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Holding period depends on the stock. If I day trade it's because the stock hit my stop the same day I entered the position.
I hold until the trend changes. I'll set an initial target and take part of the position off when that target gets hit.
Typically swing trades last a couple weeks. I have held a stock for years but only because there was no reason to sell.
I don't consider myself as a trader or and investor. I'm a speculator. I'm speculating on the direction of the price,
I will use margin rarely because I'm fully invested and an opportunity presents itself. My number one priority is protection of capital. My objective is to take advantage of the superior returns that equities offer while keeping drawdowns to a minimum. It's how I fund my lifestyle.
"The days when I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days" RW Hubbard
Are these equities that are actually listed on the stockmarket, or are they a synthetic (CFD with pricing that is based on the real thing)?
To be fair, I've rarely had any losing trades when it comes to exchange listed equities.
But I have found CFD trading to be the most difficult beast to trade and profit from. The CFDs I traded were mostly spot forex and indices.
Exchange traded options, I did OK. But it wasn't my thing, too complex (the Greeks).
I am still learning about futures. There is so much information out there.
Sometimes find it difficult to focus when I tell myself to sit down and read a book.
I trade equities listed on US and Canadian exchanges.
Years ago I day traded and gave futures a shot. What I found is that I could make just as much swing trading equities without the stress of sitting in front of a monitor each day. Now I do my research in the evening, place trades when the market opens and spend the rest of my day enjoying life.
"The days when I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days" RW Hubbard
Based on statistics, It is hard to disagree with what you are saying here, and yes in deed it could be a rabbit hole. or it could be a journey with success. It is all comes to the individual.
The approach 90% individuals takes, is jumping without a full analysis and understanding the market and market conditions when the strategy is going to work and when it is not. (Including me)
Let me give you an example, below you mentioned MA strategy. If you search here you will find a journal from "chimp" forgot his name. He passed topstep evaluation account with this strategy. So it is doable with right approach.
In my humble opinion other strategies could also work with right market conditions. The proof to it is one of the user here mentioned (he has 20+ automation strategies may be more I can't recall exactly, and based on his words none of them work all the time). can't remember his name
Back to psychology, how many people are switching the strategy before they deeply understand it? Isn't it psychological problem?
Or let me give you another example. When I joined a prop shop selection in Sydney. They selected around 30 ppl.
What was interesting to me, some people was taking loses very easy. Especially a guy, with whom I became a friend later on. He played Poker on semipro level, so for him, it was so easy to have SL and he was taking it with gratitude. He still does it.
Me, on another hand straggles with it. This is why, people with Sports background are more successful in. I guess this is where statistics come in play for them, when retail trader on another hand doesn't even bother with it.
We also shouldn't forget, that retail trader need to juggle everything Risk, Analysis, and execution. How many of us can bare it psychologically?
All we want is Money for the less amount of effort, isn't it right. So everyone is different psychologically and it got build up with ages.
How many of us are actually working, or have a list of psychological things we need to rewire to move forward. Human bean's are lazy in this regards (Including me) it is easy to jump from one thing to another
At the end of the day, it is still possible to jump out of the rabbit whole, the question is how much effort, and is there a will in the Individual to change themselves.
or We can always blame the professional who knows where our stops are
I think what kills most retail traders is the size. Leverage is great, but it is also very seductive. I said it before and still believe that money management is more important than a particular strategy. To put it differently, you can be given the greatest strategy in the world and still burn your account if your position size is too large.
Yes, and there are a lot of CFD brokers who are very happy to give their clients 1:500 leverage!
Then the clients are left enraged when their account gets a margin call and their entire balance is lost.
It happens very often to traders who trade spot forex CFDs.