A refined passion. Let's share your day trading strategies that work.

Mahnken said:
I'm not sure anyone's trying to beat the market. Just taking the opportunity the market gives you to make some money.

I have zero interest on paying out the ass to further education in a career that is burning me out to barely increase my income.

Day trading actually interests me. I actually look forward to doing the work needed to become profitable.

I don't see why someone that is extremely successful with trading wouldn't be posting here. Plenty of folks that trade ride bikes I'm sure, lol.
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I’m not even saying that I am successful, I will say my accounts are green after several couple years that they were very red. Trading is 95% emotions. If you can reverse your emotions, you can go from red to green consistently. Instead of shorting stock, and putting your stop in the stock and put your stop where you would’ve ventured short. Marketmakers don’t use traditional numbers to enter positions. If they made it easy, everyone would be rich. I don’t want to invest long-term other than my annuity and IRA. Not sure I could stomach Holding Tesla from $1000 share $100 a share and back. Use Mike strategy as an example after the.com bubble it was $.48 cents per share last week at 550 per share. I agree agree with what @Mahnken said. This is interesting for me. I have no interest in going to Atlantic City or Las Vegas and gambling. I have no interest in gambling on DraftKings. Just because most people are not successful at something. It does not tell the whole story. The reason for lack of success is the percentage of those 97% or simply gambling. I’m reading charts learning chart learning volumes learning emotions and trying to actually get an edge. Will you ever be 100% right?. Can 10 times theory work?. I think the two ways that it can work Would be if you use spy calls by zero day or one day to expiration options one dollar above current price after a daily. You may get lucky and stop and get more than 100% but in reality you should at least lock in 100% before. One through two years were you long without the money SPY call options after SPY tags the 50 day moving average or 200 day moving average. This would take extreme disciplined and that’s not what I have at the moment.
 
Dave Taylor said:
If you were not ignorant, you would read the whole thing. I did not say I could beat the market yet. You’re right, that was too isolated wins within a month. If I could do two more of those in a year that beats the market for this year easily. I created this post for education, not to say I’m a millionaire. My goal is success at daytrading. I also stated that most daytraders lose because they are just gambling. You can actually learn how markets move and the emotions behind them and have success.
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OK - since you challenged me, I went back and read it.
WRT the line about losing, i'm glad you put that in - cause most people leave that part out - just like the great horse racing handicappers
that make more money selling their opinion than they do at the track.

Here is my take on what you said - let's start with you and how you mentioned emotions -
You make the claim you are moving towards the winner's circle of this thing.

I've seen the pics of you on the motorcycle - doing absolutely amazing things.
You need to 100% believe in yourself and your work effort
You don't just go for the end trick - there is a progression, and you mastered all the them before going big.
You hit the trick - win the day, get paid.
what i'm getting at is you have confidence you can do this well - because you believe in you and the work you put in.
I'm sure you've had some nasty crashes - there is a recovery period to get back to where you were, and on you went.
Did you have a final crash where you didn't go back? Or were you able to walk away feeling topped out (ie age/time/family/cost)?

Are you applying this internal belief in yourself to day trading?
Believing you'll get there - and a couple crashes won't take you out?

I shouldn't just poo-poo it. If you are enjoying day trading and the mental challenge, then having a reasonable budget to hone skills, can't be questioned.
Just like any other serious hobby. Plenty of garages with $100k in bikes & parts in them. Biggest problem there is the depreciation.

you mentioned beating the market - what does that mean?
at the end of the year you are going to make 20% more than the market return? 100% more.
They are not going to have a favorable tax treatment. (I've stated before that I wish I paid $1MM in tax - but i'd rather it be on LTG)
Is it going to be just with your earmarked stash? or your whole portfolio?
Are you willing to make the big play ? not invest the last trade's earnings, but really go all in on something?
Like a casino, the play is against professionals with limitless money, and time.
If you don't walk out of the casino at some point, they will take it all.

When will you be a millionaire?
(I'm hoping you are soon)

The boring way - $100/wk @ market (10%) for 30 years will do it. 7 years later, it will be $2MM w/o additional contribution, 7 after that $4MM.
If you start at 22yo - at full retirement age it will be no problem pulling about $300K /yr w/social security.

Well we can't go backwards - so figure out where you are, what needs to be contributed. chatgpt can help with these types of calculations.

One last thing - anything successful will be modeled to take advantage of.
In other words, if you created a screener that you have 70% win rate, it will be found (cause that is what computers are really good at)
and the advantage will be lost.

