I made one big change today in that I am doubling my position size which will of course reduce the number of positions to a more manageable level. I am giving a lot of import to the 78 minute interval and today the results were slightly positive and I am almost back to even. The DJI and SPX were down today if you haven't noticed. It may be that my strategy changes to putting my positions on in the morning and close possibly most of them the next morning and going with a new batch showing movement one direction or the other. I will not dare infuriate the swing traders by calling that swing trading (all in good fun) but it would not be daytrading so what is it? Maybe "the morning after trading system) The spreadsheet and cash report are attached.
Thurs evening -- Got killed on my shorts that I entered yesterday. Things have not gone well but by some miracle I am slightly ahead of the Dow since inception. Not so good against the SPX. I have decided to include the Open Positions TOS report instead of the Cash Journal. The total Cash Balance that I show on the spreadsheet can still be compared to the Cash Balance on TOS.
Out of curiosity, between the time of 7:45 AM and 4:00 PM what undisturbed hours Could be available to you for trading if you decided to arrange for that to happen while at the same time, not disturbing your Day Job?
I am retired so don't have a day job. I do some volunteer things on Thursdays so my only market time available on Thursday is the first hour and last hour of the trading day. As I said earlier in the thread I did daytrade AAPL (only 10 shares) in December for 20 days but that gets to be a grind. Other days I am on my screen a good part of the day off and on. Trading is a hobby for me as I do not need to make it work for income.
Change it from a hobby to a part time business. Hobby's cost you money, a business is supposed to make you money.
Learning how to trade Daily charts could take more time than ... suffice it to say, a lot of time. Here's something to think about if you want to limit your screen time, flatten the learning curve some - And learn by experience at the same time. Now then, you can gain a lot of feel for the markets in a short time, whether the outcome of two to four weeks trial is positive or negative, you will gain concentrated experience. For this venue get your side-book steno pad next to your mouse pad and take notes if you're not already doing so. Trade for one hour, three days a week. Tues, Wed and Thurs. with.... Now, Via this venue, expect to be exposed to a simple snap-bang setup; verify this first. Brace for the headwind of posts for what you are about to read, lol, because there should be a gust of "oh Hell no's" of course, because this is a trading forum full of know-it-alls like me, but at least make the inquiry, with... Want to hear it?
I am not necessarily wanting to limit my screen time if I am profitably trading but heck yes, I am always wanting to hear new things and research. I doubt if you will get headwinds as there are probably only 3 or 4 people paying any attention to this thread.
I'm paying attention! Being retired comment surprised me, suprised because somehow I gained the impression you were a young guy recently started off. If someone were to ask "how do you learn to trade", I wouldn't know how to answer, where someone had no outside experienced mentor guiding them. This is a tough gig to learn from scratch and being retired myself, know that enormous energy and enthusiasm is required to overcome the hurdles. I was lucky, had a mentor (for coding) as well as due to a marriage breakup was single and living alone for over 20 years and threw most of my spare time which was considerable into trading. I had more than one girlfriend who was suspicious of my loyalty to them when I said I wanted to be home alone all weekend because I was deep into coding and needed to get a project completed for the trading week ahead.