Other then Bright, I think Echo, G2 and Chimera allow you to hold over nights. I'm sure a lot of firms do, but they might ask you to put up more capital. I honestly don't see overnight risk being that big of an issue. I've seen guys lose 10 times as much intra-day then over night. Haircuts vary, honestly at the end of the day, you should not need a haircut to tell you or limit you on your overnights. You should protect your capital with your life and be aware of all the overnight risks you have. I'm not at Bright anymore. I was doing spreads with them because it made sense to trade that way with their setup.
or another keyword he likes to use "Convexity" long convexity.. I've over traded, held on to losers, chased, traded in new products when I've lost in one i was trading in for a while, sold premium randomly,and i'm most likely still alive and trading because of luck.. For whatever its worth it helps to put luck in ones favor. I've failed so many times i can't count but i've made sure all my failures can't ever ruin me. After all my struggles i'm right near flat after a year and a half of trading. which after all the things i've done is pretty freaking lucky. haha Maverick you by far have helped me a ton with your posts. I will continue to immerse myself in the process. Thanks for the help.
Well to be fair, helping people on this thread is all part of my parole agreement. It was either this or picking up trash on the side of the road.
haha.. nothing like hanging out with degen's , gamblers, and know it alls of ET.. Lost in amongst it all is a few Gems of good friends and good little bits of truth.
seems like this thread has died, but has anyone been using the strategy that Fisher talked about in his Top Step Trader webinar a month or so ago....ES - using two OR from 9:30-9:45 and 1:15-1:30et? Anyone been using or testing that the past few weeks? Any success or strategy? I listen to the Traders Audio CL/NG squawk and he says a lot of the big CL locals watch the 20 min opening range for breakout plays. Fish said he likes to watch the 15 minute range after brent closes. I worked at a discount firm and could watch people trade everyday, see their pnl, contact them and manage their margin calls and short squeezes....99.9% of them lost money cause - they didnt have a strategy, they didnt have discipline to try to do the same thing over and over again each day, they traded the news (made impluse trades), and the biggest thing, they let their losers run and always cut their winners short. I could go on for hours about the mistakes they made trading, I would see people lose 50-100k a day, wire in more money to cover it then just lose it again, making the same mistake, most of them were nothing more than gamblers (but they never thought of the stock market as a gamble, they always thought they where smarter than everyone else and saw an opportunity). But the one thing i did notice, everyone that always lost money, they never really understood how the market "worked"...they never really could comprehend that when they bought, someone was on the other side of the trade selling to them. I think just understanding how the market works and functions is the first step to being constantly profitable.
When you say a "discount firm", do you mean a conventional retail brokerage, or a professional prop-style firm?
I'm still here. There is a lot of stuff on this thread in the archives that people can look up. I'm working on a lot of proprietary stuff for ACD that I don't want to post here. I think a lot of people came by here, read the thread, tried a few trades, go frustrated and left. Like you said, very few people have the discipline to stick it out. And they are easily discouraged. What you saw at your discount broker I saw every day at my prop firm. I saw all my traders p&l, their trades, what they did right and what they did wrong. And yup, the formula is pretty simple for blowing out. Cur your winners short and let your losers run. And of course over trading, over leveraging, averaging down, etc. If one follows ACD with conviction, there is no way you are going to blow out. At worst you will be a scratch trader. But to answer your question, yes, I use to use the half day levels and they did work very well. But this was back in 2008 when the spoos had 60 handle ranges and you needed to find a way to cut your risk. They would probably work best on very volatile stocks that gap up or down big a lot or have wide opening ranges.
I've worked for both, started in 2007 clerking on the floor in the CBOT Ag pits for a few guys, then traded stocks for a bucket shop prop for 6 months, then worked as a broker for scottrade for a few years...now i trade CL and NG on my own and lease a seat on the NYMEX. When i was on the floor, the guy i worked for traded 50 lots in back months of corn, trading for 4-5 ticks, then got suspended from the exchange because of some out trades he did and tried to cover up. Then i traded for a stock bucket shop prop firm....was pretty ,much trading along side trading with retail guys that had the bankroll to quick their job and think they could make it as a "day trader" by just putting $5k down on deposit for a profit split. Then i worked for a discount broker, it was the same, bunch of a gamblers that had money, and thought they could out smart the market just cause they had success before. The successful guys i traded with knew how to cut their loser short, let the winners run, and they never really had an opinion on the market. They always waited for the open, then waited 10 minutes more, then started trading against that.
With the exception of market makers and high-freq traders, I thought almost all daytraders lose. Can you tell me which year(s) this happened?
Just giving you keys some key levels to watch in the spoos. The 1660 level is the monthly A down and the 1650 level is the top of the QTR A up. There is your bogey....go get em!