Alisa, I have been fulltime daytrading futures for just under a year now. Previously I postioned traded futures made a good amount in one year and then blew it all up minus about 6 k. Then I took a couple of years off and I am back at it with determination.
i've been day trading full time for 16 years. it takes years to control your emotions and become a good trader. for the last few years i've been taking alot of time off when the markets slow as to not mess my mind set up. for instance after earnings season this year i'll take several weeks off recharging myself for the fall. from 1999-2002 i never missed 1 hr of the market.a trader must pick and chose his battles
i agree with the emotions part. Its just too funny because when I first started, I'd hear about this part of it. I wrote it off as a bs response. The market, what a bitch. Makes you learn everything the hard way when people will just flat out tell you what needs to be done. Sometimes i think to myself, "either i'm incompetent, or this is just the nature of the market...to make you learn the hard way" because seriously, everyone here has probably heard/was told what needed to be done, but had to be taught the painful way from the market, as opposed to a book. I know a profitable trader been doin it for 4 years and he goes the other day, "stupid. I do something stupid everyday. Everyday I'm stupid." He's a pretty modest/humble guy so that might explain part of his success. But to hear a well educated/pedigree guy that is profitable say that makes me realize just how humbling the market can be. its too bad i'm already predisposed to be an emotional nit-wit. (early tennis experiences..think of Mcenroe, without the talent) I've learned to control that, so I went years without an emotional outburts on court. But trading. After doing this for less than a year, it just now brings out my emotional weakness. (manifested not in an outburst, but just flat out retarded action)
I couldn't agree more about the emotional part being of supreme importance and oh so difficult. In most other jobs one is controlled by peers, guidelines, checks and balances, etc. In this job it' s just you alone with your own set of rules and it can be so easy to justify breaking it. I work on that every morning and every morning I remind myself how easy it is to lose discipline and to fall into a self-destructive mode.
Here are a couple of Zanger type trades: http://traderx.blogspot.com/2006/07/mixing-it-up-with-longer-term-trades_01.html
Yes, if you notice, Livermore and Zanger were NOT day traders. Livermore was worth what when he died?...100 million, and Zanger is worth like 45 million + now.
Have you noticed how a lot of the best gains Zanger has made in the last few years has been holding thru earnings? He's got great instinct and big big balls. What a great combination. And in terms of risk management, come on , guy doesn't have any. He bets the farm on one stock half the time....
I run a blog where I identify Zanger style trading setups each week using software I've written, and discuss the context of the current market from a position trader's time horizon. However, the main focus of the blog is not the stock picks, but how to discretionary trade similar to Zanger style, and occasional talk about systems trading. You can find chart examples and buying and selling techniques in the blog's post archive. You will also see coverage of stocks like NTRI way back when it was a $5 stock with a different symbol, NSI just as it was beginning its monster run. Also I should mention, I have no ads on the blog and I'm not selling anything, unlike many of the highly visible people around. http://fickletrader.blogspot.com
Did he get caught in the large, 15%, BIDU gap down last week? This is one problem that can arise from position trading, especially when holding through earnings. But this can happen day trading as well. I was day trading EMC on 7-2-2001 and got caught by an earnings warning, trading halt, right after the bell and lost $10k by the time it opened up again in 1 1/2 hrs. Notice I remember the exact day. My worse loss. And the funny thing was I had made about that much on it position trading it long for 6 months about a year before that