In my local market scan using Metastock, but knowledge of the companies and whether the owner is active in the stock are also important. Running my scans on US OTC markets seems to be throwing up companies that I suspect are bankrupt rather than being stealthily reaccumulated. I suspect as they put together a Oil or Gold or Cancer cure company for a couple of hundred thou and asthere are no stringent listing criteria they just dump it and start a new one, whereas in markets where there is no OTC they reaccumulate and a shell has value for its value as a manipulation vehicle. No opinion IBD list, but I would be interested to know if CANSLIM actually works or it is taking advantage of the fact that most people are looking for a system to follow. Cup and Handle is a good pattern, but i am extremely cynical about O'Niell having looked at his short selling book and thinking it all looked a bit retrofitted - confirmed by one of his subscribers reviewing the book on Amazon and stating that NONE of these shorts were highlighted to subscribers at the time. anyone can retrospectively pick stocks that went up 1000%, but it is not that easy realtime, I was in one and took 15% out of it............but that was last cycle and I was younger then
I'm not sure if you mean "positions open" or "markets open". I would say that position trading allows you to analyze and trade more markets with more accuracy in general. It's "healthy" to have open as many as is possible without being in a state of being overwhelmed by info etc. Also, using money management, you should never lose more than 2 percent of total liquid net worth on any one trade/idea. Overall, I would say that when I position trade, the percentage of winning trades is 70 to 80 percent whereas very short term day trades are more 50/50. Go ahead and ask the psychology questions!
A further issue I believe in the contention that newbies should not be day trading is that most of them have day jobs. Thus they are attempting to do two things at once and will fail at one or most likely both. There is no way that a person could exploit the day trading opportunities while attention is divided. Thus, while trying to do so, they may be fired from work as well.
The most difficult part of position trading is staying with a trade. This is part of the reason that people tend to gravitate to day trading. Staying with a trade involves watching retracements etc take away profits while you sit on your hands. It's very tough for some to do , but those who do will reap fantastic rewards. --Just don't hit the refresh button on the Liquidating Value and a trader will be fine.
It's too true. That's one of the reason why it's good to have another instrument like Forex for short term trading so you don't touch your longer term trading and let it ride to exit or stop loss.
If you got a good hunch where the markets are going long term you can make far more money position trading than daytrading since you get to take advantage of gap-ups, etc. But if you are wrong you can lose lots of money as well. When the markets are choppy and there arent any clear sector leaders, daytrading is an easy way to print some money with less risk than holding long term.
I was reading an interview with Paul Tudor Jones on the internet today and the interviewer was playing word association with him. When the questioner said "Daytraders", PTJ replied "95 percent losers".
NYSEKILLER seems to do very well and he seems to close the positions end of each day. NYSE you have anything to add to this mix? And you have to love how everyone wants to hate the daytraders. I trade maybe 2-4x a day, I close positions at the close of every day, and I have been doing this successfully for the last 5 years. There are lots of strategies that can work for different types of people -- I don't understand why people want to knock other people's strategies. Whatever works my friend.
I hear ya alexm. I can't daytrade due to other things I'm doing, so instead I "position" trade option spreads. There are many times during any given month I would luv to be flat at the end of the day. I worked at a prop firm for 6 months before realizing 50-100 round trips during the day wasn't for me. But 3-4 r/t per day is more reasonable whether you're talking equities or futures. Bottom line I think we each need to find a method that works for us.
........ don't understand why people want to knock other people's strategies. Whatever works my friend Because they do not understand that sticking to one's method is more important than method itself.