Evening trading US shares

Many people have day jobs and believe they can't trade intra day because of their work.
However, the US closes at 9 pm UK time and many people are home by 7 pm to 7.30 pm
This means they can trade in the evening if they wish and gradually build up their knowledge and experience - and profits - and perhaps eventually give up the day job and trade full time.
Not everyone can do it, of course, but with determination and persistence it is possible to climb the learning curve for many people. That's up to the individual.

Some evenings it can be very difficult to find opportunities, other times they are everywhere.

Reasons for entries and exits are essentially reading sentiment as I've mentioned many times on the the "Trading the US........." thread.

Here are some examples showing the trades I did tonight, one loss (keep them small and you find them emotionally acceptable ), three wins, total profits 79c per share traded.

The idea of this thread is to show that the transition from doing an unsatisfactory day job to working for yourself from home is to do both in tandem in the early stages - steadily and safely is the way to go, in my opinion.

Richard


AMGN long 54.05
closed 54.33

for profit + 28

TASR long 32.78
closed 32.71
for loss - 7

BIIB long 59.01
closed 59.50

for profit + 49

YHOO long 34.07
closed 34.16

for profit + 9

I agree, but patience is required. I have found that 7pm is an excellent entry time- you have most of the day's position in front of you and often you can find excellent set-ups.I guess you'll need 30 mins preparation time.... If you don't see anything, DON'T trade!

Absolutely right.
I only ever go for the high probability trades. You are in this business to make money, not to take chances so if the opportunity doesn't present itself, walk away.
One of the basic errors is to feel you HAVE to trade - you don't, the market is always there tomorrow.

Richard

I haven't dealt in individual US shares but have taken positions in the Dow and S&P (with limited success). Are the trades you are refering to NASDAQ shares or are there opportunities to trade the above indices at around 7pm.

Cheers,
Mick

I agree Chartman 7pm is an excellent entry time.As you also say you've got a lot of the days move already in front of you so this is a big bonus in searching out potential movers.

As an example a $1 run with 300 shares is $300 profit.With ib and Tradestation the commission would be $3 in and $3 out.

The attachment shows an evening move from another day with a dollar run which might be of help.Of course it should also be said that this type of trading is not for everyone and like any type of trading losses can occur.

Hi Mick,

I dont know about the others but i'm talking about Nasdaq shares .

MIK1973
Those trades were nasdaq shares.
It's worth remembering that if you trade indices or their futures, you essentially have a very tiny number of choices. You might not find decent moves to trade. With shares you have thousands to choose from so the probability of finding decent moves is infinitely better..
I use scanners as well as the stocks on my daily radar list to find the opportunities to make money by finding and trading those movers.
Richard

Thanks for your replies, unfortunately i'm not able to open an IB account (in order to trade the Nasdaq effectively), owing to limited resources but was curious as to which markets you were referring to.
Cheers,
Mick

You don't need a lot of money to trade nasdaq. You can trade with cfds but you do need to only go for bigger swings, not quickies, so they are far from ideal. Alternatively you can open an acct with IB with little money and do 3 day trades in five days - that's a good way to get started. I've also seen posts on t2w about UK firms avoiding the US regs and enabling UK citizens to day trade much more.
With will and determination there's often a way round problems.
Richard

Thanks for your response Richard. I'm currently trading (using a SB). Could you give an indication what funds would be required to open:
A) A CFD account
B) IB account (ref the three trades in five days)

Is there a reliable CFD provider which offers competitive (read low) spreads in order to trade the Nasdaq? I have researched trading this market but the financial implications have always been the obstacle.

Cheers,
Mick

A) Forget CFDs the spreads are too wide for such tactics.
B) You will get 50% margin if you have less than $25,000 in your account. Get over $25,000 and you get 25%

For example a $10,000 account could buy/sell $20,000 worth of share
A $30,000 account could buy/sell $120,000 of shares

Given that most stocks trade in the $10s you need to be trading 1000+ shares of each stock to make a living.

To just try out IB you could open an account with the minimum balance plus a bit for losses etc.

JonnyT

Mr. Charts said:

MIK1973
With shares you have thousands to choose from so the probability of finding decent moves is infinitely better..
I use scanners as well as the stocks on my daily radar list to find the opportunities to make money by finding and trading those movers.
Richard

Click to expand...

When you trade US stocks, at what point does liquidity become a problem? I currently trade the eminis and the Euro FX contract so volume isn't a problem for me. I'm looking to do the same as you and start trading US shares using Tradestation RadarScreen and IB. In your experience, when does slippage and not getting fills become a problem in terms of shares traded per day? Are there really thousands of US stocks with enough volume?

Many thanks,

Brendan

mik1973,
I have had "offers" from companies to promote their services to those I coach and I have refused. I am someone who trades for my family's living and also does some coaching which I really enjoy. I am not "for sale" to anybody so I won't recommend anyone or get involved in debates about companies.
If you want to PM me I will tell you who I use and why I am happy with them. Information about IB is available on their website.

Brendan,
I only trade liquid stocks so the problem simply doesn't arise. However there are occasions when, for example, you might want to short 1000 or 2000 shares and there is not enough on the bid to fill all your order down to your limit price, so you might end up with a partial fill, say 1300. I always then pull the remaining order for 700.
HTH
Richard

Richard

Mik1973, bdholmes.

If you require any assistance openning an account with IB,
please feel free to contact me.

A) Forget CFDs the spreads are too wide for such tactics..

Click to expand...

True, but it can be done successfully. I have traded nadsaq stocks since september with CFD's very profitably. Not as profitable or as efficent as i would have done with DA but i'm still taking the cream.

NB

Good on ya Bomber ;-0
Richard

Thanks for your advice people- it is appreciated. Phil (newton), sent you an email a couple of weeks ago- received info through post -many thanks.

Mick