Day trading is dead article

[SanMiguel]

% commissions are not all that relevant if you can be a consistent winner.
If you swing trade you can get 1-2% commissions but larger losses too. It's important to understand your own tolerances. Each trader is different.

Peter

Sure, but you'd still make a lot more with lower comms.
Speaking of which, why can't we have a FX world where we can trade limit orders and do away with the spread and only pay commissions?

 

[FX Bandit]

Moves are certainly more erratic but FX, being more liquid, has been a lot easier to manage for me than trading the YM and ES in the last few months. Granted I could have just bought and been done with trading for the year

The volume has just dried up recently which is a sign that some of the article is true because HFTs are just driving it up like before the Flash Crash.

I've found YM to be incredibly simple. Price action works as always.

Discipline and patience are hard as ever, but YM in my opinion has been almost unbelievably predictable.

 

[EmotionIsTheBigEvel]

Sure, but you'd still make a lot more with lower comms.
Speaking of which, why can't we have a FX world where we can trade limit orders and do away with the spread and only pay commissions?

It's called the future market

That's why I am not comfortable trading FX and I trade the EUR/Dollar future, low commisions, no strange spread and a nice last trade price on which you can make descisions!:clap:

 

[Prawnsandwich]

The article is over-simplistic in its definition of daytrading - in reality there a much wider variety of day trading approaches ranging from bid / offer scalping right up to trades which are actually put on till close. Technical analysis is treated as one specific approach.

As long as there is liquidity in the markets, and news / company events such as earnings,upgrades, there will be patterns forming to suit most participants trade criteria, particularly in stock markets.

 

[Depth Trade]

The article is over-simplistic in its definition of daytrading - in reality there a much wider variety of day trading approaches ranging from bid / offer scalping right up to trades which are actually put on till close. Technical analysis is treated as one specific approach.

As long as there is liquidity in the markets, and news / company events such as earnings,upgrades, there will be patterns forming to suit most participants trade criteria, particularly in stock markets.

Will have to agree, still the same game.

 

[Splitlink]

Is that article full of irrelevant, meaningless bullsh1t on purpose?

Is it your purpose on this site to go on any thread and call it all a load of rubbish? It seems that everywhere I go you take this negative approach to anyone's views. I would not mind if your alternative was constructive, in some way, however small.

 

[DionysusToast]

Day Trading is dead?

Someone should tell that to the people who were trading CDTID yesterday...

Or the people trading TZOO on 22nd or 25th or even the 26th. Or ATHN on 25th or 26th.

Simply by looking on http://www.finviz.com/ to see the highest movers up/down one day and then putting them on your watchlist the next would have given you some fantastic opportunities.

Of course, this is just an example. A CURRENT example.

 

[SanMiguel]

Day Trading is dead?

Someone should tell that to the people who were trading CDTID yesterday...

Or the people trading TZOO on 22nd or 25th or even the 26th. Or ATHN on 25th or 26th.

Simply by looking on http://www.finviz.com/ to see the highest movers up/down one day and then putting them on your watchlist the next would have given you some fantastic opportunities.

Of course, this is just an example. A CURRENT example.

When do you get in though?
I think a lot of people not in the day trading game assume that day trading was just buying in the dot com boom. TBF the article talks about a lot of day trading methods including scalping the order book, which very well could be difficult against computers that work faster than humans but some people are scalping it successfully. We can still read volume created by computers and go with them...they are programmed by people after all - not to mention the fact that the algos have to be redesigned anyway. I suspect if ZeroHedge have their way that the time delay between bids and offers being submitted and cancelled will be increased in the near future anyway - a lot of people lobbying about HFT at present.

 

[gooseman]

for day trading the spread matters. try getting anything decent in clean diesel yesterday....zip chance

no doubt day trading is becoming more difficult. whipsaw city

 

[DionysusToast]

When do you get in though?
I think a lot of people not in the day trading game assume that day trading was just buying in the dot com boom. TBF the article talks about a lot of day trading methods including scalping the order book, which very well could be difficult against computers that work faster than humans but some people are scalping it successfully. We can still read volume created by computers and go with them...they are programmed by people after all - not to mention the fact that the algos have to be redesigned anyway. I suspect if ZeroHedge have their way that the time delay between bids and offers being submitted and cancelled will be increased in the near future anyway - a lot of people lobbying about HFT at present.

