If the market is not in the mood to give the trader big winning trades there is little the trader can do, except wait for the market to change. Some people say there was always market X,Y or Z you could have traded over the last the year and made a killing but that is hindsight bias. If in any given year there are 100 trending instruments you could of traded, but that drops to just 10 this year. Some one will still point out there was still money to be made in those 10. But in reality the game just got 10 times harder.
Actually, it got 10 easier. QE made it possible. You should have reacted to this FUNDAMENTAL news like a Pavolov dog: simply go long bonds, go long equities, short the currency. Take a look at the Bank of Japan´s QE program: it works: go long bonds, go long equity and short the currency. Rinse, repeat. No technical analysis needed. What for?
I'm in the same situation (although last year wasn't bad). This year I'm down circa 7%. I dunno, I'm trading small and losing small and often! I just don't know. edit: i'm not really a day trader though
I did a short spell day trading (badly) with a NY prop firm a couple of years ago. It was online, but traders shared their live screens including positions and P&L. Some of the more experienced traders were having a difficult time. They complained the markets weren't what they used to be. There was a sense of maturity and confidence about these guys; they had no problems with execution or managing their positions, it was just they seemed stuck with their rigid methods. It was a frustrating time for them. On the flip side some of the newer traders who were a couple of years in were consistently profitable. One particular trader was raking it in, on average profitable 9 out of every 10 days, and 5R days were common. He's still there today doing the same thing day after day making a very good living. There's plenty of opportunity and I suspect there still will be in 5, 10 and 20 years from now. Put your trading experience to good use, stay in the game, just shake off the old methods if they no longer work.
A lot of very profitable intraday strategies require a high level of volatility and in the past couple of years you're not getting nearly as much of that on an intraday basis. I'm guessing a lot of traders dependent on market conditions try to manufacture something out of nothing instead of being patient, maybe for days, until the conditions are fully ripe for their strategies. Price action strategies work pretty much the same regardless of market conditions, so the only adjustment I've had to make is to be willing to take more trades for smaller profit targets. My max risk on trades is adjusted down as well to maintain the profitable balance between win rate and R:R.
that's because many of us are been raised during uncertainty\high volatility times. personally-i've seen it all. crash from 2000, 9/11, another crash. those are my times that i've been raised on..i wasn't raised on charts where market as a whole goes up 30% STRAIGHT UP EVERY SINGLE DAY and with open at +/- 0.1% from previous close. we use to have joke(can be applied to those 'newer' traders,who are consistently profitable-don't mix your 'geniosity ' with a bull market. cause everyone feels like a genius or a 'master' during such times. here- this is 5 days chart of IWM from 109.5 to almost 114 WITHOUT ANY PULLBACK. just f** buy and hold. look at the Tue alone.. you can buy anywhere on this chart and make a s**t load of money.
Have you considered switching to stocks or if already trading stocks, being highly selective? Scan for the most volatile (big gappers) then trade for the first 2 hours.