An important key to trading successfully is to only trade the timeframes that will yield the greatest success for the least amount of time. Any of us can trade, or attempt to trade, every waking moment the markets are open. In the case of the Forex you’ll need a lot of coffee and the ability to get by on no sleep. With the stock market or futures you’ll need amazing endurance especially when the markets get sleepy. This is primarily if you actively day trade or swing trade intraday.

Of course, if you are trading off daily charts you might be able to get by with far less effort – a reason that many choose to swing trade rather than day trade - but realize you are also going to be able to “turn” your funds less often, and when swing trading you have to balance the fact that the time between your losing trade and next winning trade is going to be longer. In day trading you might take a loss and then 5 minutes later wipe that feeling away by trading profitably. If you are trading off of daily charts, or even longer weekly charts, you might go a few weeks before you even get another set-up.

This is a primary difference and one you have to keep in mind. Day trading is typically more challenging – both in the workload and the frequency. However, you have the advantage of each trade basically being less important. And you can quickly wipe a bad experience away since another set-up is probably literally developing at that time.

Swing traders have an easier life when it comes to waiting on the set-ups and taking trades, but realize that if you take a few losers in a row, that could be over several weeks and you have to do a better job with the mind games and trading psychology because it could be just two or three losers but the longer time element could wear on you.

So, how do you find what to trade and what timeframe?

We feel it’s actually best to find a mix that works for you. If you can trade using a specific method that will work in both day trading and swing trading it gives you amazing flexibility. You’ll be able to master one trading approach and then apply it in the timeframes that make most sense for you in your current lifestyle.

Suppose you like to do a lot of day trading but are about to embark on vacation or begin an import project at work. Wouldn’t it be ideal if you could slide into some swing trading to keep your capital at work but without having to do anything intraday? Then, when your schedule returns to normal or you have some hours available one morning, you can mix the day trading back in. Certainly you could focus on one or the other but we’ve found the most successful traders are those that have been able to use one unifying strategy, customize it for the markets they choose to trade and have the flexibility to choose the timeframes that fit their current schedule. Remember, you are supposed to be running your trading plan; it is not supposed to be running you.

Page 1 of 3 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 3 | Next