You bumped into the wrong man. But don't feel sad, he puts a lot of people on ignore. But till now nobody died from it. He was swayed by your posting in such a way that he even did not finish his last sentence... "That's how stupid your statement" is to me not a complete sentence.
A lot of good stuff being posted by @Scataphagos agree with vast majority of his postings in this thread as agree with its practicality, some post theoretical fluff that is either irrelevant or doesn't work long term
If you're not robotic about that approach, you'll quickly get tired of being stopped out all the time to watch in horror as it closes that day in what would of been your target zone. Unless you're well funded and have your living expenses and tax obligations accounted for, you're forced to day trade as only portfolio managers get paid to wait out positions. Day Trading= Getting Stopped out all the time. If you can day trade and st the end of the year make a comfortable living after living expenses, capital gain taxes, health insurance..etc..etc., then power to you. And sadly, the 99% of the rest of the "trading" population will eventually realize why most of those on this board are either living at home w/o big boy responsibilities, retirees screwing around with their savings like their weekly poker game or those who came to this realization later in life and thus offer trading services as they're too unqualified and too old to get a real job. Or you can continue to pray for a hail Mary and continually apply to Jane Street or the other algo firms. BOL......
Every successful trader has a method that works for them. I couldn't do your method. But on the other hand, I understand probabilities and options very well and make a decent return selling premium. Many reasons why traders fail, but most get into trouble with outsized positions. So whatever your method, the key is risk management through diversifying and not having all your eggs in one basket. I have saved my ass so many times by always having 5-10 positions on at a time, so if one goes real bad the others can make up for it.
I've posted this before a few times, but here we go again: You need an edge with a defined positive expectancy, PERIOD. No ifs, ands, and buts. Both sides of expectancy need to be measured accurately. Trade win percentage and R/R are the basis for a successful daytrader. 99% of traders have no clue how to accurately define either. If you are not a quant you have next to zero chance of making it as a daytrader. Drawdown is your enemy, and only quants have a grasp on calculating maximimum drawdown, and controlling trade size to maintain acceptable levels of drawdown. Also, optimal profit targets cannot be assessed by stroking your pole in front of a chart. Most daytraders are lazy morons. Gather your stats, or watch the well-structured supermodels suck the money out of your pocket.
The ONLY profitable sports tipster that I know of uses minimum odds of 5/1, I know it's not trading, yet risk related. All others use evens or below and are up & down end of month. Food for thought.
I agree with what you say except for above part of your posting. I do know some math but I am (very) far from being a quant. I daytrade since the early 90's and since I finally became consistently profitable (after about 10 years) I never had a drawdown of over 20%, never a margin call and never a losing week. Being a quant is not necessary is my personal experience. But probably I am creative and can solve the problems, that quants solve with math, apparently in another way. I see that most people have no clue how to built a profitable system, it is more a gift to be able to do that. You have it or you don't. A the rubbish you find for free on internet does not work.