# Day trading is so fun!



## gentlepuppies (Jan 17, 2016)

This is all very new to me... opened a TD direct investing account a couple weeks ago. Got ~50K in RRSPS, half of it I keep in TD Monthly Income, the other half was supposed to just keep in VFV and not worry about, but ended up "having fun" with the stock market. Of course, I'm only doing this because I'm 27 and nowhere near retirement. Eventually i'll probably get bored, or lose money, and will just leave it in VFV where it belongs. I'm tempted to also put the TDB622 money into VFV, but want to compare where they end up after a year, since both started at ~25K.

Monday mid-morning i saw that my VFV went up 0.75% since Friday; figuring it won't last, I sold it. Checked in at the end of the day and saw that it's back to just above Friday's price so I bought it back. Boom, $200 in 2 min. The next morning it jumped another 1%, so I sold it again, but decided to get adventurous and bought a Manulife fund which I regret immediately because I misread the previous day's performance graph (which I thought was a 2% decline but wasn't in the first place - also did not see the sharp recovery that I missed already). Fortunately it continued going up long enough for me to sell at a profit before it fell to new lows hahaha. Bought back the VFV this morning, and am about $900 richer after $60 worth of trades and about 30 min of not paying attention at work meetings.

I've done next to no research on the stock market, and am making decisions purely from patterns in the graphs. Am I going on a dangerous path?


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## Nerd Investor (Nov 3, 2015)

gentlepuppies said:


> I've done next to no research on the stock market, and am making decisions purely from patterns in the graphs. Am I going on a dangerous path?


Yes.


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## Argonaut (Dec 7, 2010)

To be fair, this is probably better technical analysis than I've seen on BNN.


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## new dog (Jun 21, 2016)

It will turn on you and then nothing will work and that will be that.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

It's always fun during a bull market, but the bear market will destroy you.

I suggest reading up on what happened with day traders in the late 90s as they entered the 2000 bear, and again with day traders in the years leading up to 2007. The stories are pretty consistent. It seems really easy and fun during strong years of the market, and you make small amounts of money. Once the market turns sour you start rapidly losing large amounts of money.


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## twowheeled (Jan 15, 2011)

if you enjoy frequent trading and taking risks, then you should develop a plan to put that into action. There are many resources to teach you how to read charts, but trading on a hunch is not a consistently profitable way to make money. If you want to make these types of plays you can earn a lot more through leveraged funds.


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

27? GO FOR IT, MY SON!!!!


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## Mookie (Feb 29, 2012)

gentlepuppies said:


> I've done next to no research on the stock market, and am making decisions purely from patterns in the graphs. Am I going on a dangerous path?


It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye (or their shirt in this case).

A friend of mine got into day trading during the .com bubble. He thought he was a rock star. Then it all went south, and he lost A LOT of money. Since then, his wife is so scared of the market that he's only allowed to put their money in GICs. 

First he lost on day trading, then he lost again by being stuck in GICs instead of equities for the past 15+ years.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I often hear people say that a young person, like a 27 year old, should take all kinds of crazy risks with their money because it's harmless. I disagree. I've known many people in my age group (when I was in my 20s) who blew away a lot of money gambling in the stock market. But think of the future value of that capital that they blew away.

If you have 50k today at age 27, even if you just invest it conservatively in a balanced fund, will be worth close to 250K by the time you retire.

In my opinion the sooner you start proper investing -- deciding on an asset allocation, figuring out the best vehicles to use, optimizing RRSP & TFSA for taxes, and properly tracking your performance -- the better, and there's a whole bigger payoff than any kind of stock gambling you could do.

I've been dabbling with stocks and options since I was 20, sometimes with big wins and other times big losses. But I only started properly investing in my 30s. I wish I was doing all the right things back in my 20s.


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

puppies - tell us how your'e doing today (friday) Everthing's UP!!! (I just made a quick $225US!!!)


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## hboy54 (Sep 16, 2016)

jargey3000 said:


> puppies - tell us how your'e doing today (friday) Everthing's UP!!! (I just made a quick $225US!!!)


Never understood this sell to lock in a gain business. I have a loss as of today in BTE because today's price is under my ACB of $5.60. End of.

Say I had sold BTE a few months back when it was over $7, and replaced it with another stock such that the other stock fell proportionately and the holdings in the other stock are equal in dollars to my BTE today. I would then have a gain booked on BTE, and a loss on the replacement stock for net dollar change of zero (less commissions of course). What does this accomplish other than 2 commissions for the bank? 

