Basically it's an old argument. It's just more profitable to be a day trader.
A position trader won't agree.
One fair example is Williams. He no longer posts his trades publically but I recall he had a gain of over 600 spoo points per contract in something like 6 months last year. His largest losers were position trades. Now I think the fellow overtrades but he enjoys it or seems to.
For my own part, when I was working harder at it 60 or 70 points would be attainable in a month....however I think the last month I had like that was September. Since then I have lost some interest, it appears. It's just not that important any longer.
Another thing is the attitude relative to that of the daytrader. A position trader accepts a win rate of ~42% as being excellent. A day trader strives for at least 70%.
The entire perspective is different. For example Ground Zee, like a lot of professional traders, views it as battle. I view it differently.
As I sit here and ponder WHY I view it differently, I guess I find it more like a chess game, a sort of intellectual challenge. A combination of divining feints and bluffs with a view towards conceptualizing how the flow of the game is. Something like that. I think that I would lose that edge if I were to focus on positioning. Somehow, I don't think I would get the same satisfaction getting a 200 point position trade. Heck, I'm up around 34 points on the one that I am in. I'm not even thinking about it, I'm more focused on the day trade tomorrow.
I do think I believe day trading is a lot more difficult, but I don't know why. Certainly I did not feel this way a year ago.
Whatever works, however. As long as we all make some money what difference should it make. I imagine that in one way, I could be considered a positional trader with very short term time horizons.
One other thing, I have to admit to myself that I can read short term trends in a somewhat acceptable fashion. So, if my read is that such and such a day or set of days should be down then holding a positional Long runs absolutely counter to logical thought. A system may tell me that I should stay Long while the market is merely going through a retracement. But now I have 3 choices, either day trade against myself, walk away believing that I have left myself vulnerable, or take the Long off. Tomorrow for example I have a pullback in the early morning, just not enough to waste my time messing around with the positional trade.
But if I thought along the lines that David is thinking, down to circa SPX 1250, then I would have to be in a strait jacket while I waited to see if that 34 point paper profit got cut to ribbons.
If one can get the read properly, that's the reason why daytrading is more profitable. Take the 34 points up, the 25 down and then get back on starting from 1250 but with 59 points in your pocket instead of 9 or 10.
So it's a chicken and egg scenario. But it does seem more difficult to day trade if only because decisions like that are not easy to make. Position trading has a drawback as well, one has to be willing to accept larger drawdowns. Sometimes I take a large drawdown, usually if I'm trying out a positional play. It's counter to everything I believe in. I do not believe that, once a trade is profitable, it should be allowed to turn against the trader. Enough of those and it's a bottle of sleeping pills with a quart of bourbon as a chaser. |
