I find it the opposite is true. longer term trading need to glue to the screen and wait for signal, once missed, whole day maybe gone. shorter term trading or scalping, just sit in front of the screen for certain active market hours and trade the move. just that maybe RR is not as good through...
Broadly speaking, I agree with your perspective. I think there are possible exceptions for the style of trading I consider really more "investing" than "trading": there seem (perhaps) to be some people who manage it by looking only at end-of-day charts/information and making all their decisions solely on that basis. I've never really understood how people who have a full-time, non-trading-related job, a family, and other commitments, manage to "learn how to trade" succesfully at all - I still don't. I strongly suspect that very, very few of them ever achieve it.
I have a full time career and the other commitments you mention and I have learned to trade. I may not be the best trader ever but I certainly am profitable and beating the market. Each month/year I get better and better. I happen to think it's easier for me to trade longer term trends and take big chunks out of those trends with trades lasting days to weeks or months than it is to try to make money using the same methods looking at lower time frames. I find the lower timeframes have too much noise for me to trade AS SUCCESSFULLY but I have still traded them profitably. I just can't make shorter time frames CONSISTENTLY profitable. However, I think that relates mostly to the fact that I can not watch the markets all the time. I can catch glimpses of it for 15 min a few times a day but some days I may not even get to "see" the markets until well after the close. So for me EOD data is used to decide entry and exit but I certainly use intraday data in decision making as well because I think you get a good sense of HOW the price reached the EOD price. Sometimes I have to accept I missed a trade and wait until price retraces. It works for me and MUCH BETTER than buying and holding an index fund.
That depends if your style is go to the market (short term) or let the market come to you (long term). There is no right or wrong, different styles. The entry window is the timeframe, with 240mn you can go and do other things between, with 5mn you can't. If you can do both styles it becomes very interesting. Trying to go to the market on long term timeframes generally doesn't work, as you've found out. Same applies for waiting for the market to come to you on short timeframes.
I've found long term is much easier than short term. I've also found long term Technicals are much less noisy than short term. If you are struggling with short term try long term. Have a look at daily and weekly Technicals, much easier to read. In my opinion, that's what the big institutions look at and you want to enter when they enter and sell when they unload. My 2 cents. Happy thanksgiving
Being that I started long term stocks, I had a long time to study charting and backtesting, did have luck of the Reagan years. Experience shows me that Scalping is trading noise, reversion to the mean for 2-3 ticks, as easy as that sounds, most would give right arm to pull that out handful of times of intense concentration, but to get to where you can do this, much more than 10,000 hours. And how about quality of life, you are wasting all this time when you can be with your family enjoying life. Long term you get all the gaps and even when they bad gaps, trend trading is where you will see your account to become best than shorter term. Cause you don't miss too often good trades and the bonus if you can do so with limited risk using options, whereas not cost effective when day trading, risk is almost unlimited in day trading "when" another fat finger happens or something gets blown up and exchanges closes down, guessing many don't ever think of the day when you can't get out and opens a week later at $5,000 in hole. Few ever discuss huge costs of day trading retail where many need 100-150% just to break even for the year. I could stay in a stock 5 years and not have to pay more commissions, day trading you can have 100 trades per week and pay up wazoo on fees. I think the Wizards made their money more on the floor in the pits as there seem to be more volume then. There is limited volume in futures not that most could exceed limits, but there are times you can't get out or what started as day trade, you locked limit down, whereas in stocks, you can get out. You have all evening to think about the trade for next day, you usually have few seconds to think on Scalp trade, You don't have to become expert at long term, at Scalping you just breath for next trade, Short term trading has same risks as for long term trading, why cheat yourself of possible more money? Quality of Life, working at a different profession doing what you love generates more income everyday and allows you not to become a hermit, trading a stock is kept as a way to make a future and not depend on funds right now. Day trading, unless you working different hours, you HAVE to make money to exist, and if you lose, that much more you have to make up. Way too many think in a month they be trading away, they most likely will be trading away their funds day trading. I only know of a few who trade for bigger profits day trading and do very well, I am not one of them as I couldn't find most likely due to my personality, your methods have to jive with your personality. You look at America's most wealthy, they did long term for most part and often times invested in their dreams and their companies. Wish all Happy Thanksgiving...
I always ended up watching my long term trades like scalps, that's why I prefer to scalp, switch on, see a trade, place it, wait, exit and off again. Also no time.
My trading style is short term and for me it is much simpler than trying to trade the longer time frames. There is no "better" way to trade. Some people feel more comfortable trading long term whilst others are in their element short term.
"Time for trading" may be a misconception. One can use the persistence in growth of companies ( companies that produce earnings by providing goods and services in the world's economies ), ie. upward, persistent growth in the equities markets. Within this framework, using academic and empirically derived "Capital asset pricing model" factors, by utilizing / investing in stock universes producing highest "performance premium" above other stock universes, we can use long time periods in order to compound asset growth. The combination of tactical portfolio management strategies combined with the recent access to underlying CAPM factor stock universes via ETFs that represent them, can help achieve this compounding. For example, one simple 2 transaction per year strategy utilizing "highest performing" small cap value, emerging small cap, large cap value universes purchased in November and switched for more "defensive" utilities sector, bonds, or cash ( dependent on strategy heuristic signaling ) in May has produced risk mitigated, median 15 year rolling total returns periods of > 1600% over 60+ year sample ( column G). http://tinyurl.com/hh3ymn8 This type of repeating evidence accompanied by these type of returns, has steered me away from trading and into "tactical investing" ( I really doubt that I would be able to "trade" and garner these type of returns and I'm not interested in finding out !) .... Less time spent for a reasonable and empirically derived payoff, more time to learn other things, work at other endeavours. IMO, if you're desperate for "action", play video games or take 1% of your capital and play black jack. - Don't quit your day job - Don't use leverage - Open a Roth IRA - Sometimes money is made by sitting in cash - Don't be a hostage to the markets - let the markets, profitability of world economies work for you
All above it likely fine, if your already rich, sadly most of us are starting with nothing pretty much and have real alternative other than to make it work and the kinda returns we need are only available via daytrading. Made $150 in 4mins today, only trade sadly, nothing wrong with daytrading given enough time to get good at it.