I guess some will need to lie to themselves and say they made money on one stock, while denying they lost on the replacement because you "only lose when you sell."

Similarly, I have a gain in other holdings because the market today is higher than ACB. Again I could have putzed around here with a bunch of other trades to donate to the bank at $10 a transaction.

Do yourself a favour people and think in mark to market terms. All day trading does on average is drip, drip $10 at a time into the coffers of the banks.

Find some stocks or ETFs you want to own long term and then aim to keep their weighting approximately constant. New money will necessitate a transaction cost, as will selling a winner down, and adding to a loser to bring it up. Long term, you won't need to make more than about a dozen transactions a year or $120.

BTW, I am a successful day trader. Or am I? Made $2400 on 2000 shares of EMA once when the shares were about $30. This was the Monday of some sort of flash crash and things were nuts about the first half hour, maybe 5 or 6 years ago. If I could have typed my buy order in faster, it could have been $5000 or more. Today the same shares are $45, and there have been dividends all these years.

hboy54


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

james4beach said:


> I often hear people say that a young person, like a 27 year old, should take all kinds of crazy risks with their money because it's harmless. I disagree. I've known many people in my age group (when I was in my 20s) who blew away a lot of money gambling in the stock market. But think of the future value of that capital that they blew away.
> 
> If you have 50k today at age 27, even if you just invest it conservatively in a balanced fund, will be worth close to 250K by the time you retire.
> 
> ...


Not only is it the loss of capital, it is the loss of time in the markets. I knew many people who lost $10-20k in the tech boom doing daytrading or investing in Nortel. Some of them have never returned to the markets. You can recover from losing $10-20k, but you can never get 10-15 years of compound growth back.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Good point. And what if it scares you away permanently from investing, after the trauma of being wiped out?


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

gentlepuppies said:


> This is all very new to me...
> I've done next to no research on the stock market, and am making decisions purely from patterns in the graphs. Am I going on a dangerous path?


I recommend you read William O'Neil's books, How to make money in stocks and other books. His handle on stock patterns is good. 
He is also good at teaching when to call it quits for a while, and when to get back in. When the music stops, you have to get out even if you take a loss, and stay out until the band plays again. All the horror stories of the last two crashes wiping out day traders is all due to them not realizing the music stopped. That's the number on thing one can learn from O'Neil. 

I think people should do what interests them. They will anyway, regardless of advice to the contrary. So if they will do it anyway, might as well point them to a good teacher. 
In the meantime, good luck.


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## gentlepuppies (Jan 17, 2016)

jargey3000 said:


> puppies - tell us how your'e doing today (friday) Everthing's UP!!! (I just made a quick $225US!!!)


This morning I bought $25K of AGI for $10.80, figured - purely from the graph - that it is bound to recover to at least $11.15 sometime today, then sold 30 minutes later at that price. $800!

In my 20/20 hindsight I could've made $1200, but instead I switched back to VFV, and went from 472 shares to 488 shares at $0.15 cheaper than when I sold them yesterday (but back to yesterday's price at day's end) - so how does "selling to lock in gains" not work in this case?


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## twowheeled (Jan 15, 2011)

you have certainly made profit, and if your interest is in frequent trading then don't let someone come along and convince you that buy and hold will save you $10 a transaction. But do establish some rules to follow and learn to protect yourself. For example if you knew from looking at the chart there was bound to be a rebound, then why not buy on margin or in the case of the S&P 500, use a leveraged ETF? The flip side is having an exit strategy if your analysis did not pay off, and you are staring at a $800 loss at the end of the day. 

And another caution I will say is don't value your profits and losses in terms of dollar amounts. It does not reflect the risk and the principal, and leads to emotional trading. What is $800? A lot of money to some people, more than a days wages. But the only thing you should be focused on is that it is 3.2% gain on your investment.


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

> figured - purely from the graph - that it is bound to recover to at least $11.15


 I like such statements 
Can you tell us what is "bound to recover to at least XX.XX" on Monday?!


