nuckin_futz Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 1 hour ago, AV's Coin said: Im likely to never be a day trader but I am curious about it. Would you care to explain why you stopped (no worries if you dont)? what does it take to be a day trader? Any online resources or books you recommend? Why did I stop day trading stocks? Lots of reasons. I guess ultimately I was getting a little burnt out. I mean there's day trading and then there's day trading. Most people's concept of day trading is a guy sitting at home maybe doing 5 or 6 trades a day. Trading a few thousand shares a day. In my heyday I was averaging about 15-20 million shares a day. Usually no less than 5 million shares/day. I estimate I've probably traded something like 7-9 Billion shares overall. All manually, nothing automated. 17 years of day in and day out is pretty taxing. Changing market structure as well. Market structure really started changing around 2011-12. Moving from more of a traditional market maker system to letting HFT's (High Frequency Trading algos) run the show. I grew tired of getting sub pennied and fighting algorithms for fills. I'd love to tell you it's as simple as putting your order in the cue and waiting for a fill. It is not. I had always traded currency markets and futures markets on the side and decided to concentrate on them. There's a lot fewer things to track and analyze. And they offer great liquidity. Plus a decent chunk of what I do now is automated. I guess you could say I got kinda lazy. What does it take to be a day trader? I could probably write a couple pages answering this one. Firstly, the most important thing it takes above all else is DISCIPLINE. If you don't have that you WILL fail. You must be able to divorce your ego to be successful. If the desire to be right is greater than the desire to make money, you will fail. What else does it take? ... in no particular order a) Sufficient capital. b) A solid game plan. "Plan the trade, trade the plan". An understanding that your #1 goal is not to make money. It's to protect your capital. c) The right tools. A must have is a DMA (direct market access) platform. If your software does not allow you to choose where to route your order (example: ARCA, BATS, EDGX) you're not in the game. If your software doesn't look like this ..... You have to understand everyone else's does. And that you do not have the proper tools. d) Willingness to trade both sides of the market both long and short. e) A broker with a very comprehensive short list. You cannot simply short any stock you wish. Your broker must be able to get you a 'borrow'. Or a broker who can arrange for 'locates' for hard to borrow stocks. Usually done for a fee. f) A real time news feed. You're usually going to have to pay for this. A decent feed can be as little as $30-50/month. All the way up to a Bloomberg Terminal which will run you $24,000 per year. g) The ability to read charts and a basic understanding of technical analysis. h) An understanding of where to route your orders and why. An understanding of ECN rebate structure. i) The best executions at the cheapest prices. Commissions can be a major expense. Money saved is money that goes directly into your pocket and not your broker's. j) Some sort of interactions with other traders/like minded people. Even participation in a thread like this where you can ask questions and bounce ideas off people is invaluable. If someone is going to sit alone at home and day trade they will most likely eventually become undisciplined, they will over trade, they will revenge trade, they will lose. @NucksPatsFan idea of a Slack group is a good idea. It's just not for me. I am already in a few market chats as well as a Skype call during North American market hours with longtime friends who do the same thing. My dance card is full. But I reiterate, interactions with like minded people is invaluable. My all time favorite quote regarding day trading "For most people learning to trade is like a trip to Hell. The Devil market will torture you in every conceivable way, searching out every weakness, stretching every nerve to it's breaking point. It will throw you an occasional bone to lure you deeper into the abyss only to strip off more flesh until you are a quivering shell of your former self. Once you get past that stage it's a lot of fun." As for online resources or books. .... If anyone is interested in learning more about market structure. I highly recommend Michael Lewis' book "Flash Boys". Lewis is the author of "The Big Short" "Moneyball" "The Blind Side" so he's very entertaining. He knows how to take a relatively boring subject and keep the reader turning pages. It's all about HFT's and algorithms. Even managed to find you all an online copy. ...... https://archive.org/details/B-001-000-192/mode/2up I also recommend Mark Douglas' "Trading In The Zone" it's a very good book. Mostly about mindset. https://github.com/abhacid/cAlgoBot/blob/master/Books/Trading in the Zone - Mark Douglas (2001) A202.pdf There are an endless amount of online resources with good information. Youtube can be a treasure trove, and it can also be a complete waste of time. Beware of anyone selling anything. Twitter can also be a decent source if you can find the right people to follow. Sites like www.elitetrader.com can be useful. It's a message board where you can ask all types of market related questions. I stopped posting there maybe 8 years ago as the signal to noise ratio was getting out of hand. But I poke my head in there every now and then and it can still be worthwhile. