Lately, I am starting to find that trading is distracting me from my life. There is one crypto that I usually trade. There are opportunities (e.g. beginnings of new upswings) everyday. I tell myself that I don't have to trade everyday. The market will always been there. I can take care of other stuff in my life first before trading. However, whenever I see a new opportunity arising, even when I am in the middle of doing other stuff, it is difficult to tear myself away from the screen and enter into a trade. This causes two problems: (1) I don't have enough time to do other stuff in my life. (2) I am trading sub-optimally, because I am multitasking trading and doing other stuff. I find that I can often tell by looking at volume analysis and price action, when a new upswing is about to begin. However, in order to enter properly, I may have to look at the candlesticks develop for an hour to confirm my analysis, find a good entry point, adjust my stop loss to break even, etc. As such, let's say I look at the chart out of habit and see that we are near the end of a downswing. Immediately, I am faced with a dilemma - Do I put down what I am doing right now to watch the chart, or do I force myself to stay away from the chart to do other stuff? If I force myself to stay away, I am thinking in my head that I am missing a good opportunity, or that I may be missing out on a thousand dollars or more. I am thinking that maybe I should learn about swing trading instead of day trading. However, it seems to me that swing trading is in fact riskier than day trading. In swing trading, once you have made a decision, you are not able to close the position until the next time you check the chart, which may be several days later. However, in day trading, you can close a position immediately, if price is not "acting right". The other issue is that with cryptos the chart is moving 24/7. Even when I am sleeping, the chart is still moving. I have had experiences where I entered into a trade before going to bed. I set the stop loss at break even. Then, while sleeping, I made a fortune on paper before price fell back and hit my stop loss at break even. What are your thoughts on this?
swing or day trading? you have to decide for yourself. interestingly 99% of the people would recommend swing trading, I have totally given up swing trading 2 decades ago. I am now 100% day trading futures. have a firm timetable. be disciplined to follow it. when it is time to trade, better concentrate and trade. when it is time to eat/exercise/sleep, better eat/exercise/sleep. but we need to be flexible and agile (it sounds conflicting ). At times, the market is super hot (eg on 26 Nov 2021 due to Omicron news), and there will be tons of trading opportunities. then better trade 24X7. Similarly when there is Bitcoin Mother-of-all Tulip Mania or war, then better trade 24X7.
Market is always there. Opportunity not always If you really think you have a huge edge then trade it to the max. Calculate your profit vs opportunity cost
I suppose this is true. There are times, when I am glad I did not trade, because supposed "opportunities" turned out to be anything but.
I tried almost everything like investing in various countries stocks, swing trading, day trading, trading options on stocks/futures, trading various futures, intermarket / intramarket spreading, .... The only thing I didn't try was those programming stuff (HFT, algo ...). I was not successful in investing and swing trading. My edge is in day trading futures. different people have different experiences/preferences/competencies... so you have to discover what best suits you.
Would you agree that swing trading is riskier than day trading, since you are not able to close a position until you check up on it a few days later? What are the biggest challenges in terms of applying skills learnt in day trading to swing trading, and vice versa?
Personally I find swing trading risky / stressful; imagine you were thousands of dollars positive and the next day, you were thousands of dollars negative. day and swing trading have similar challenges; - identify choppy/messy/chaotic/undecisive market, and avoid trading it - identify where is start of the the continuation and reversal trends. Enter early after Confirmation - have a good macro, helicopter view / know what is in fashion / know what is the hot topic what is the big difference? for day trading, there are tens of good signals every day for swing trading, there are only a few good signals every month. there are also day traders who hold some of their positions for many many days/weeks