What I was implying was that you would have to average the 2-3 points per day to equal the swing trade. So if you are a trader who makes 5 points on 2 days, breaks even on a third day, and loses 3 on the fourth day....your record would be +7 points. The successful swing trader on the other hand might be at +12. Perhaps the most telling comment was one made to me one time by a day trader who told me that he had gotten bearish right at the top, sold the market all the way down, stayed bearish, but when he got to the bottom he had made no money. The way this happens is that as the market moves lower it has up days which don't mean much in the scheme of things, just the market breathing, but in terms of a bearish day trader these will be bad days. These will be the days that take away part of the accumulated profit. In fact, this will not be much different than simply sitting with the position....except when the market turns lower you will make it all back plus some as a swing trader, whereas you might not as a day trader. I don't think there is any question that the market travels more when you consider intraday swings. So again, a successful day trader should make more than any of the position traders. That's the theory. What I think is the case for most day traders is that when they go back to analyze, they have built up a very large commission bill, an untold bill for slippage, and P/L results that are underwheming. I think the day trading is more a function of what is comfortable for undercapitalized traders. Just an opinion. OldTrader
well of course it seems more comfortable doing just a few such trades through the year (if one is fine with holding overnight) - and hold each trade for several weeks / let them run for 50 - 100 pts or whatever. but will you always be able to catch a proper entry / exit (leaving money on the table can be a much bigger problem here, i'd say)? how big will / has to be your stop / trailing stop - 15 pts - or maybe 20? with just - say - 10 such trades / year - or 20 - every single trade is much more important compared to an intraday style where maybe 2 trades / day are done on avg. and what about those periods where the market is going nowhere over the course of several weeks - where a daytrader can make profits every week?
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=259983#post259983 SQRT((261*(2002-1970))-1)*1*100*3 = +/- 27415 %
Charting markets, thanks for posting the chart of your LEH trade, when you entered the trade where was your initial stop loss and when you took off half your position where do you move your new stop loss to?