# Day trading (or holding for a few days)



## grah33 (9 December 2014)

i've been day trading, but holding for a few days, using the stocks that have most high gains reported for the day.eg medusa a few days ago, ten, quantas, and other.  it seems that it's not too hard to make money. i'm getting profits. am i missing something? i thought it was really hard to make a profit.  i'm only using about 12k and giving a little to each of them.


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## Hodgie (9 December 2014)

grah33 said:


> i've been day trading, but holding for a few days, using the stocks that have most high gains reported for the day.eg medusa a few days ago, ten, quantas, and other.  it seems that it's not too hard to make money. i'm getting profits. am i missing something? i thought it was really hard to make a profit.  i'm only using about 12k and giving a little to each of them.




Just because something worked out this time does not mean that it is a profitable strategy. There could be a vast amount of reasons why the companies you have gone into have provided you with a gain this time, these reasons could have nothing at all to do with the 'gains reported for the day'.

If I had a lucky day at the casino betting on black on the roulette table, I would not walk away thinking that betting on black is a profitable strategy.

You will not fully comprehend the risk you are undertaking until you experience it.


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## Wysiwyg (9 December 2014)

Certainly exceptional selections considering todays above average sell off. You sure society doesn't owe you for a lifetime of suffering.


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## tech/a (9 December 2014)

> You will not fully comprehend the risk you are undertaking until you experience it.




At which point you'll look at mitigating it.


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## skc (9 December 2014)

grah33 said:


> using the stocks that have most high gains reported for the day.eg medusa a few days ago, ten, quantas, and other.  it seems that it's not too hard to make money. i'm getting profits. am i missing something? i thought it was really hard to make a profit.  i'm only using about 12k and giving a little to each of them.




No you are not missing anything. Many different strategies will enjoy profitable runs at different times. The challenge is always about being consistently profitable rather than occassionally profitable. Time will tell if your strategy will be consistent but congrats on a good start.



grah33 said:


> i've been day trading, but holding for a few days




Just a definition thing... but you are not day trading if you are holding for a few days.


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## whackthebid (17 December 2014)

How do you know you haven't bought near a top and a reversal or pull back is imminent? Buying high and selling high can work but only if the stock is trending well. Hopefully you have a sound risk management strategy for the times that this trade doesn't work out.

You also need to be careful about thinking it is too easy because of a few winning trades. The market always has ways of humbling people.


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## darkhorse70 (17 December 2014)

Thats usually the cycle. You start new, make a few bucks, get hooked then crash hard. You start to read and figure oit what you did wrong. You come back euphoric,  crash again and then you become evwn more persistant to succeed. Repeat the process for a couple of years till you make enough mistakes and hopefully realize what trading is really about. 

Most people never really get there. They get killed trying haha. GL dude.


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## Julia (17 December 2014)

darkhorse70 said:


> Thats usually the cycle. You start new, make a few bucks, get hooked then crash hard. You start to read and figure oit what you did wrong. You come back euphoric,  crash again and then you become evwn more persistant to succeed. Repeat the process for a couple of years till you make enough mistakes and hopefully realize what trading is really about.



That might be your own experience.  Not necessarily one from which you can generalise and possibly one which reflects your short exposure so far.

Others will approach differently and as a result experience quite different outcomes.


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## darkhorse70 (17 December 2014)

Thats true Julia but I also read that in a popular trading book by a trading psychologist who stated that exact same thing. Maybe it just resonated with me since I experienced a similar fate.


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## darkhorse70 (17 December 2014)

The second half about making enough mistakes etc was sort of added by me. But the first half is true imo with many.


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## noirua (15 September 2019)

A lot depends on whether the original plan was to hold for up to 4 days.  One share I bought and meant to hold for a short period and reap big profits suddenly sank like the Titanic. Over 26 years later the company was taken over and it was only the boom in thermal coal and semi-soft coking coal that got me out of trouble.
My policy now is to write down how long my plan is to hold and if it's no more than 3 or 4 days the share is sold no matter what.  Overall this has worked well even though there are some cases when a share rocketed upwards after selling - roughly now the result is being right two times out of three. Not perfect as four shares that should have gone years ago still sit there on my account, MML, BOA, RED and BUX. RED now reduced on a lucky rise in price.
Getting attached to shares has at times been my failure and this resulted in 4 out of 5 losses. Maybe wanting to leave some profit for the next guy is the stick of dynamite that should make us sell.


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