How much do you actually make daytrading?

Discussion in 'Trading' started by catcando, Jun 18, 2002.

  1. Ninja

    Ninja

    Thank you all for your replies!

    My biggest concern against swing trading is that I would have to use TA (right?) and the risk. I understand that the risk can be minimized, but even then it would be probably much more than what I now have to accept. The questions is of course, if I could accept this greater risk, because of greater wins that are possible with swing trading.

    Maybe my style of trading is not that of a typical daytrader. I don't do any TA. I just watch the market where the action is and decide which one stock to trade. Then I enter with all I have, because my account is very very small. If the stock turns against me I get out immediately.
    Of course I can only do this 3 times a week, because of the 25k rule. However this strategy works for me and once my trade is over I don't have any open positions to worry about. I trade with IB and they don't offer stops for pre and after market.

    I wouldn't go that far to name it a perfect ninja-strategy, but in these time with this market conditions, terrorists threaths, etc I feel very secure this way.

    BTW, I saw that book 'The Master Swing Trader' (Alan Farley) on Amazon. Would you recommend it? Are there better books to start?
     
    #41     Jun 20, 2002
  2. get a grip!
     
    #42     Jun 20, 2002
  3. Ninja:

    I recently started reading Farely's book and I'm about 1/4 way through it. I have several complaints about the book and things that I would do differently - but having said that, I highly recommend it to you. I think that Mr. Farley has made a genuine attempt to educate, and for that alone he deserves some attention.
    You mentioned that you aren't skilled in T & A (I mean T/A!). You have to learn this stuff. Most of it you'll never use but you have to know what tools are available. It's like a person who wants to be a carpenter but doesn't want to bother carrying heavy tools. Maybe he gets the job done, but would you bet your house on it?
    Go get some books on T/A and learn a little. Your day trading will improve and you might discover that you like doing other things (position trading) better. Also, many books assume that the reader has some background in T/A. They don't want to rewrite the definitions for basic indicators when Schwagger and Murphy have already done it adequately.
    In short, trading is like any other career. You wouldn't trust your doctor if he decided that he didn't want to bother looking at Gray's Anatomy, so why would you expect less of yourself.

    Best of luck
     
    #44     Jun 20, 2002