Here is my world.

year to date my retirement investments are up 16% (no contributions) - SPX + high div stock + high div bond fund. 50/23/27 split.
Sure - it's easy in an up year. 8 year return is >10%/yr - mostly the same mix, where I moved some high div bonds to high div stocks.
That doesn't matter in an IRA - post tax account would be tax favored.

post tax money - half is in NJ tax exempt bond fund paying ~3.5%, some managed (they suck, but there is a reason - access to money is a stock-backed line of credit, similar to a HELOC), some in 4-5% savings/cd

I don't think about options, warrants, stops - i'm just boring (we know this)

It's in you to go big.

Oh @Mahnken - takes a special person to do what you do. I think you mentioned that you do shift work now, rather than a regular schedule?
Are there connected industries that your experience would lend itself to? Teaching/training/tutoring. What about a specialty in-field? More appreciated usually means more $$.

-----------------------------------

In conclusion - every day, I/we have >90% of our money in the market. it doesn't miss dividend dates, it dollar-costs averages. It is already taking advantage of all the things the derivative market is analyzing, cause it is where the rubber meets the dirt. The market will not go to $0, options expire, individual stocks can be gutted - without a way to recover.
(I know you set up a trailing stop loss, but now you aren't in on the ones that do recover.)

Cruises seem to be making a comeback - check the momentum on NCLH 😉
 
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Bike N Gear said:
Sorry. I thought all day every day meant all day every day, not
Cassinonorth said:
Fun fact if you replace "Day Trading" with "Gambling" in this thread absolutely nothing changes.
Click to expand...

Well, you’re kind of our correct. But just like you can get an edge with daytrading you can get an edge with gambling. Why do you think JP Morgan and other other big investment banks have hired poker players? Because they manage risk very well.
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Patrick said:
OK - since you challenged me, I went back and read it.
WRT the line about losing, i'm glad you put that in - cause most people leave that part out - just like the great horse racing handicappers
that make more money selling their opinion than they do at the track.

Here is my take on what you said - let's start with you and how you mentioned emotions -
You make the claim you are moving towards the winner's circle of this thing.

I've seen the pics of you on the motorcycle - doing absolutely amazing things.
You need to 100% believe in yourself and your work effort
You don't just go for the end trick - there is a progression, and you mastered all the them before going big.
You hit the trick - win the day, get paid.
what i'm getting at is you have confidence you can do this well - because you believe in you and the work you put in.
I'm sure you've had some nasty crashes - there is a recovery period to get back to where you were, and on you went.
Did you have a final crash where you didn't go back? Or were you able to walk away feeling topped out (ie age/time/family/cost)?

Are you applying this internal belief in yourself to day trading?
Believing you'll get there - and a couple crashes won't take you out?

I shouldn't just poo-poo it. If you are enjoying day trading and the mental challenge, then having a reasonable budget to hone skills, can't be questioned.
Just like any other serious hobby. Plenty of garages with $100k in bikes & parts in them. Biggest problem there is the depreciation.

you mentioned beating the market - what does that mean?
at the end of the year you are going to make 20% more than the market return? 100% more.
They are not going to have a favorable tax treatment. (I've stated before that I wish I paid $1MM in tax - but i'd rather it be on LTG)
Is it going to be just with your earmarked stash? or your whole portfolio?
Are you willing to make the big play ? not invest the last trade's earnings, but really go all in on something?
Like a casino, the play is against professionals with limitless money, and time.
If you don't walk out of the casino at some point, they will take it all.

When will you be a millionaire?
(I'm hoping you are soon)

The boring way - $100/wk @ market (10%) for 30 years will do it. 7 years later, it will be $2MM w/o additional contribution, 7 after that $4MM.
If you start at 22yo - at full retirement age it will be no problem pulling about $300K /yr w/social security.

Well we can't go backwards - so figure out where you are, what needs to be contributed. chatgpt can help with these types of calculations.

One last thing - anything successful will be modeled to take advantage of.
In other words, if you created a screener that you have 70% win rate, it will be found (cause that is what computers are really good at)
and the advantage will be lost.

Here is my world.

year to date my retirement investments are up 16% (no contributions) - SPX + high div stock + high div bond fund. 50/23/27 split.
Sure - it's easy in an up year. 8 year return is >10%/yr - mostly the same mix, where I moved some high div bonds to high div stocks.
That doesn't matter in an IRA - post tax account would be tax favored.

post tax money - half is in NJ tax exempt bond fund paying ~3.5%, some managed (they suck, but there is a reason - access to money is a stock-backed line of credit, similar to a HELOC), some in 4-5% savings/cd

I don't think about options, warrants, stops - i'm just boring (we know this)

It's in you to go big.

Oh @Mahnken - takes a special person to do what you do. I think you mentioned that you do shift work now, rather than a regular schedule?
Are there connected industries that your experience would lend itself to? Teaching/training/tutoring. What about a specialty in-field? More appreciated usually means more $$.

