Hi -- I have evolved into a directional swing trader, but one with a day job in the eastern US, which means US markets are, essentially, off-limits for intraday swing trading. Any thoughts on where I might find an arena to fit my schedule. Forex is an obvious choice, except I can;t quite shake the nagging fear that it's a giant scam. So, what, then. The DAX? Hard to believe there aren't others in my boat...
Create a Black box(automated trading system).... ....and your problems are solved, just hope the black box works now that's the real problem.
I am in the exact same boat. I trade equities during the day, however, my employer isn't a huge fan of it. I need to find an alternative to trade! If I could trade from 6-9p that would be great. I have been warned about Forex and steep competition.
Your fears are well justified; beside the fact that your are playing an unfair game where your opponent has a big built in advantage, your funds are also at risk: there's no protection for you if the house go bust because of some clients refusing to honor margin calls due to over-leveraging. And this is a likely outcome with firms promising the riches you can achieve with the big leverage they offer. My couple of cents? It's a no brainer, dump the idea.
Just move to the West coast! Good ole PST works for me. My job is from 7:00 AM - 5:00 PM, so I get up around 5:00 AM and start all my systems and monitor until about 6:45 AM. Only gives me about 15 minutes of the NY open, but that's all I need. Come on over, the weather's nice. All we have is earthquakes and the occasional tidal wave!
Learn to trade for a "swing across the range". Then, entries and stops are not so price critical. You could even do it with an end-of-day model. Though guilty myself, day trading is mostly a sucker's game and best avoided.
exactly. something i just can't wrap my head around when it comes to system traders -- how do you know when a three-sigma drawdown isn't a precursor to a your account blowing up? nope. i'm convinced there are no shortcuts. i used to be a very serious violinist. i had that thing under my chin for six hours a day at one point before i decided not to be a professional musician. there is nothing i have seen in trading, so far, to persuade me this racket is any easier, or that "robot" trading would work any better than "robot" violin playing.