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In which time zone are you living?
How many hours of sleep are you getting every night?
From what I can gather your daily trading work schedule is as follows:
04:00EST (09:00 LONDON) -> 07:00EST (12:00 LONDON)
break
09:30EST -> 16:00EST
Is this correct?
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Back in the day i traded a european product just during US hours. I decided to go to europe for a few months so i could trade the whole european day and theoretically make twice as much. I ended up making a little less then i usually do while working twice as long, totally not worth it. My two cents, and its worth every penny, is to pick one or the other and get really good at it. Do you usually make more during london? Then choose that and rock it and forget about new york.
I read a research lately that was studying sleep patterns in relation to modern life toys/gadgets; and it was saying in summary that spending a lot of time in front of pc screens, tv screens, tablets, etc... lead us to sleep less and less due to exposure to continuous light source that disturb our natural biorhythm.
If you want to increase your sleep quality, set aside any medical problems of course, you need to reduce your exposure to screens especially before going to bed!
As applied to trading and traders in general, you have to go up into higher time frames, and swing 4hrs charts, daily, weekly, or if you can monthly chart too
It wouldn't matter if you are trading EU, US, or asian markets at that point.
Just chose your favourite instrument across the globe, and swing it.
Not relevant to your particular issue, and on a side note of course; I personally believe that it is better practice to trade higher time frames rather than scalping intraday for few cents here and there.
Of course to each trading style its positive and negative points, I am not going to go through this now, but I have found that your winning percentage and overall P&L increase a lot as you start trading high time frames.
Finally, if you are over leveraged, overtrading, overexposed to risk, and have a huge loss to recuperate - in brief if you are applying poor money management plans - then you will not find sleep at the correct natural and biological intervals, you will feel stressed but tired all day long with no energy, and after a period of time, at one point your body will just collapse and start to fall asleep despite your will and at strange hours.
If you are in canada, you should be naturally fully awake during the NY session regardless of your time zone, and why would you want to actively trade the London session? any fundamental reason behind it?
Just curious to know
Successful people will do what unsuccessful people won't or can't do!
I trade the same time as you and have been living in the states more recently so we are in the same time zone about. For me its about my commitment to trade the same time and same market every day. I get up and am ready at 0300 CST every day, it's become a routine. Its just about taking personal responsibility for your performance. You are your own boss so thats all up to you but so is the results that occur due to it.
I also use an acronym for stopping trading, it comes from poker actually. its called HALT, Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. If I have any one of those things i am going to take a break. But it doesn't mean I am going to just sleep in an miss my days cause i feel tired and no one is forcing me.
If NY has more opportunities, then it should be easier to trade as you can either be more selective, or if you trade with an edge, you will have higher distribution of positive returns.
Perhaps you mean London trades are less ambiguous? If so, perhaps you should avoid NY altogether, and increase size in London?
Basically it looks like you need to live your life in Canada like you if you were in London...
e.g. assuming an average of 8 hours of sleep: go to bed around 18:00 EST (23:00 London) and get up around 01:30 EST (06:30 London)...
You might want to check on sleep cycle too (for example: Each sleep cycle contains five distinct phases, which exhibit different brain- wave patterns. For our purposes, it suffices to say that one sleep cycle lasts an average of 90 minutes: 65 minutes of normal, or non-REM (rapid eye movement), sleep; 20 minutes of REM sleep (in which we dream); and a final 5 minutes of non-REM sleep. The REM sleep phases are shorter during earlier cycles (less than 20 minutes) and longer during later ones (more than 20 minutes). If we were to sleep completely naturally, with no alarm clocks or other sleep disturbances, we would wake up, on the average, after a multiple of 90 minutes–for example, after 4 1/2 hours, 6 hours, 7 1/2 hours, or 9 hours, but not after 7 or 8 hours, which are not multiples of 90 minutes. In the period between cycles we are not actually sleeping: it is a sort of twilight zone from which, if we are not disturbed (by light, cold, a full bladder, noise), we move into another 90-minute cycle. A person who sleeps only four cycles (6 hours) will feel more rested than someone who has slept for 8 to 10 hours but who has not been allowed to complete any one cycle because of being awakened before it was completed…. “)
To trade successfully you need to figure out this sleep issue first. Trading is hard enough.... Trading being tired/exhausted is asking for trouble... Good luck!
