A refined passion. Let's share your day trading strategies that work.
- Thread starter Dave Taylor
- Start date
When might you be comfortable adding a zero to these moves? Putting $4500 at risk for 10x the gain.
Is the volume there to do that?
It seems like the work is the same, just the amount at-risk changes.?
Dave Taylor
Rex kwan Do
Don’t have the confidence yet. That’s the hard part. Sometimes it goes in streaks. I can have 20 green trades in a row and then 5 red trades can knock u around mentally. Scalping has been the most consistent for sure and most profitable has been a couple risky options trades like I posted the other day. Futures are great for slow/after hours trading.
Curious how long you have been doing this. At the end of any given year is your profit much different than just buying SPY?
Mahnken
Well-Known Member
Yea, I work in the Operating Room now. It's as close as I ever want to be to patient care again. I'm per diem, so only go in when they need me. Typically once or twice a week. My wife triples my full time salary, so she's the bread winner and holds the insurance and such. I could switch it up and try informatics, case management, insurance company work; but honestly, I'm just not that interested in it. And working full time just incurs too many scheduling conflicts with the kids and their off days, doctors appointments and such. Even just with getting them to and from school. Healthcare really depresses me anymore. These hospital systems don't give an F about the patients or employees. It's purely money driven, and that's just sad.
In the name of being transparent, I lost $3k Monday. Biggest lose I've taken so far. Locked myself out of my account before I could completely blow it. This is on the topstep account. That I paid $200 for, and have cashed out $1500 so far. There's still $800 in there. The loses were purely driven from my emotions, I completely lost control and couldn't stop doubling down and taking lose after lose. I was up for the day about 400, then had two losing trades that put me at breakeven and I tried to force it back. Fear and greed overrode the day.
For the next week or 2 I'm taking NQ trades off the table and trading up to 3 MNQ contracts max. I need to focus on taking the trades I plan and not taking them based on my feelings.
I need to work on better entries. I tend to market into an entry after the move already started hoping to catch the bulk of it. That's greed, what I should be doing is waiting for the next opportunity to present itself and not chase a missed one.
I need to leave my stops in place after entering a trade. I tend to move my stop to breakeven after a trade starts to go in my direction by a small amount. That's fear. I'm afraid of a losing trade once it goes in my direction. Sometimes these trades need room to breathe, especially NQ, it tends to hunt stops and then continue on the way you expected it to. I've knocked myself out of way too many winning trades doing this.
Those are the two main things I need work on with my technical system. I also need some work on leaving my profit targets in place and not taking profit before the expected moves happen. But the other issues need work first.
On the emotion front, I'll be journaling every trade throughout the day, as well as all my emotions. This is an attempt to recognize when I'm starting to get into a bad headspace to either correct it before doing so much damage, or just stop for the day. I basically sat out yesterday to help a friend clear out his parent's house before he closes on monday. I'll be doing the same friday, volume won't be there anyway.
Takeaway? There'll definitely be losing days in day trading. It's how you manage them and learn from them that keeps you profitable. Otherwise, yea, it's just gambling.
Dave Taylor
Rex kwan Do
Two years or so prifitable consistently. Return on spy isn’t good. Compounded yes but just my two trades I first posted would have blown spy returns out of the water had I contributed that $4k throughout the year. $13k in 2 trades vs $1k(20% or so spy return this year?) if i just bought spy.
Dave Taylor
Rex kwan Do
And taxes, who cares? I’d rather pay 50% taxes if I made 100 grand then no taxes on making 20 grand.
LOL. I have this issue with my wife. She hates paying taxes and always gets upset. The rationale of why they are so much on any given year is lost on her.
Dave Taylor
Rex kwan Do
Long As you aren’t reckless and save your money and have the money to pay for taxes. I would much rather be making money that I have to pay taxes on.
And you called me ignorant?
There is no scenario where you pay 50 or zero, unless you are trading in your Roth, in which case you would be making the 100k tax free.
I can now control earned income, my ltg tax could be 10% or less until rmd.
And yes @Bike N Gear , as I've mentioned, my goal is to pay $1MM in tax per year, and not AMT which got us a couple times (not 1mm, but it hurt)
Never ignore taxes.
