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But this swing vs day trade question, begets other questions which should be considered. Why trade outright instead of spread or pairs trading? Why futures instead of options?
I've found each time I dial down the time frame, my account starts to shrink and the broker starts laughing all the way to the Bank.
Then when I dial the time frames back up again I notice the reverse is true.
Unfortunately the Ego appears to like the lower timeframes a lot....
What seems to work for me is to pull up the longer time frame charts and then deliberately and slowly start doing a lot of Mindfulness-type things like carefully drawing up the charts with some trend lines, accurately marking the HH's, HL's etc, really focusing on the meaning of each candle and of course remembering to breathe again !... and so on.
then quite quickly Ego quietens down quite a lot and... before I know it... more Dineros end up in my account than before!
Strange I've always throught and experienced the opposite
In my view, one starts as swing trader, and then trenscend to the day trading endeavor...
If you are swing trading, you have static candlesticks to watch and analyse. This gives you plenty of time also as the market more often than not is closed and you are under considerably less stress.
Also, if you miss the entry by few ticks or points you can still make it as the target or swing range is generally wide enough to compensate.
Day Trading on the other hand is exactly the same technique and logic that one uses for swings except that you have to be faster and a little bit more accurate. Well this is the case at least for me. And the most difficult for me is watching the candle form, as it takes intermediate shapes sometimes that could make you feel impatient to wait for the closure of that candle and that sometimes doesn't work.
In my mind, if it takes 10min for the candle to complete, then you have 10min to take your decision and execute your plan; 3 minutes if you are trading 3min charts and so on, while clearly a daily chart gives you one day of time, a weekly one week of time and as such I have more time to analyse examine, draw, annotate, review, etc...
You guys can probably differentiate, but with all honesty, if I am handed a candlestick chart without its legend, I would find it really hard to impossible knowing or guessing whether it is a minute chart, a daily or a weekly representation of the data.
So I guess, this brings me to say, that for me the difference between day trading and swing trading is just a matter of time framing as I apply the same logics, tools, methodology and trade management for everything I do in the markets from futures to options to equities or forex.
I swing trade analysing the daily/weekly/monthly chart always at bar close; and I day trade analysing the 10min/60min/daily charts of course at bar close too.
Successful people will do what unsuccessful people won't or can't do!
Actually, I agree with you Fadi. I started as a swing trader, then a daytrader, then again as a better swing trader whilst remaining a daytrader. For me swing trades are an extension of my daytrading.
I believe in trading the HIGH PROBABILITY MONEY BALL SETUP whether it is a swing trade setup pattern over days or an intraday setup pattern over minutes.
I know this thread is a bit old but i came across the video with Matt the other day & my ears pricked up at what you said about day vs swing trading, i knew there would be a thread on it.
My journey so far has lead me to drill further down into day trading with the allure of risk control and instant gratification, you make interesting points about the common reasons and fell aligned with them, i have read very good reasons for & against each method but I'm yet to see clearly the reason why it is less risky to swing trade, with out real live profitable experience in both genres i say the following after reading this thread, there is immediate intensity with day trading but ends the moment you close down for the day, with swing trading i hear the pressure can be a constant and daily as long as you have a trade on away from the desk, which could account for ones personal experience as opposed to a required view in order to be profitable, myself, once i shut down i'm switched off and relieved, an experience veteran beginner!
My preference would be to have a hybrid of swing"n"day trading in fact it was my intention when i migrated to Futures but given i lost everything in the GFC i felt i had no choice but to start off small meaning, risk only 5-8 tick loss per trade as opposed to 5 to 20 points on the ES, which is my limited belief of how swing trading would be compared to Day trading
So why isn't every one who is day trading profitably and uses PA as an entry method entering trades at the critical points of market reversals (given that's the/their edge") trade into the swing at a day trading level for minimal risk with runners for the duration of the swing,
if there are people doing this who are they, as that is what I've come to learn at futures.io (formerly BMT)! is there a thread besides this one or a journal you know of?
A request i wanted to make of you was, could you demonstrate on a chart the reason why you feel the way you do about people coming into the market wanting to become Futures day traders vs the easy option according to you and swing trade, i want to understand and compare the entry & carry risks, besides the emotional ones.
i can't think of an example right now but i'm sure you have the experience to create a point of view for further discussion, will you do this for us/me?
Cheers Angelo`
"If you believe you CAN, OR believe you CAN'T, you're RIGHT!"
i'm fairly new here at futures.io (formerly BMT), so I hope that i am posting properly.
i have been day trading for 15+ years. i would love to swing trade. however, for me anyway, it is a matter of exposure and what unscheduled news or event may occur while you're off and enjoying life. sure, we have our stops. however, anyone ever had price go against you and blow right through your stop? try living with that on 50-100 cars. markets in general are not predictable in an absolute sense for me and that includes intraday moves at times.
with that said, if i could find a way to swing-out for a 3-5 day period (at first) i would welcome it. most likely it's a psychological barrier for me.
@trendfinder, im confused. In the above quote you mention day trading for 15+ years. Yet in the below post where you introduce yourself to the forum, it sounds as if you're brand new to trading.
yes darkpooltrader, i can see how it would appear confusing.
i am referring to investigating and learning/testing the price action trader method. i have been putting it off.
i feel this may simplify and improve the quality (stress, etc.) for my trading day. over time, my charts have become too cluttered with indicators and the mental strain of constantly making the rounds of looking at them has become too much.
the thread i posted in was day trading .vs. swing trading. which would really be ideal for me at this point. for now, i must stick with intra-day moves and flat at the EOD.
I day traded options for 2 years before I moved to swing trading equities with shares full time.
Put it this way, my nerves couldn't handle putting large amounts of capital on multiple times a day every trading day. The instant feedback loop lost it's attractiveness. I noticed my method worked the same on longer time frames, I mean after all a chart is a chart is a chart ..... whether 5min or daily. So I decided to work "smarter not harder" by moving to swings trades. Also tax season is much simpler.
With swing trading I can capture bigger portions of moves without needing the extreme precision of a day trader. So many days I can recall where it felt like I was trying to cram trades in a phone booth. Liquidity can be a real issue. The drawback is obviously overnight influence that you can't do anything about and time opportunity costs for parking your capital much longer.
The instant feedback loop of day trading though was hard to transition from. Swing trading takes some zen level patience that I wasn't used to at first. Especially days where big money is absent from the market and the day traders are screwing with everything. Then there are those times where I get caught staring too much at the intraday charts as my position is fiddle faddling around. If I pre-set my stops and targets, none of that nonsense should matter.