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

gentlepuppies said:


> This morning I bought $25K of AGI for $10.80, figured - purely from the graph - that it is bound to recover to at least $11.15 sometime today, then sold 30 minutes later at that price. $800!
> 
> In my 20/20 hindsight I could've made $1200, but instead I switched back to VFV, and went from 472 shares to 488 shares at $0.15 cheaper than when I sold them yesterday (but back to yesterday's price at day's end) - so how does "selling to lock in gains" not work in this case?





gibor365 said:


> I like such statements
> Can you tell us what is "bound to recover to at least XX.XX" on Monday?!


You should really be juicing your gainz buying nearly expired OTM calls instead. Gets you like 50x leverage... mad fly returns. $800 barely even gets you 1 body part scanned in a MRI. You gotta go full body... minimum 2Gs.


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

If those gains would be so easy to get (just guts feeling looking at charts),stock market wouldn't exist


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## new dog (Jun 21, 2016)

You could probably be just as successful gambling at a casino. Do your homework follow the patterns of the games and go for it. Sure most everyone loses in a casino but I don't think it is all that different from day trading.

If you talk to someone who is a day trader or a gambler you probably hear the same story about all the money they made on various days. If you ask them about their losses though then you get the real picture and that is they have a problem.


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## mordko (Jan 23, 2016)

Any stock buying that is fun = bad deal. There are better ways of getting your entertainment, like buying dirty magazines or parachute jumping. Both activities have the added benefit of not leading directly to the poorhouse.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

Gentlepuppies don't listen to these cynical old men. If you have a flair for day trading go for it. Just don't commit more than you can afford to lose without wrecking yourself, you may have a great run of luck but luck has a way of running out.

In other words if a trade is not working be ready to close it out with a small loss before it turns into a big loss. Guys like you have made a lot of money day trading when the market was running right. Unfortunately most of them gave it all back when the market turned against them.

So, play safe and good luck.


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## Pluto (Sep 12, 2013)

The naysayers are probably going to be vindicated. But naysaying is like parents discovering their teen is sexually active and insisting the kid stops. It ain't going to happen. You are better off teaching how to avoid getting into serious trouble. 

My guess is that the naysayers don't know how to avoid serious trouble in trading other than not trading at all. But what if somone is already doing it, and isn't going to quit? Telling them to quit isn't going to help, especially if, it, like sex, is so much fun.


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

I remember Kae was going something similar and blogged his trades...did pretty good for a number of months till he didn't.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

If you decide to go ahead with daytrading, do yourself a favour and actually TRACK your performance. Be honest to yourself about how well you're doing.

If you continue to do it successfully, you'll have an excellent performance history to wave in everyone's faces.
If it starts going badly, your tracking will let you know it, instead of denial taking over and causing you to pour money down the toilet.


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## gentlepuppies (Jan 17, 2016)

^^Yeah I'm pretty realistic about calculating my return on effort. If I had just left my money in VFV these 2 weeks, I would've made $600 anyway. I'm only counting the extra $900 in additional shares that I ended up affording as a result of my trades, which costed $100, so my actual return is $800. Divided by about 2 hours of slacking at work... still worth it for now =D

I might look into the 3x S&P etfs, but there are no Canadian ones, so i'm not sure how much it'll cost me.


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

*I might look into the 3x S&P etfs*
I dont understand- what does that mean?


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

gentlepuppies said:


> I might look into the 3x S&P etfs, but there are no Canadian ones, so i'm not sure how much it'll cost me.


In Canada, there is HXU which gives about 2x the TSX performance, over short time periods.
http://www.horizonsetfs.com/ETF/HXU


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

james4beach said:


> In Canada, there is HXU which gives about 2x the TSX performance, over short time periods.
> http://www.horizonsetfs.com/ETF/HXU


ok. prob. not a good place for amateurs? rookies? to be


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## twowheeled (Jan 15, 2011)

gentlepuppies said:


> ^^Yeah I'm pretty realistic about calculating my return on effort. If I had just left my money in VFV these 2 weeks, I would've made $600 anyway. I'm only counting the extra $900 in additional shares that I ended up affording as a result of my trades, which costed $100, so my actual return is $800. Divided by about 2 hours of slacking at work... still worth it for now =D
> 
> I might look into the 3x S&P etfs, but there are no Canadian ones, so i'm not sure how much it'll cost me.


if your results are scalable you should be well on your way to a 40 hour week of $16k a week.


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

gentlepuppies said:


> ... Divided by about 2 hours of slacking at work...