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warhippy Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 8 hours ago, AriGold2.0 said: Ohh, never heard of them. I will forsure be checking them out. Thanks! ----------------------- Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway reports nearly $50 billion loss Not the news we want to see this weekend.. We could see another tank on Monday, ugh... Sorry what? Is that a Q1 earnings report or? If that's the case than there's a storm coming for sure because BH is one of the most stable groups out there, if they lost that much there's a ton of companies that lost more to their balance sheets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AriGold2.0 Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, Warhippy said: Sorry what? Is that a Q1 earnings report or? If that's the case than there's a storm coming for sure because BH is one of the most stable groups out there, if they lost that much there's a ton of companies that lost more to their balance sheets Sure is, Q1 released this morning. Also WB dumped a bunch of his stocks to sit on cash. If that isn't a sign of what's coming then I don't know what is. Buffett is currently sitting on 137B of cash for investing. The most he's ever put aside for buying.. After market trading is fairly even which can confuse of what's to come Monday. This is my crystal ball outlook. Feb 24th 2020 was the 3rd day in a row that the market went down and was a sign of the coming times. The Open to close was a 718 drop. If we see over 500 on Monday then hold onto your butts... The panic sell could very well hit sooner then expected. I bought $5000 worth of Macys stock on Friday as I was expecting a bump with 68 of their stores opening Monday. Now I'm thinking that wasn't such a great buy. Edited May 3, 2020 by AriGold2.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I.Am.Ironman Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 3 hours ago, AriGold2.0 said: bought $5000 worth of Macys stock on Friday as I was expecting a bump with 68 of their stores opening Monday. Now I'm thinking that wasn't such a great buy. That's why we dollar cost average as it falls Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AriGold2.0 Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 Here we go... https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/brace-monday-massacre-buffett-liquidates-all-airline-holdings-hints-berkshire-remains Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boudrias Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 11 hours ago, AriGold2.0 said: Sure is, Q1 released this morning. Also WB dumped a bunch of his stocks to sit on cash. If that isn't a sign of what's coming then I don't know what is. Buffett is currently sitting on 137B of cash for investing. The most he's ever put aside for buying.. After market trading is fairly even which can confuse of what's to come Monday. This is my crystal ball outlook. Feb 24th 2020 was the 3rd day in a row that the market went down and was a sign of the coming times. The Open to close was a 718 drop. If we see over 500 on Monday then hold onto your butts... The panic sell could very well hit sooner then expected. I bought $5000 worth of Macys stock on Friday as I was expecting a bump with 68 of their stores opening Monday. Now I'm thinking that wasn't such a great buy. I think the NAV on BH is about $850 billion. $137 B is 16% cash. Not excessive IMO. BH has been my all time market winner. That said I had the money to buy 2 shares instead of the 1 that I bought. $14000 per share at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBH1926 Posted May 3, 2020 Share Posted May 3, 2020 2 hours ago, AriGold2.0 said: Here we go... https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/brace-monday-massacre-buffett-liquidates-all-airline-holdings-hints-berkshire-remains WB makes lot of money through dividends, I always thought that his portfolio was full of “dogs” Lot of banking stocks, airlines, oil companies, Kraft etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I.Am.Ironman Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 @Boudrias did you read to Shell call transcript? I am working my way through it now.. what are your thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBH1926 Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 Bumpy ride this week boys and girls. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HI5 Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 On 4/16/2020 at 10:45 PM, CBH1926 said: Southwest Airlines or LUV, I have been looking at Delta too but I think SW is the better option. I hope you were able to sell these for a quick profit, tomorrow could be interesting. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I.Am.Ironman Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 38 minutes ago, HI5 said: I hope you were able to sell these for a quick profit, tomorrow could be interesting. yeah with buffet dropping his airline stocks, and a pretty damning description of where he sees the industry, we may see a big sell off Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBH1926 Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 37 minutes ago, HI5 said: I hope you were able to sell these for a quick profit, tomorrow could be interesting. I had very small position that I exited last week. Long term, Southwest is best positioned out of all airlines. I will probably get back in again at some point. