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Should I ditch day trading efforts for trend following?
I find longer-term trading to be eminently more satisfying and understandable. Also day trading is just not possible for me with my schedule. Find out what works for you. Which do you like more?
You have to go with your personal preference.... not to mention day trading is the hardest and the most competitive type of trading as the potential rewards are huge.
You are never in the wrong place... but sometimes you are in the right place looking at things in the wrong way.
Traders who are on the top of food pyramid doesn't seem to be day-trading.
I find day-trading mysterious but am not able to convince myself to exit day trading either.
a)Day trading seems to provide plenty of opportunity and compounding of wealth but there seems to be no fortune-500 list day traders (except HFT traders).
b)Big traders seems never to touch day trading, for instance Jesse Levermore vehemently opposed it as over trading and said he made his money by 'sitting' rather day-trading frantically.
I believe only one of (a) or (b) can be true for discretionary traders.From my intuition and gut feeling, day trading is a trap for most discretionary traders no matter how smart/disciplined the person is.
I am looking for convincing mathematical argument to ditch day trading.
Please correct me if my intuitions are wrong.
Just by the 'quality of life' argument, higher time frame trading gets a massive thumbs up over day trading.
"I find myself profitable when my holding period is bigger than few days, but day trading seems to be just not working for me."
It rarely matters what works for other people - part of trading successfully is recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses. If you earn more holding positions longer you should probably let that winner run
I think you do not understand the concept of trend following or maybe I created a new one.
The idea is not a time frame but direction of trend.
Give you an example:
Say you day trade. Your educated guess telling you the trend is going down. It means you can only sell, because you are a trend follower. If the market ranging then and it goes up you just leave it overnight. Remember again you are a trend follower. You can day trade, short time trade and long time trade and you still be a trend follower because you only follows the trend.
I've found this concept is working. You follow the trend but if there is an opportunity you trade during a day as well.
Lower the time frame, I find higher the whipsaws, take instruments like crude oil.
Price spikes and whipsaws often seem to throw a day trader off the game easily.
When the market is trending in hourly-day time frame, I often settle for scalpers profit because of the small holding period. One could say 'then hold your positions longer' but for a scalper the trend is evident only much later when he zooms out the chart and usually in hindsight.
Thanks guys for your time and inputs. Have been reading about mathematical underpinnings of trend following and scalping in internet, currently am trying to understand concepts like 'divergent risk taking vs convergent risk taking'. Once my mind settles on this issue will update the thread again, until then feel free to share your views here.