I tried to day trade a few months ago. But it didn’t turn out to be a good decision. I am gaining knowledge till I clear my doubts.
The mistake family is so large in trading... After 3 years you can be happy if you survived, not expect to be a gazzilionaire. There are some people who have done it faster but from what i know those are the ones that fully dedicated themself - working 15hours/day and more... Usually also have proper education, capital,... A lot of people have made a lot of money during this bull run and that is not to be mistaken with trading, it's mostly just pure luck. And i know it cuz i've been there.
First scalping/trading stocks, find heat map of sectors for past 3 months, top positive 5 and bottom 5, find ten stocks of each, so you have stocks trending up/down. Then on daily bars waiting for 2-3 counter trend days. Take almost any book from top ten of past five years, books are generally written for retail as they mostly reads them whether TA or chart patterns. I will test entries of TA or charting patterns losses or trades that go back beyond entry. So back testing will show me past 20,000 plus trades over ten years which tells me which "2nd" attempts are more favorable. And will average down as my systems are developed to get in early and trade in direction of trend. I am ok with missing first attempts, greatly reduces trades. As am in mid sixties in age, by end of year, will be converting much scalping/day trading to swing/long term commodities/hedged and option selling/hedged. Much less risk and time commitment, higher reward to risk, am ok to larger losing percentages.
I will give you a few tricks based on my own experience and knowledge, which may or may not be correct (I'm still a student of the market). - Trading becomes exponentially harder as you execute on short time frames. Very few traders if any can profit from day-trading. Those that profit from day-trading net of fees are borderline geniuses. If you are a mere mortal like me, stay away from day-trading as much as you can and swing-trade or position-trade. Brokers love day-traders and that's why they push the narrative to earn more trading fees. - Signals on larger time-frames tend to be stronger i.e less noise. Your win rate increases significantly. Less is more - less activity, more money, and more sitting on positions instead of clicking away and making the exchange/broker rich. - Avoid forex like a plague. Equities are better. A trader profits from volatility and forex is hardly volatile without leverage. Some traders make money in forex but I think its one of the most difficult markets to trade. - Avoid leverage. If you can't make money without leverage, you won't make money with it. You have to earn that right to leverage or else you will be digging your own grave.
Low 7 figures here. Not a “day trader”, though. Edge is beta timing and security selection. Worked in the industry for 8+ years (sell side & buy side risk taking roles). If your goal is to make money, retail chart strategies don’t work and you shouldn’t waste your time with them. The vast majority of you will generate a larger return buying index funds.
Can you quantify your success? How much of your trading profits would you attribute to technical analysis? Be honest... Professional investors and traders do not use technical analysis like retail does. Reviewing a chart, or taking a look at the volume profile before a trade is part of due diligence. But trying to trade breakouts and scalp on a 5 min candle because of XYZ combo is a fools errand.
In the Forex market (the highest leveraged market), if you make 50 pips a week and re-invest all your profits, you can make over $16 000 a week in 2 years, starting with $5 000 and risking no more than 2% per trade. From that point on, the sky is the limit...
100%. And 0% from "fundamental" (aka bullshit) analysis. As a day-trader, a naked 5 or 15 min chart is all I need to extract money from the market, the rest is just conversation