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AriGold2.0 Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 1 hour ago, I.Am.Ironman said: yeah with buffet dropping his airline stocks, and a pretty damning description of where he sees the industry, we may see a big sell off May see ? It's happening, and it's going to be big. I've been waiting for it, it's almost time to pounce. SQ has been calling my name for a while, I missed the boat at 47.9 because I was a chicken. Won't happen this time. I'm going to be dumping around 30K into the bank of the future. Below is one of the best articles about Square and it's very bright future. https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/11/14/where-will-square-be-in-10-years.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I.Am.Ironman Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 Yeah square is on my list as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiseupsucker Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 Sorta on topic, one of my favourite books is "Dark Pools" by Scott Patterson. There's one part of the book that describes the "SOES" bandits from back in the day and the rise of Daytek. Those were the true day traders who took advantage of NASDAQ loopholes and started the computer revolution, which then turned into the rise of the algo wars and spawned the HFT's(who stomp on all day traders today). Interesting how the ECN's came about... Island, The Watcher and monster key came around. Fascinating book. Well worth the read if you want to know what the current stock market has turned into. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuckin_futz Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 24 minutes ago, wiseupsucker said: Sorta on topic, one of my favourite books is "Dark Pools" by Scott Patterson. There's one part of the book that describes the "SOES" bandits from back in the day and the rise of Daytek. Those were the true day traders who took advantage of NASDAQ loopholes and started the computer revolution, which then turned into the rise of the algo wars and spawned the HFT's(who stomp on all day traders today). Interesting how the ECN's came about... Island, The Watcher and monster key came around. Fascinating book. Well worth the read if you want to know what the current stock market has turned into. Datek was easily the best broker back in the day. They had this free screener you could use. I think it was called 'heat seeker' or something like that. The only better tool I've ever seen is the 'Trade Ideas' scanner. It was a sad day when Ameritrade took them over and ruined the platform. I recall one time I received the worst execution you could possibly imagine. I bitched to customer service and rather than telling me to pound sand, which I was expecting. They apologized, credited me back enough loot to make my jaw drop and then sent me one of those Datek caps in the mail and thanked me for being a customer. Still have it in a box somewhere. On second thought, I might have to go look for it. While searching for that pic I found out they are kind of a collector's item and list on Ebay for $140 CAD. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuckin_futz Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 Speaking of market structure. Have any of you seen this movie? The basic plot line ..... Cousins from New York, Vincent (Eisenberg) and Anton (Skarsgård) are players in the high-stakes game of High Frequency Trading, where winning is measured in milliseconds. Their dream? To build a fiber-optic cable straight between Kansas and New Jersey, making them millions. ****************** It was mildly entertaining. Especially if you have an interest in markets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boudrias Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 12 hours ago, I.Am.Ironman said: @Boudrias did you read to Shell call transcript? I am working my way through it now.. what are your thoughts? I am a simple old boy. I sold my Shell position when it hit my sell target on the downside. As Kevin O'Leary is famous for saying "Shell is dead to me!". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I.Am.Ironman Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 52 minutes ago, Boudrias said: I am a simple old boy. I sold my Shell position when it hit my sell target on the downside. As Kevin O'Leary is famous for saying "Shell is dead to me!". I just sold mine this morning.. took advantage of the 4% gain early morning. I read the shareholders call transcript and the ceo painted a pretty bleak picture over the short and medium term, which doesn't help me right now. I may still invest in the future but figure my funds are better allocated else where for now. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warhippy Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 (edited) Major US retailers releasing earnings reports this week. J. Crew just filed for Chapter 11. Air Canada just released it's earnings reports to a $1.05 billion loss. Southwest and Delta all down today. Maybe Buffett was right, again. https://liveindex.org/americas/ https://liveindex.org/commodities/ https://liveindex.org/technical-signals/ Live index readings of the markets and potential buy sell orders Edited May 4, 2020 by Warhippy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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