My Pattern Day Trading Journey

Discussion in 'Journals' started by Illini Trader, Jun 27, 2021.

  1. easymon1

    easymon1

    Are you day trading using 5 minute charts exclusively?
    Apple exclusively?
     
    #71     Jul 4, 2021
  2. Yes Apple only and I use Tick Charts not Time Charts. Right now I look at 200, 300, 500, and 1,000 Tick Charts. I am not sure which one shows me the market the best, maybe the higher tick charts when market is very active like the first 30 minutes and lower Tick Charts later in the day. But for sure the Fibs find the same level no mater which chart you are looking at.
     
    #72     Jul 4, 2021
    easymon1 likes this.
  3. Interesting, I have been doing some research trying to find out how many actually succeed at Day Trading Stocks. Studies over the years indicate about 1% but that was before they dropped commissions on stocks. What blew my mind in this article was that my use of Fibonacci Numbers as my core trading system has been exposed as a top 10 Threat to investors by the regulatory North American Securities Administrators Association. LOL!

    So, not only am I in dreamland hoping to succeed at daytrading Apple, but my methodology is put in the same category as a "Ponzi Scheme" Most on ET would probably agree with that given the responses I have received thusfar but I accept the challenge and I will post my day by day trading results at the end of JUlY.



    But That Was More Than 20 Years Ago

    True, more recent studies, like the 2013 research study at the Cass Business School at City University of London concluded that monkeys throwing darts at the stock pages could achieve better results than stock traders. OK, they were digitally simulated monkeys, but still.

    To give you a better idea of your chances as a "professional" day trader, consider that the regulatory North American Securities Administrators Association lists trading seminars – the online "trading colleges" that offer to teach you how to succeed as a day trader – as a top 10 threat to investors, along with Ponzi schemes and esoteric trading algorithms based on Fibonacci numbers.

    Why Day Trading (Almost) Never Works
    There's a reason that day trading is hazardous to your wealth that's agreed upon by behavioral market theorists like Robert Shiller and efficient market theorists like Eugene Fama, both Nobel Prize winners in economics. The short-term behavior of markets reflects billions of rapidly fluctuating values responsive to evolving conditions that approximate a random walk, and there's no theory on Earth that can predict market behavior well enough to predict what will happen next consistently.

    Yet, there's that 1 percent. If day trading is such a bad idea, why doesn't everyone lose money? This is a tantalizing question without a single answer. In most cases, it's the phenomenon of the stopped clock, which, despite the fact that it isn't working, still displays the correct time twice a day.

    Even if it's only 99 percent, not 100 percent certain that you'll lose money attempting to day trade, why would you want to invest your money in an enterprise where the odds are 100-1 against you?

    Research indicates that the average length of time between the opening and closing of a futures trading account is a little more than three months and that when the account closes, most participants have lost all their money.
     
    #73     Jul 6, 2021
  4. My Fibs are dissed again by another site. No point in doing any more research --- I give up (doing more research not trading) -- It is impossible to do what I am "trying" "TO DO." Calm down now easymon. :)

    But I like a quote I read decades ago. "Impossible" is just a word that describes the "Degree of Difficulty"

    But that's not a problem because you have a System! And it's unknown to and better than the 1000s of continuously back-tested, culled, and self-adapting computerized algorithms (bots) built by the 100s of math PhD Quants employed by the professionals. Does your System employ Instantaneous News Feeds, Neural Network correlations, 2nd Order Partial Differentiation analysis sophistication, etc.? Or are you just using the same primitive Head-&-Shoulders, Candlestick, Vortex, MACD, Fibonacci, Bollinger Band, etc. patterns all amateurs are using?
     
    #74     Jul 6, 2021
    easymon1 likes this.
  5. easymon1

    easymon1

    Indeed.
    Trendlines and Pivots are useless too.
    This is random. Nothing to see here.

    https://elitetrader.com/et/threads/...t-right-here-baby.343012/page-11#post-5416013

    cued...
     
    Last edited: Jul 6, 2021
    #75     Jul 6, 2021
  6. I give up. What is the message in the 8 second video clip?
     
    #76     Jul 6, 2021
  7. Trading is such a mind game. It makes a difference how you start the day out. A person trades differently building on gains than when you dig a hole early then try to dig out of it. All of a sudden no profit is large enough to take -- you need more to get back the losses. Then it starts to turn against you and you wait for it to turn around and all of a sudden your decent proftit is now a loss --- and then a bigger loss -- then you realize you should really be short by this time but you are still long --- so you finally take your loss then wait a little longer and go short. Oh no now I am late going short and chasing.

    Having the discipline to trade the same way every trade is a challenge and one of the things that makes this day-trading gig so difficult.
     
    #77     Jul 7, 2021
  8. caroy

    caroy

    Best day traders in the commodity pits were usually spreaders. Buy the bid in the front sell the ask in the back and then as you lock in your nickels trade the spread out. I've never tried to day trade stocks. I hope you pull it off.
     
    #78     Jul 7, 2021
  9. Screenshot (105).png

    Note to myself. If you are going to daytrade you have to identify and eliminate any overall directional bias that you may have for the day's trading direction. The enormous gap opening down and the immediate move up made me assume that it was going back to prior day levels quickly considering the strong upward move of Apple since May. So much that I did not honor the fact that the rise ended at exactly the 50% retracement form the prior afternoon high. See Chart. The next 9 minutes was a free fall gift of $1.40 for a good Fib trader because no Fib levels were honored on the way down.

    As I noted a couple of days ago the trading literature out there seems to mock the Fibs. Is there anyone within the sound of my voice on ET that uses them in their trading?
     
    #79     Jul 8, 2021
  10. I want to give a huge shout-out to @CyJackX for encouraging me to checkout TOS for downloading trades into a spreadsheet. It is really a one click thing. I do have to organize the data a bit --- sorting the buys and sells into separate columns and combining the partial fills into one total fill but it works great as I have the timestamps right on my spreadsheets.

    I now get a Won/Loss record of individual trades and a Profit Ratio of Average Winning Trade to Average Losing Trade. I attached the spreadsheet for the beginning of July. I treated the 6 or 7 days in June as sort of Pre-Season since they were almost exactly breakeven and will post July results win or lose at the end of the month. My little game here is to make $250 before I lose $250. Then go from there.

    Screenshot (107).png
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2021
    #80     Jul 10, 2021