i started swing trading stocks a few months ago, typically holding the positions for 1 or 2 weeks. but recently i find that i tend to shorten the holding period to 1 day or less. right now, almost half of my trades are intraday trades. i wonder if anyone out there are also switching back and forth between swing & day trading. shortening the holding period give me more comfort, having to hold fewer overnight positions. but at the same time, i also sacrifice a lot of profit potential. for example, i had a positions on PCS. i day traded it on Jan 4 & 5 when the price jumped from $13.07 to $14.26, but i didn't capture the full profit potential as i didn't hold it overnight. however, i did manage to avoid the big drop the next day on Jan 6 when the stock dropped back down to $13.30. so it's a double edge sword. i would like to start a discussion about the "plus" & "minus" when switching between swing & day trading. what you've gained & what you've given up by doing one type of trading but not the other. and any particular trading tactics that are applicable to one type of trading but not the other.
After just closing my year long trade on fcx for 46 points, I can only wonder how many points I would have made in total over a year if I was day trading on a daily basis. I don't worry too much about it, because I know that I'll have losses and day trading also equals higher trading costs. I'm working on a intraday breakout system that I've been testing on ym and nq, and forex off 2hr charts. It's good to have at least 2 styles for this reason. Do a search, there are plenty of these types of threads over the years.