But if I day trade, I would be shorting YM and made a killing the last two trading sessions. I was expressing the view of some of my fellow retails, coming to ET thinking they can make a good living day trading. A retail's dream is to quit our day job, becomes a digital nomad, travels around the world day trading for a living. I actually agree with you sir, it aren't easy! After 18 months' paper + live day trading experiment, I am quitting. And I have a positive expectancy.
I think the distinction between blindly adding to losers and "premeditated" scaling in needs to be made. If one approaches scaling in with proper money management and risk control,I see nothing wrong with it..
Agreed. That said, adding to losing trades as part of a scale-in plan doesn't make much sense to me unless you're putting on huge size (funds, very thinly traded stocks, etc.) And of course, people cost-averaging in their 401k's who just add X amount of dollars every month is different, etc.
I have been around ET since 2014. Lots of new retails came in with the idea of day trading for a living. Not too many are still around. I position trades and speculate with options and am one of the lucky few, started in 2010 with a good size AUM and rode this bull market for a decade and a half. It is pure luck. Time to retire a second time.
I feel for you. I have been going back and forth between two entirely different trading styles (option spreads and intraday FX) for a long time. I can make far more money in FX than in options, however I just love options. After I decided to live in a different time zone, trading options in the US in the middle of the night made me sleep deprived, so I went back to FX. However, always few weeks later when I was sleeping well, I always went back to options again! This ‘back and forth’ freak show lasted couple of years! It was absolutely ridiculous!!! Finally, I decided letting go of options and US markets in favour of FX and few indices which are more my timezone friendly, and I feel “free” again. If your trading style is not enjoyable, then don’t be afraid to switch to try different trading style, follow your bliss.
actually you have hit it on the head as well. I do not sleep , check after hours ,etc... maybe day trading is good after all
UGH... update... turns out over all my trades in 2024 I have made a net profit on day trades and a net loss (and not a small one) on swing trades. As much as I hate it, maybe day trading is the way to go.
Many daytraders keep a very low profile as they don't want to give even a hint of their edge. You won't find them bragging online.