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If you think you have an edge - just make a statistic of every weekday.
Observe your results and scratch the weekdays with bad results.
Get to know your markets by heart. (Best to stay with one instrument).
Stick to your plan - never revenge trade to get "better" results.
Only take what your market can give you.
Optimize your stop levels (with backtesting).
If your outcome is still positive over a lengthy time then:
1) Reduce your trades to the most positive days / hours of a day etc.
2) LEARN when NOT to trade!
I repeat: Learn when NOT to trade....
That helps to reduce any larger drawdown and negative emotions.
You will see a massive gain of your skills - that make your decisions
even easier.
even if you have a edge that does not mean you can keep it. look who you are trying to out trade. big banks, brokers, goldman sacs. ect. ect. that is why trading vendors are selling trader stuff . they failed and started selling treasure maps. if you can not beat them join them. you know more than most vendors. selling courses and software is easier.. good lucky buddy ..you have sand
It all depends what is the 'edge' and how easy it is to 'kill' it.
Is your edge :
- Technical, like speed, we all know this becomes more and more difficult, as connectivity gets commoditized
- Computing power, with cloud and cuda, this is also an aria that is being leveled-out
- Feature insight, with massive computer power and data scientists working on the subject, this has also
been an area with dropping returns
- Personally (my forté) I do believe AI is the next still largely untapped wave for trading, it will last
as long as it will last... weekly some parties are banging on my door for a chat on this topic...
Personally i believe more in an edge that is build on market / auctioning dynamics, intrinsic's and
the rock bottom question , why an asset class is moving (rising or dropping), rather than
indicator (=noise based) trading, people tend to forget this...
Keep in mind that, even if you have 10 different edges, none of them is all-mighty
they are just a statistical probability, helping in selecting in which is the next trade
to take and which is to be skipped...
they do not pay commissions so to speak, they know where the larger trade size is coming from and how often there correct. they know where large and small stops are. they know what large players are doing. they know how to trade the spreed between the cash market and futures. when it is out of balance. there news wire and now how to trade that is better than ours. there IT connection is above the exchange. they have level 3 data. and on and on. swing trading takes away a lot of that built in advantage. i do not agree with the other guy. put the SP futures on weekly chart add 50 day ema. trade every pull back to moving average ..stop 1.5 weekly ATR target 3 times that. she how you would have done
An edge based on commission (< 1 tick) is not an edge i think
It is a mechanism of a party not knowing what to do, unable to take a good position
just able to ride the wave and rip pennies...
To me, an "edge" is an algo, or set of mechanical rules backed by historical data. Then, throw in experience, execution skills, and confidence. They all go together. If I'm following some set of rules with all of the discipline in the world, but the rules don't provide positive expectancy, or I start to experience a draw-down, I will start to doubt myself and/or the trading rules. Once I do that, my discipline goes down, I start tweaking, modifying, trying to adapt, but in a way that I'm not sure is the right way to go. With backtested data, I will have the confidence to wade through the drawdowns long enough to come out ahead eventually. The data keeps me confident and disciplined.
As for the OP, it takes a lot of courage to move admit these things publicly. Trading is not for everybody, especially day trading, which is the hardest type of trading. People are drawn to day-trading for all of the wrong reasons. You don't need to generate a daily income with day trading. You can't force daily income out of the market: you can only take what the market gives you and be ready when it does. The fact that you are trying to live off of your trading income is causing undue pressure to force the market to give you an income. You should keep a job and trade part-time, not depending on any trading gains to pay your bills. This will alleviate the pressure to make money every day or every week and you can focus on the process of becoming a good trader instead of focusing on the expected results of trading, whether you're good or not at it.
You can provide consistent monthly income, received at different times of the month, and that could be enough. I have some intra-day trading strategies that I've automated but they don't trade anything lower than a 15min time frame so I stay above the noise. I also swing trade stocks and options, usually holding for 1-10 days. I also sell option premium and manage the risk until it's time to cover and buy it back on the cheap. It's a nice trifecta of income streams that provide me some nice extra cash when I need it, like taking my family on nice vacations, big home improvement projects, sports car upgrades, etc. Or, you can take your gains and move them into other investments like real estate, etc. However, I don't depend on it to pay my bills. If I'm in a drawdown, it's OK, it's not my only income stream, it's only my luxury lifestyle income stream. If the stream is not coming in for a certain period, I cut back on luxuries and I still get by just fine.
Also, yes, you do need to be well-capitalized, especially to spread things out across so many asset types and trading strategies. It's just a reality you can't ignore.
