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I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened

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Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened

#11

Post by TomVDB »

prewett wrote: post #7
arkadiyt wrote: post #3

> A few years into swing trading, and I can say I learned a lot. I’ve made more than I’ve lost. I’m up about 16% ROI year to date. The article was published December 15th 2017, so he made 16% since January 1st. If he had bought the S&P500 on January 1st 2017 (2276.98) and sold on December 15th (2675.81) he'd be up > 17.5% (and who knows how much he paid in commissions).

He also may have lost quite a bit on taxes.

If you qualify as a day trader according to the IRS rules, then different tax trader rules apply.

https://www.tradersaccounting.com/2017/11/28/trader-tax-stat...

Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened

#12

Post by ErikAugust »

arkadiyt wrote: post #3

> A few years into swing trading, and I can say I learned a lot. I’ve made more than I’ve lost. I’m up about 16% ROI year to date. The article was published December 15th 2017, so he made 16% since January 1st. If he had bought the S&P500 on January 1st 2017 (2276.98) and sold on December 15th (2675.81) he'd be up > 17.5% (and who knows how much he paid in commissions).

Negative Alpha, in other words.

Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened

#13

Post by Lazare »

"A lot of people have flipped a coin 10 times and had it come up heads only 4-6 times, but I had it come up heads a full 7 times, so clearly I have an extremely proficient coin flipping technique. Sit down and listen to me discuss the wrist exercises I did!"

A lot of people have tried to do what the author did and lost all their money. He recounts how he lost tons of money on different occasions. He says it's been bad for his mental health. He freely admits that much of the limited success he did have was luck, and mentions that doing it during a bull market made everything much easier. But even so he product calculates that, once he mastered this skill hes...

...failed to beat the market. Ouch.

For anyone who skimmed the article (which spends about 90% of it's length talking up "swing trading" and making it sound like the author thinks it's a great idea), make sure you read to the end:

> So what should you do with your time instead of mastering swing trading? Find what you really want to do with your life that adds value to the world, and get to work!

Quite right. (Well, assuming for the sake of argument that swing trading is actually a thing, and that it's something that can be mastered.)

Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened

#16

Post by masonic »

arkadiyt wrote: post #3

> A few years into swing trading, and I can say I learned a lot. I’ve made more than I’ve lost. I’m up about 16% ROI year to date. The article was published December 15th 2017, so he made 16% since January 1st. If he had bought the S&P500 on January 1st 2017 (2276.98) and sold on December 15th (2675.81) he'd be up > 17.5% (and who knows how much he paid in commissions).

And the DJIA was up 25%; NASDAQ was up 28% (per CNN). Another Medium triumph.

Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened

#17

Post by nanoseltzer »

Lazare wrote: post #13

"A lot of people have flipped a coin 10 times and had it come up heads only 4-6 times, but I had it come up heads a full 7 times, so clearly I have an extremely proficient coin flipping technique. Sit down and listen to me discuss the wrist exercises I did!" A lot of people have tried to do what the author did and lost all their money. He recounts how he lost tons of money on different occasions. He says it's been ba…

What’s swing trading ? Is that like day trading where you try to buy low and sell high on small fluctuations ?

Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened

#18

Post by stevewillows »

nanoseltzer wrote: post #17
Lazare wrote: post #13

"A lot of people have flipped a coin 10 times and had it come up heads only 4-6 times, but I had it come up heads a full 7 times, so clearly I have an extremely proficient coin flipping technique. Sit down and listen to me discuss the wrist exercises I did!" A lot of people have tried to do what the author did and lost all their money. He recounts how he lost tons of money on different occasions. He says it's been ba…

What’s swing trading ? Is that like day trading where you try to buy low and sell high on small fluctuations ?

From Investopedia [1]

> Swing trading attempts to capture gains in a stock (or any financial instrument) within an overnight hold to several weeks. Swing traders use technical analysis to look for stocks with short-term price momentum. These traders may utilize the fundamental or intrinsic value of stocks in addition to analyzing the price trends and patterns.

> ...

> Day Trading vs. Swing Trading

> The distinction between swing trading and day trading is the holding position time. Swing trading involves at least an overnight hold, whereas day trading closes out positions before the market close. Day trading positions are segmented to a single day only. Swing trading involves holding for several days to weeks. By holding overnight, the swing trader incurs the unpredictability of overnight risk resulting in gaps up or down against the position. By undertaking the overnight risk, swing trades are usually done with a smaller position size compared to day trading, which utilizes larger position sizes usually involving leverage through day trading margin. Swing trading can utilize the overnight margin of 50% if the account meets the pattern day trading (PDT) rule of maintaining at least $25,000 in account equity. Swing trading on margin can be extra risky in the event a margin call triggers.

> A swing trader tends to look for multi-day chart patterns. Some of the more common patterns involve moving average crossovers, cup-and-handle patterns, head and shoulders patterns, flags, and triangles. Key reversal candlesticks, such as hammers for reversal bottoms and shooting stars for reversal price tops, are commonly used in addition to other indicators to devise a solid trading game plan. Stop-losses tend to also be wider when swing trading to match the proportionate profit target.

For anybody who wants to take a stab at something like this to see how easy it is to lose some cash, Investopedia has a fun simulator [2]. You start with $100k and can do traditional investing or shorts.

---

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/swingtrading.asp

[2] https://www.investopedia.com/simulator/home.aspx

Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened

#19

Post by nradov »

prewett wrote: post #6

I read an analysis of technical trading that demonstrated that the theoretical best return is buy-and-hold in a bull market, and only do technical trading in a down market. [1] http://www.philosophicaleconomics.com/2016/01/gtt/

It's bullshit. There's no reliable way to time the market. Horoscopes would be just as accurate as predicting recessions as pseudo-intellectual articles like this.

Re: I Took a Couple Years Off of Work to Swing Trade. Here’s What Happened

#20

Post by ydnaclementine »

nanoseltzer wrote: post #17
Lazare wrote: post #13

"A lot of people have flipped a coin 10 times and had it come up heads only 4-6 times, but I had it come up heads a full 7 times, so clearly I have an extremely proficient coin flipping technique. Sit down and listen to me discuss the wrist exercises I did!" A lot of people have tried to do what the author did and lost all their money. He recounts how he lost tons of money on different occasions. He says it's been ba…

What’s swing trading ? Is that like day trading where you try to buy low and sell high on small fluctuations ?

Trend, swing, momentum trading, all generally mean the same thing. In theory, the idea is that you buy something underpriced/overpriced when your technical momentum indicators tell you that momentum is increasing/decreasing. Can be used in all time scales (daily, weekly, monthly)

I was really interested in finance, technical analysis (Alex Elder books), etc for a bit, but don't really have the capital to do anything, and is probably soothsayer type stuff anyway. Best real strategy is passive ETF vanguard type investments

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