-----------------------------------

In conclusion - every day, I/we have >90% of our money in the market. it doesn't miss dividend dates, it dollar-costs averages. It is already taking advantage of all the things the derivative market is analyzing, cause it is where the rubber meets the dirt. The market will not go to $0, options expire, individual stocks can be gutted - without a way to recover.
(I know you set up a trailing stop loss, but now you aren't in on the ones that do recover.)

Cruises seem to be making a comeback - check the momentum on NCLH 😉
Click to expand...
I still think you didn’t read everything. I have an annuity that is fully invested in the markets. I have two pensions one is a public employees and pension and one is from the union. I am currently in. I also have a Roth IRA and a rollover IRA from a few other jobs that I worked. I also have my I bonds maxxed out still . What I trade options in futures with as play money. I am not a millionaire in cash, but I am an assets. I like futures because if you trade ES futures, you can basically take a trade once a support level is regained and in the long run yes/SPX goes up. If I ever short, it’s a very quick scalp trade. 95% of future trades are long. 95% or more of my options trades are held less than one day. I’m often out of them in 3 to 10 minutes and almost always within three or four hours. Options are designed to go to zero that’s why I trade zero day options, as your chance of making it big or actually much better than holding longer dated options.
Financial planers in my opinion are the first people that should have their jobs eliminated. They’ve done nothing for my long-term assets besides lose my kids money by never having the risk man managed. I have gone all in on a couple of trades, but I only do this when I can sit in front of my laptop and have my desktop on as well. I usually trade a stock option but watch the Vicks and SPX charts at the same time. What I found is 1 million reasons not to take a trade. You really need to find a reason to take a trade.
Dirt bikes I never had a “career ending “injury as I was pretty conservative. I’ve actually been hurt much more with mountain bikes. The last big day I had on dirt bikes was with @Riggedfmx at the Clayton sandpit and Jackson. That day we were hitting a 130 foot double and doing tricks. That was my last day signed the mortgage on my house that morning.
Are you stop all the time with futures but there are usually pretty loose as you need to usually allow a level as a buffer which may be 10 to 20 es points. I use breadth.app , 9/21 emas, volume, volume profile and several other indicators like vwap and fib retracement levels. Can you win everyone? Absolutely not. But you can set yourself up for success with over a 50% win rate and the winds are much bigger than the losses with options.
 
You know it’s kind of interesting? The book of daytraders fail. Guess who else fails? The bulk of small business owners, but they are not criticized like gamblers, although they are obviously not weighing their risk very well either.
This is what I try to do every day. Position size is small so risk is as well. Sure, not always green but not bad for scalping during the work day. This is all done with some research at night and on the weekends. I update my watchlist every day with the best looking charts to keep my risk down. I only trade Big size on Fridays because I have off.
 

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Dave Taylor said:
You know it’s kind of interesting? The book of daytraders fail. Guess who else fails? The bulk of small business owners, but they are not criticized like gamblers, although they are obviously not weighing their risk very well either.
This is what I try to do every day. Position size is small so risk is as well. Sure, not always green but not bad for scalping during the work day. This is all done with some research at night and on the weekends. I update my watchlist every day with the best looking charts to keep my risk down. I only trade Big size on Fridays because I have off.
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Not sure there is a 97% failure rate. I opened my shop with a $15k initial investment. Got to do something I enjoyed for 29 years and got paid for it. Not having a boss was nice.

Opening a restaurant, now that’s a real gamble.
 
Bike N Gear said:
Not sure there is a 97% failure rate. I opened my shop with a $15k initial investment. Got to do something I enjoyed for 29 years and got paid for it. Not having a boss was nice.

Opening a restaurant, now that’s a real gamble.
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If you’re not grouping small business owners together why group daytraders together?
 
Some more scalping. Just learning how the indices act during the day can give you a few bucks here and there.
 

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Dave Taylor said:
Some more scalping. Just learning how the indices act during the day can give you a few bucks here and there.
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Tell me what you risked today to make this?
cause I know your skills are worth more than that per hour

I'll also mention I made .5% on 50% of my portfolio. Boring.
 
Patrick said:
Tell me what you risked today to make this?
cause I know your skills are worth more than that per hour

I'll also mention I made .5% on 50% of my portfolio. Boring.
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Total risk was around 550. You can’t do this type of play when the vix is elevated though. Vix got crushed today. Low vollatility allows me to keep tight stops so actual risk was more like $150 as I always enter stops at 25% drawdown. I’ll be you don’t make .50 on your portfolio 200 trading days a year or anywhere close to that.
 
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