Dave Taylor
Rex kwan Do
So I use my "risk money" in a plane Jane trading account. Some of my bigger trades are in my IRA. I consider those trades much less risky. For me my futures account used to be the riskiest and is now the least risky. My rule is I trade false breakdown reversal trades(a major support level fails, then recovers. I buy on retest after it recovers with a 10 MES(1 contract is $5/point- 10 is $50/pt) position size. My stop is usually pretty generous here. I usually set it an entire level away. Usually around 12-20 points($600-1000k is the risk). I sell 1/2 at the first resistance level. I sell 4 more at the second level and I hold the last 10%(1 contract) infinitely. I raise the stop and eventually it will get stopped out. I have had this 10% runner go much longer than expected though in the last couple weeks. For those that don't know ES(MES is micro sized) is the futures contracts for s&p500 and the chart is similar but several points different from the SPX index. NQ is the same on the NDX nasdaq index. RUT is the same for Russell.
krink
Eddie Munster
It is estimated that 80% of day traders quit within the first two years, and nearly 40% quit within one month. After three years, only 13% remain, and after five years, only 7% remain. The average individual investor underperforms the market by 1.5% per year, while active day traders underperform by 6.5% annually.
@Dave Taylor , where are you currently on the above 1 month to 5 years of day trading activity? I’m not suggesting you take the advice from this article, just thought the stats were interesting.
@Dave Taylor , where are you currently on the above 1 month to 5 years of day trading activity? I’m not suggesting you take the advice from this article, just thought the stats were interesting.
Dave Taylor
Rex kwan Do
I’m not sure I have an answer or know how to answer that question. What I can say is that you really need to adapt to market changes. You have to have an objective view and never goes up and it never goes down all the time. Chances are better that it will go up than go down. I didn’t start making money until I limited risk. My account is much larger than what I started out with on my current account. But I have blown a couple of accounts of good size. I think if you were passionate about something you can figure it out. No matter what it is. When you learn how fast markets react and how slow markets react you can really do things. This week the market generally had slower moves and you can really see a daily top or bottom forming. This puts a high likelihood of a green trade when buying next day options , if you look at the last trade I made, the QQQ put actually went to $5 a contract. I bought them at one dollar and sold them at $1.60. Had a held onto them longer. They would’ve been 500% in the matter of a couple hours. That was a very small risk for a very large reward.
Dave Taylor
Rex kwan Do
People, including myself in the past when rushing into trades. Timing is everything. If I waited another couple minutes on my options I could’ve been 50% down because I bought too high. Same if i bought too early. I could’ve bought at a good price, but the premium would have burned. World Series of poker happens for a reason. Those guys have a system that works.By the book poker is gambling, but for some it is income.
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Wouldn't day trading be the exact opposite of of long term investing?
Absolutely, and I had the realization a few minutes ago that at this point, we know DT has been doing this for years, he is under water, maybe not by much in a +- type of way, yet the opportunity missed is what bothers me most.
I believe there is no way to catch up with that missed opportunity.
That opportunity I'm talking about is just plowing it into the market, either index, or income-growth.
Again, Dave is interested, knowledgeable, and filling time. It seems a serious hobby. Does it need to lead to wealth beyond belief?
Dave Taylor
Rex kwan Do
Correct. That’s also why they make straddles, strangles, spreads etc. If you own 100 shares of anything do yourself a favor and learn general support/resistance areas and you can sell calls/puts and reinvest that premium. Think a big move is coming but unsure of direction? Minimize risk but have esposure selling a call spread and a put spread. Many ways to make money daily. Daytrading is not for everyone. Once you can turn the ship around though it can be very rewarding mentally and monetarily.
@Dave Taylor what I think you are doing is awesome. You are engaged with the markets and learning how and why they move. What works for you may not work for someone else and vice versa.
I think I have mentioned this to you before….understand what drives options pricing. It will help you. Particularly how volatility levels affect option pricing.
Did you read the books I recommended in one of your other threads?
I think I have mentioned this to you before….understand what drives options pricing. It will help you. Particularly how volatility levels affect option pricing.
Did you read the books I recommended in one of your other threads?