I've been trading real money for over a year now, but the results I'm having from day trading in just over the past 2 weeks is FAR FAR better than what Im doing now (Swing trading). Right now I hold NYX, LEH and CAT, and will be lucky to make 300.00 this month. I've been day trading (paper money) for about two weeks now with Cobratrading, but only for the past 4 days started tracking the results. I would have thought that day trading would only add losses faster, but this doesnt seem to be the case. I'll admit on most my trades, I almost never put in a stop loss, but I kept losses tight, and let winner run, but when day trading i still have a hard time holding through the corrections because of larger size trades (only 200). cm
To compare, here is my real money account, and since the start of 2007, I've only made 378.31. I'm not happy with these results at all!. ....at least i'm positive.
Well thats cool that you might have found your "thing" but you should give it another month of tracking before you come to the conclusion this is better. Its only a 2 day winning streak so far.
sounds good that your daytrades are going good, focus on consistency and money management(don't spend all of what you make) first and $/%'s later and the money will flow pending you don't get too complacent
Day trading can be better because you have many more opportunities to take a risk. Also specialization can make you more effective (trading one or two contracts only). The downside is that the speed of response required will increase any discipline or psychological issues immensely.
paper trading does NOT compare to the real deal. Start trading real money. Even if you lose some it is OK. As long as you learn.
Kiddo, your profits are great, but when you go real, your commissions will eat your lunch. Be mindful of the stuff you read on these forums, when someone gives away some system for free, I'd say 100% of the time they're junk. In this business, you've gotta either spend years developing your systems, taking hard knocks, Or... You've gotta steal a system from a millionaire on Wall Street. I spent about 6 years learning stuff the hard way, then I got lucky to find a friend in the business who helped me out, I can give you some hints into my holy grail, but hey, can't give ya everything Email me at NYChotshot@gmail.com for some aid, There's something in my heart for helping newbies, we've all been there before. MrWallStreet
As previous posters indicated, you don't have a sufficient track record to draw conclusions. However, assuming you have a decent trading system and money mgmt, I believe that trading in shorter time frames is generally more effective than trading in longer time frames. More effective trading means you have more setup opportunities to trade, and for those trades that don't work out you can cut your losses quickly, minimizing risk. This risk factor is key. Risk is a function of control, and the more closely you monitor market action, the more control you have. When you trade in shorter time frames, you can be nimble and close your position, or reverse your position. When you trade in longer time frames, like daily/weekly/monthly, you surrender control to the market between closing prices of your trading period, and you can suffer a big loss. No doubt that most daytraders wash out, but they were incompetent to begin with. Once you attain a level of proficiency in market timing and money mgmt, I believe that daytrading provides the optimal market action to be successful.
I only spent 35 some dollars on commission yesterday (paper money)...I'm not sure if on the demo it automatically subtracts coms from my p/l, but because of my small size lots (200), I'm not paying the 3-6 dollars I would if I were trading 1000 share lots.