Do you not consider this to be a problem?
Let's hope you are successful trading, after being fired you'll need a new source of income.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

Friend of mine made $140,000 day trading Nortel on the way up then lost 98% of his account riding it all the way down. I have no idea why he wouldn't buy and hold on the way up, but did on the way down. His explanation is it dropped so fast he had no chance to get out.

I suggest if day trading is working keep doing it, when things change step aside and stay in cash until you see how the wind blows. Just be aware that day trading only works some of the time and the market is not always going up.


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## mordko (Jan 23, 2016)

Your friend was cristallizing his gains and then didn't want to accept his losses. After all, it's only "paper losses" until you sell. Sticking ones head in the sand is how human psychology works. Every. Single. Time.


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## janus10 (Nov 7, 2013)

hboy54 said:


> Never understood this sell to lock in a gain business. I have a loss as of today in BTE because today's price is under my ACB of $5.60. End of.
> 
> Say I had sold BTE a few months back when it was over $7, and replaced it with another stock such that the other stock fell proportionately and the holdings in the other stock are equal in dollars to my BTE today. I would then have a gain booked on BTE, and a loss on the replacement stock for net dollar change of zero (less commissions of course). What does this accomplish other than 2 commissions for the bank?
> 
> ...


I don't trade stocks except very occasionally (and they are not intended to be buy and hold for me).

But, with commodities, I'm often in and out in hours to days. Rarely weeks. Oil, Gas, Natural Gas move far and fast almost on a daily basis.

Locking in a gain is far more pleasing than waiting for a long time as you see it go up and down, even if it's in your expected direction. You can make money on the ups and downs while others sit on their hands waiting for that ship to come in.

I also find the more money at risk the less likely I am to keep the trade on.


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

janus10 said:


> I don't trade stocks except very occasionally (and they are not intended to be buy and hold for me).
> 
> But, with commodities, I'm often in and out in hours to days. Rarely weeks. Oil, Gas, Natural Gas move far and fast almost on a daily basis.
> 
> ...


Where & how do you play that game janus? Can you offer any more info. - if someone is interested?


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## dubmac (Jan 9, 2011)

When I see threads with titles like this, I get worried. What did Benjamin Graham say? “while enthusiasm may be necessary for great accomplishments elsewhere, on Wall Street it almost invariably leads to disaster.”


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> Friend of mine made $140,000 day trading Nortel on the way up then lost 98% of his account riding it all the way down. I have no idea why he wouldn't buy and hold on the way up, but did on the way down. His explanation is it dropped so fast he had no chance to get out.


I think this is very typical for day traders. Lots of reasons:

- lack of a plan and lack of risk controls
- failure to back test your strategy especially against a bear market
- denial when seeing losses
- over optimism
- falling in love with a stock and not acknowledging it's become a turd
- failure to be critical of one's own approach
- failure to properly track performance

And as mordko says, many people think stock losses are just "paper losses" or temporary. They will wait, thinking if they just wait long enough the market will turn around.


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## TomB19 (Sep 24, 2015)

My irrational fear of day trading has kept me from making something of myself.


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## yyz (Aug 11, 2013)

jargey3000 said:


> Where & how do you play that game janus? Can you offer any more info. - if someone is interested?


Umm you buy the stock(s) and then hours or a few days later sell them, You can buy a stock and then turn right around and sell it right?


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## lonewolf :) (Sep 13, 2016)

When Prechter won the United States trading championships setting all time record in options division he had to lay in the fetal position due to the stress. Taking comfort with the herd is easier then making money as day trading is more popular @ the top of market manias as traders over stay their welcome


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

yyz said:


> Umm you buy the stock(s) and then hours or a few days later sell them, You can buy a stock and then turn right around and sell it right?


janus mentioned he buys & sells "commodities" - not stocks...


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## janus10 (Nov 7, 2013)

jargey3000 said:


> Where & how do you play that game janus? Can you offer any more info. - if someone is interested?


What I really like to do is use futures to put on a spread trade. I watch for consecutive future months (usually prompt and prompt +1) to see if either they are really wide or compressed based on recent history and trends. I then take the opposite position.

I also do this between WTI and Brent but using the same months.

For example last night I saw that in April contracts the Brent and WTI spread was compressed. I manually put on a position (intercommodity spreads are not typically something you can place an order for unlike futures or options spreads) at $2.11. I manually exited them this morning at an average of $2.34 as, just like i had predicted, the spread would widen.

That netted me a $5k profit. Then later I shorted RBOB gas Mar future at 9am and closed it right after Yellens comments caused an oil sell off.

