I really prefer day trading. The waiting time for swing or position trading is too much for me. But my job is trying to change my trading system.
I only have about 30min to day trade between 7am to 4:30pm.
What do you think I do??
What time zone are you in?
Long-term trading can be done with very little screen time and very little decision-making. Its just that all the decisions are made before you even open the position. In fact, you never actually open a position in real time, you set an entry order and if price passes through the level of the order you are in - if it doesn’t, the order is not triggered.
Decide the set-up, and recognise it when it prints. The set the entry order, stop-loss and TP orders and go away from the screen until tomorrow night, then do the same all over again.
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I think it’s common to think like this to start with - also believe its the complete wrong way to be thinking.
When u are knee deep in day trading losses - from over riding your trading rules, holding losers far too long, knee jerking to every blip up and down, panicking over every news release, losing money too quickly for your comfort, making money too quickly for your comfort - causing excess euphoria which in turn leads to larger losses…
Then you might not be quite so scared of holding a position for more than one day.
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As stated above, there are ways and means to trade successfully. I spend one hour deciding if I have any trades that have a good probability of success. Think in percentages, never money.
Then either place an order or open the trade with built in S/L & T/P and forget it until the next morning. It’s boring but saves an emotional heart attack if you accept what will be will be.
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Proper use of take profit and stop loss
Why, exactly, is this “too much”? Is it psychological? concerns about carry costs? or what?
I don’t see how you can day-trade consistently and successfully with only a 30-minute window of access to markets. Markets do not move according to our own convenience.
Do you not have any access to markets or price charts outside your 7am to 4:30pm period?
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Yes I do.
I can analyse trade outside the time window (7am to 4:30pm) but based on my time zone GMT+1, that time range is the most liquid period for trading.
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Trade the PM session in futures
Look right now price is retracing higher in ES
I’m looking at scenarios to get me short
Expect volitivity at this time always for the futures PM session
Look at the volatility !!
Just don’t shoot me down on direction… yet lol
The key thing is there is opportunities to trade volatile markets outside your time zones
Liquidity is not an issue in forex markets during the European/US sessions. But, yes, that time window is certainly good for price movements.
However, I think it is too restrictive and “claustrophobic” to think of just trading for a 30min period within that time window. Maybe the only method suited to that would be scalping but that would require rapid position taking for very small rewards. You might catch part of a good move sometimes but not enough to ensure consistency over a period of time.
But day-trading does not need to be intensive, stressful and require staring at a screen and taking streams of trades. Personally, I would suggest you look at the above advice from @Tommor and try applying that to day-trading.
In other words, look at your charts at EOD or early European morning and decide what you think may happen during the day - which way, where to enter, where to set your target and where to place the stop. Most platforms will allow you to add the stop and target levels to the GTC entry order so that they are placed as soon as the trade is executed (if at all).
You can then use your intraday 30mins to review and maybe reset the trade/order details or set a new order. You can then close all the positions and orders (if still open) before the end of day to keep it as a day trade.
This is all just a personal suggestion of one way to approach your situation and there are certainly other approaches - none of them are “right” or “wrong”, it just depends of what suits your time and access constraints and type of instruments your are interested in trading.
My aim is simply to help spark some thoughts and inspiration of how you could handle your trading opportunities.
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It all depends on your trading style. If you are doing it and happy with the trades then kudos to you!
If your job prevents you from being able to place the trade then why stress about the time it takes to reach a swing or position trade. Not like you’re sat around trying not to trade. You physically can’t.
Don’t know if your markets, instruments or broker allow for it but trading by bot solved a similar problem for me.
I’m from Mexico and I always trade in London session, never in NY session. From 23:00 to 00:00 of my local time (GMT -5) I analize the pairs I’m interested, if I see a good setup I leave limit and stop orders to be executed in London session (opens 2 or 3 hours after I went to sleep), I wake up, I just inspect my account before NY opens, if trades are still running I close them manually; usually NY counters London trends.
You don’t need much time to analize the market, you could sacrifice 1 hour of sleep or go to bed earlier to wake up earlier, analize the market, put your pending orders and forget about checking upto NY opens when major chances occurs, or simply leave it to the fate of SL/TP after you get home and just check what was successful or failure.
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I’m in South Africa, just wanted to about this trading session time, London, New York their time and South Africa time. Please
I totally agree with tommor
unfortunately the market won’t adapt to your time-window since they don’t care about you. YOU are the one who should adapt. Trading is not only a number game, it’s has a lot to do with someone’s personality and lifestyle. As you haven’t got that time, you can’t be a day trader. Being a day trader is not only choosing a pair and take some trades. It’s all about managing the trade close and reopen during the whole day and there you go, you haven’t got the time. So try changing your style into swing traading, check some lessons of Babypip’s school of pipsology and maybe if you get sucessfull on the long term, you can quit your job and restart as a day trader.
The other thing you can do is waking up earlier and open a trade and close it before you go to sleep but I guess this won’t work well.
It’s a tough one as you’ve ruled out higher time frames . Go lower and scalp perhaps ?