If my understanding of technology is correct, computers do not hold opinions.

On the 25th (I think it was) TZOO came from it's open of 34.54 down to 34.03 but couldn't break the whole number. Was it computers that moved it up $2.77 from that point or people with opinions?

If you totally took the computers away and had no humans making buying selling decisions - how volatile would the markets be?

One of my holdings - COCO has been battered but has something like 28% short. If the earnings next week (or the DOE announcement) is very positive and price rises enough - what will happen to the price if those shorts run for cover?

My opinion is that your an opinion is probably the one edge you will always have over computers.

 

[Splitlink]

If my understanding of technology is correct, computers do not hold opinions.

On the 25th (I think it was) TZOO came from it's open of 34.54 down to 34.03 but couldn't break the whole number. Was it computers that moved it up $2.77 from that point or people with opinions?

If you totally took the computers away and had no humans making buying selling decisions - how volatile would the markets be?

One of my holdings - COCO has been battered but has something like 28% short. If the earnings next week (or the DOE announcement) is very positive and price rises enough - what will happen to the price if those shorts run for cover?

My opinion is that your an opinion is probably the one edge you will always have over computers.

You have to have a lot of opinions to day trade and most of them must be right.

It seems to me that we are talking scalping here. I day, or better said, morning trade and opened a long on Footsie this morning at 0817 for 5661.3. It's still open but I almost, called it a day at the reversal at 1025, while I would have been still in profit, but I didn't and at present I'm ok.

One opinion, bullish, I had this morning because the daily bar chart had a low resting on an a rising average. That one was right but if I had sold when I got nervous I would have been wrong and the more opinions you have, the more risks you run.

 

[SanMiguel]

Day Trading is dead?

Someone should tell that to the people who were trading CDTID yesterday...

Or the people trading TZOO on 22nd or 25th or even the 26th. Or ATHN on 25th or 26th.

Simply by looking on http://www.finviz.com/ to see the highest movers up/down one day and then putting them on your watchlist the next would have given you some fantastic opportunities.

Of course, this is just an example. A CURRENT example.

On that note, wouldn't you think that a stock that had moved 85% the day before might be due for a reversal?
Sometimes, I look at stocks that are building in volume but haven't had the move yet.

 

[Black Swan]

for day trading the spread matters. try getting anything decent in clean diesel yesterday....zip chance

no doubt day trading is becoming more difficult. whipsaw city

Yep..

 

[wackypete2]

for day trading the spread matters. try getting anything decent in clean diesel yesterday....zip chance

no doubt day trading is becoming more difficult. whipsaw city

whipsaw, yes.
difficult , yes.
impossible, no.

It takes time and effort to day trade. For most people swing trading is better for health and peace of mind.

Peter

 

[Dubai]

Liquidity is picking up in spot forex, so as long as the liquidity is around, I can't see how day trading can be 'dead'?

Agree with the first few posts that the author has simply failed at day trading and now says it's impossible so no one else can succeed.

 

[Splitlink]

I don't know whether he has failed at our level , or not. One or two here seem to be doing alright. I'm ok, myself, but we are individuals working for ourselves. for the most part. What's it like working as a professional and having to come up with a target every day?

My overheads are minimal, just a PC at home. Once you start putting office overheads into the equation the operation becomes more complex.

I, certanly, think that the more trades there are, per session, The more one comes up against very sophisticated software which, if it did not get you the first time, could well do it the second. I try not to make frequent trades.

 

[Dubai]

I don't know whether he has failed, or not. One or two here seem to be doing alright. I'm ok, myself, but we are individuals working for ourselves. for the most part. What's it like working as a professional and having to come up with a target every day?

No idea but most hedgefunds seem to shoot for 20-30% per annum and a lot don't get there.

 

[spy74]

check out this guy's rebuttal to the "day trading is dead" article - some well written words if I may say so...

http://blog.t3live.com/2010/10/mike-lee-answers-all-day-trading-is-not.html