So, for the fifth day in the last 8, I had more than a $5k profitable day.

I like using spreads, and almost always using the same number of contracts, because it is less risky than only taking a unidirectional position, it requires a fraction of the margin, and the percentage moves are higher.

This can only be done in a margin account. There may be a way to do the intercommodity spread through ETFs but I like to trade outside of normal market hours.

Natural Gas has pretty large moves compared to oil but I believe RBOB gas is even more volatile. I trade a lot smaller positions specifically because of the high volatility. With oil I trade the largest positions because it's relatively low volatility.

These trades are just me biding my time until we get that long awaited market correction that I'm hoping for.


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## janus10 (Nov 7, 2013)

lonewolf :) said:


> When Prechter won the United States trading championships setting all time record in options division he had to lay in the fetal position due to the stress. Taking comfort with the herd is easier then making money as day trading is more popular @ the top of market manias as traders over stay their welcome


I can believe that. I tried daytrading (in and out of multiple commodities several times a day while monitoring private chat where TA was discussed).

I had to stop. I was making money but it took a lot of energy and was too stressful. And commodities only stop trading for an hour a day and from Friday at 5 until Sunday at 6.

Not enough down time.


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## yyz (Aug 11, 2013)

jargey3000 said:


> janus mentioned he buys & sells "commodities" - not stocks...


And you really want to go there?


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## gentlepuppies (Jan 17, 2016)

twowheeled said:


> if your results are scalable you should be well on your way to a 40 hour week of $16k a week.


Too bad it's not scalable lol. I only trade when I see big jumps in my default stock to sell from and buy back at the end of the day, or huge drops in something else that I wanna buy for a few hours.


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## jargey3000 (Jan 25, 2011)

yyz said:


> And you really want to go there?


Umm..I dont think I said that, yyz.... you gotta learn to read posts more carefully ...


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## yyz (Aug 11, 2013)

jargey3000 said:


> Where & how do you play that game janus? Can you offer any more info. - if someone is interested?


Sorry I guess "someone" must be a friend


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## new dog (Jun 21, 2016)

Bought and sold CAM today. It took a huge dump this morning so I played a quick buck on it. I like to do this stuff mostly just to keep my accounts more active, otherwise I am just holding stuff and not trading very much.


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## jollybear (Jun 28, 2015)

I day trade the ES futures market, it can be profitable if you are willing to commit an incredible amount of time to it and have extreme discipline. Psychology, risk management and a solid base of technical analysis are essential. I spend over $500/month on advanced charting platforms and data feeds which need to be considered as well. 

I would suggest trading on SIM until you are able to consistently make money, then trade live, and only with capital you are willing to lose.


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## janus10 (Nov 7, 2013)

jollybear said:


> I day trade the ES futures market, it can be profitable if you are willing to commit an incredible amount of time to it and have extreme discipline. Psychology, risk management and a solid base of technical analysis are essential. I spend over $500/month on advanced charting platforms and data feeds which need to be considered as well.
> 
> I would suggest trading on SIM until you are able to consistently make money, then trade live, and only with capital you are willing to lose.


Would I be correct in assuming you prefer to focus on one primary derivative to trade, and master it, rather than to try and be relatively competent on several different investments?


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## jollybear (Jun 28, 2015)

janus10 said:


> Would I be correct in assuming you prefer to focus on one primary derivative to trade, and master it, rather than to try and be relatively competent on several different investments?



That is correct Janus10, it is difficult enough to master one market learning how it rotates, what players are participating that given day and what is on the economic calendar that day which may be a market mover. The ES futures market is the most popular and liquid for day trading but is also the most competitive, CL crude oil is more volatile(which may be a good thing for you) and the Nasdaq is also popular. Forex is a entire different world and very heavily traded as well.

You can experiment on SIM and find the market that best suits your style of trading and lifestyle. I prefer the ES because the hours in which bigger moves generally happen (8:30-11:00am CT and 2:00-3:00pm CT) I am available to trade as well as the wealth of information and support available online to help learn the market.

