Quote (CMBurns @ Aug 2 2021 07:03pm)
I day traded for a few months starting in February 2021, but I was a very cautious trader. I picked my stocks right, wasn't afraid to just not trade at all for a day if it didn't feel like/couldn't find a good position to get in.
I limited my trades to just a few a day between market open and 10:30AM. I would sometimes do a few in pre-market if it looked good and volume was high.
If I hit 400$ in a day I would stop no matter what. Same thing if I was 200$ in the red. On average I made about 300$ a day. Most days were green because I didn't get greedy.
I was trading with a capital of 25k at the time.
My rules are simple:
1. High volume only.
2. Stocks trading on positive momentum.
3. Trade only in early hours (unless you see some obvious reversal during power hour in the afternoon)
4. Take profits quickly. Even if it's just 50$. Green is green. I usually buy in and cash out within just a few minutes. Sometimes within 2-3 1 min candles.
5. Set stop losses but don't set them too high. Best to keep close attention to the stock and go off of chart behavior in case you get a red candle out of nowhere that pings a stop loss when a reversal was coming.
6. Stop trading if you hit your daily goals or max loss. No matter what.
7. Stop trading if you've done your preset amount of daily trades.
8. Don't trade if there's no obvious entry points.
This has worked out really nicely for me. I've had moments where I specifically didn't respect some of these rules and the result was almost exclusively negative. Greed + day trading = red account.
This is good advice. 1000 small bites beat 1 big bite. Get a little an gtfo.
I took 30k and over the course of the year turned it into 150k. At one point it was 460k. Stock I was in went from a hold till they sell the company to a longer term hold that I've used to make some calls on and day trade a bit. Positive outlook, but not the quick in and out I was hoping for. Thems the breaks.
Been some ups and downs but if I can wake up, pull a fast $500 - $1000 on some hot stock I call it a day. Sometimes I don't do anything because everything looks like kaka. Go ride my motorcycle or whatever.