How have you found trading the last 6 months?

This is geared towards the more experienced guys - how would you rate trading the market the last six months or so - 1 being absolutely terrible to 10 being best ever?Talking about stocks.

 

7

 

Volatility 8

HFT box manipulation 100000000000000000

Overall trading 5

 

I found trading like a musical chair game just between the few of us in this thread

 

The reason I ask is because after a few brutal months I've taken a break from trading.Starting around June the market seemed to change for me and I found my self totally clueless.I haven't traded for about sixty days,wondering if maybe I became over confident or if the conditions of the market may have had more to do with the problems.I suspect the former.

 

Market has been 1st rate apart from October.

 

for me its been a 8-10.

I trade euro 6E, aussie 6A, and ES futures, trading has been a volatility dream come true, hope it stays like this for a long time.

 

market july thru now have been volitile
great opportunites to make money
has been a good ride so far
give it a 7

 

The best markets (for me) as a day to swing trader are volatile bull markets.

During low volatility bull market.. one can only buy and hold. Real bear markets become almost too volatile and risky to trade.

So my favorite market is a volatile bull market. These are the best markets for me or volatile sideways markets. I've been doing well but the market is starting to turn more truly bearish which concerns me and has start to hurt my performance.

I'm looking at the 1218ish area being the low for the rest of the year. I think if we break the recent (5-6 day lows) that things would get ugly real fast.

Really you have a few types suited to styles

Low volatility trending markets -> trend following
Range bound and higher volatility -> day and swing day trading
Super volatile markets -> day trading only

A bad day for a trend follower on a longer time frame is typically an opportunity day for a day trader.

 

If you take a lot of liquidity nowadays, then this is definitely an issue:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203658804576637544100530196.html

I do and I would rate stocks at a 3 over the last few months.

Thank god I started learning to trade the indexes a couple of years ago. I'd rate the SPY at an 8. Even before the boost in volatility.