My response hardly scratches the surface of the day trading subject so I`ve attached a few links you may find useful. My biggest piece of advice I could give is that you must put in the time and become profitable on SIM first, then slowly move into trading real money, and then still expect to lose in the beginning. Day trading will expose every personality weakness you ( and everyone else) has which is why it takes time to slowly work through all the issues.

http://emini-watch.com/emini-trading/emini-futures/

This guy is one of the best in the business, so I`ve attached the link to his website. He has lots of information on utube as well.

https://futurestrader71.com/


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## gentlepuppies (Jan 17, 2016)

Ok day trading has lost its appeal for me! =( I sat on the sidelines all week because everything had gone way up over the past weekend and I was hoping it'll come back down first lol. If I buy VFV at its current price, i would have made only $500 since the beginning of the month.


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

Thanks for offering an update on your perspective. Its a big world, lots of ways and places to make - and lose - money, and fun finding out what 'turns your crank'.


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## janus10 (Nov 7, 2013)

jollybear said:


> That is correct Janus10, it is difficult enough to master one market learning how it rotates, what players are participating that given day and what is on the economic calendar that day which may be a market mover. The ES futures market is the most popular and liquid for day trading but is also the most competitive, CL crude oil is more volatile(which may be a good thing for you) and the Nasdaq is also popular. Forex is a entire different world and very heavily traded as well.
> 
> You can experiment on SIM and find the market that best suits your style of trading and lifestyle. I prefer the ES because the hours in which bigger moves generally happen (8:30-11:00am CT and 2:00-3:00pm CT) I am available to trade as well as the wealth of information and support available online to help learn the market.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the links and the info. I will check it out.

I don't think I qualify as a daytrader, but a person who buys and holds would probably disagree. As of yesterday (because the CME opened at 6pm), I've notched just over $40k in profits from energy trades this month, and probably half of the time I held positions overnight and sometimes (like now) over the weekend.

The past week I didn't follow my trade plan, but still came out quite profitable. I need to maintain unwavering discipline.

Next month should be quite slow as I will be on the other side of the world for almost all of it.


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## gentlepuppies (Jan 17, 2016)

I just lost 10K in KAT, roughly 1/6 of all my money (excluding condo equity). As a percentage of your life savings, has anyone done worse?

gonna go hang myself lol


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

Well, from what I see, you still have a glass that is 5/6 full!
And perhaps some motivation to revisit your financial plan which would include your investing/portfolio objectives?


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## Argonaut (Dec 7, 2010)

Well, that was quick.

That $10k was your stock market tuition. Now that you've paid you're not allowed to do anything dumb ever again.


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## mordko (Jan 23, 2016)

Let me get this straight... You put 30k, which constitutes half of your money into a commodity penny stock for one day? 

Can this story be true? Do people still do that? 

And if true, it's money well spent. Could have been worse.


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## new dog (Jun 21, 2016)

Play big at roulette and I think you have a much better chance at making money then going big on a penny stock.


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## zylon (Oct 27, 2010)

watz a penny stock?
is it cheeper then a dolla stock?
enguiree minds want too no>


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## jollybear (Jun 28, 2015)

Ouch! One of your primary objectives when trading is to be able to come back and trade the following day. If you are broke after 6 losing days I`d say your position sizing is completely off. DO NOT TRADE WITH MONEY YOU CAN`T AFFORD TO LOSE!!!


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

Speaking of position sizing... when you are speculating no one position should be more than 1% or 2% of your account and positions should not be too closely correlated. This is the rule for professionals, an amateur can be more chancy if we are talking about a $1000 play money account. But, losing 1/6 of your account on one trade means you are WAY overtrading.

On the positive side, are you still up money considering all the winning trades you had before?


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

If you were the worst buy-and-hold investor possible on KAT, and bought at the absolute high and then sold at the lowest price the stock traded afterwards, you would be out about 40%, not 83%.


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## lifeliver (Aug 30, 2010)

Did you have a stop loss and a trading plan for when to exit if things didnt go your way?


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## newfoundlander61 (Feb 6, 2011)

"Day trading is so fun! " and "So dangerous".


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## new dog (Jun 21, 2016)

Just for fun i watch gold and silver stocks in relation to the gold or silver price of the day.

One will notice that if gold and silver stocks are not confirming the up move like today it tells us that gold and silver will go down the next day usually.

Going into month end it stands to reason that the scammers want gold and silver up today so the specs will come to the long side. This way they can scam the specs by driving price down for month end.

Of course one never know for sure but it could be something to watch for day traders.


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## trance.god (Jun 8, 2016)

wow.. i just read this thread from the start and, boy, that sure got real dark, real quick...

Which I guess is not much of a surprise to any seasoned investor.


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