the london bombing if you were long. whats your thoughts
I hold overnight positions year round, but I would say to only hold positions overnight if you have a specific proven plan. You have to also remember that from fridays close to sundays open in the futures there is no such thing as a stop------holding longs without a hedge then could get real ugly. With the european market buying as of late, the overnight session has done well for price movement.
Never hold overnight. The exposure for my intraday scalping style is too large and putting up a hedge just adds cost with no benefit. I don't mind missing the overnight action.
It doesn't matter what you like and it doesn't matter what I like. The question is whether your strategy requires you to hold overnight. I don't like holding overnight and I really hate holding over the weekend, but I do it anyway because my strategy requires that.
kubilai, I think I have my question phrased wrong; I should of written my question; "What's your opinion on holding overnite if you are a short term trader" MacroEvent made some good points in that if hes holding a good position and its showing strength to the close that he'll hold it overnite (but use stops incase the French get too drunk off their wine and reverse the trend - (no offense if your french). While on fri-sunday the market is closed so stops wont work then; so it may be better off to just exit for the weekend. FuturesTrader71 is a scalper and is probably best in that type of market so playing a longer term trade especially into overnite territory could leave him in a precarious position and out of his natual environment (scalping). I appreciate your comments everyone ... it sounds like I need to come up with what type of environment (trade style) I am most comfortable with and test it or read up on it to see how others play and then hold it accordingly.
I found most of my big money was made through overnight holds through Swing trades. I don't hold overnight in index futures yet, but I will start expanding my out look very very soon once I establish a position. If you ain't scalping which makes great money because of the high occurence, the money is in sitting.
How much risk do you like ? The less time you spend in the market the less risk you will be taking. No one can predict when some nut will set a bomb off and do you really want to be long overnight if that happens ?
The answer to this question is it depends. It can be a great idea or not. You should test your ideas first. But don't be scared about the overnight risk, managing risk is our job, not running away from it.
In my reply above, I neglected to say "I never hold overnight...." Whether someone does or not depends heavily on their trading plan and risk tolerance.