I would agree with dp too. but if i had to pick one worst trading time? It would definitely be the triple witching day... Hurt me bad on several occasions.
Well my friends , Hat in hand , all I've to tell you is that my trading schedule is working for me. I'm not saying that anyone has to adopt my trading time zones I told it very clearly those are my trading zones not the zones everyone must trade. I'm not inviting somebody to use my trading areas that is up to anyone. I'm not saying neither that those are the zones " You must trade in ". So don't try to distorsioned what I posted. I'm not trying to dictate the rules of trading to anybody. On the other hand I'm not telling anybody to stay away from the market just because such or such zone is a caution area . I just exercise bigger care in the zones I've labeled as Caution Zone or Dangerous Zone. We supposed to be professionals of this business I don't want to think that to become a good trader we must turn ourselves in bad readers. Last but not least , the way I look at it ( trading) Yes, Positive, Affirmative , for me all the trading time is a caution area. If you, fellows, approach this business cautionless and that kind of approach is working for you , good for you. Good luck.
Excellent post db. If you have all your trades with entry and exit time, eg in a spread sheet, you can analyze what times of the day you trade best (with a certain style). I recently did that excersise and found it quite useful. Also, If I'm in a trade that goes into the doldrums and I need to take a break as well, I either exit or enter a stop limit. Often the latter has proved wise, and I come back to a better trade then when I left.
I find the first 1.5 - 2 hours to be the most active time of the day, many times establishing either the day's range or a large percentage of that range, and it's the time segment of the day where I take my most trades. Since I always found this to be the most optimal time segment for me to trade, I used to stop for the day if I was not profitable. Upon further study, I still find this to be the most active time of day with the largest number of trades, but this is not necessarily the most tradeable time of the day. Some days we will have a very choppy open, maybe as a function of the preceeding day being a wide range trend day, or because of a pending news release at 9:00. Other days we have an opening trade that breaks one direction, and then reverses into a 9:00 news release, and then reverses again after the release; buy the rumor sell the news, sell the rumor and buy the news. And still other days, non-news days, we will get an opening trade that breaks cleanly and continues virutally non-stop until 'lunch', at which time there will be a counter move that is also very tradeable. The point is, a trading bias based on specific times may give some 'norms' that one would create a mechanical trading system. However, for a discretionary trader to take these general 'norms' without examining what is also going on during those times, would overide the method you are supposed to be trading. So if I am sitting in front of the screen, I am looking for trade setups regardless of time. I know the strength of how I trade comes from continuous swings where I can stay in a trade for 'bigger' moves, even looking for additional setups within those moves to add-on to my trade. I know that I over trade during congestion so I have to find/adapt to those periods by staying flat, or scalping until some kind of break out would occur; but any of these situations can happen at any time of the day so I would think it's the trade method that must be managed and adapted for conditions instead of basing trading on a time bias.
Both of your posts were a nice detailed contribution. It is not easy for a beginner to hit the ground running. No beginner can develop a strategy for trading in the first place. By suggesting where the most minefields are you can keep a person sidelined when it is difficult to make money. I thin kthat you're asking the person who wants to learn to just look at the times which fit in between the times you mentioned, and each case ID'ed the cautions, was a real specific and purposeful contribution as opposed to a bunch of causal generalizations that people are sucking up to. Good job, Hawker. You are on the stick!!!!!!