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I agree but it is not as simple as that. I mean, how do you get comfortable holding a trade longer term? You don't just suddenly get OK with this. It can be extremely aggravating fighting the urge to mess with trades when they should be left alone.
You're not ready for the higher timeframe until you wake up to a particular realization that has to be earned the hard way I am afraid. Its a line that gets crossed and it feels like burnout. When you get slammed enough times on a scalping timeframe you will want to go HT and you will want to put scalping behind you. You won't need to try and be patient anymore, you will just be patient.
That's how it was with me anyway.
you need to do some soul searching and stop looking at external issues and start looking inside,
why are you over trading is it because you need the cash for something? are you trying to fund some dream figure this out and be honest with yourself..
next why are you over trading, is it because you like the rush, do you have a misconception of what traders due?
do this with every problem in your life and take your time with it... trading is more about controling whats in between your ears then anything else... don't rush these questions some times they take months to answer and thats okay because once you get the answer to your problems/ whats causing them.... only then can you fix them...
kinda like being in AA everyone admits there an addict .. admit what your doing wrong and work to fix one problem at a time.
-P
"Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie"-Miyamoto Musashi
I can actually speak from experience on this one. I recently switched from intra day trading to holding days to weeks. Other than the time frame, the differences are minimal. The chart patterns are the same, indicators behave slightly different and it moves at a snails pace. I actually finding this type of trading far more appealing. I make a lot more ticks per trade than I did day trading.
I will admit I thought about doing this for a long time. I just didnt wake up one day and say lets trade long term. Well, maybe I did.... but it took me about 6 months to pull the trigger. I looked into it and studied it and made mental preparations. After that the overall transition was easy. The biggest adjustment I had to make is to not check my holdings 200 times a day. I did that the first week or so. Now its just a few times a day.
I agree about wanting to make adjustments to the trade. My first couple of weeks I kept looking at the 5 minute chart. I would see a spike on the 5m and want to close the trade. Then I switched back to the daily and what seemed like a big move was hardly a move at all. I now use a 4 hour chart to view intra day movement.
I would really like to hear more @Silver Dragon.
Do you trade single or multiple instruments?
Single or multiple setups?
Are you all in or do you scale into and out of trades?
If you use scaling, do you scale with the trade, against it or both?
How do you manage your risk?
Do you trade futures and options?
How do you balance the technical vs sentiment conflict? i.e. are you more discretion or more mechanical?
I have more but Ill leave it at that for now. You obviously dont have to answer anything but the only other person subtly recommending longer timeframes is @wldman. You have been trading for a lot longer than most and thats why I think you (and any other longer term traders) have a lot to offer in terms of lessons learned and how you approach trading. I think its great that people help one another on specifics but answers also come just by listening to more experienced traders talking in general terms.
Expand your time frame, period. You will make more money. Specific delusion (indicators, setting etc.) all work or don't work the same on any time frame.
Longer IS BETTER and become familiar with time frame continuity.
I'm back in the office...so I'll be around next week.
Awesome. I'm looking forward to learning about time frame continuity.
Please feel free to talk about any of the questions I posed to silver dragon. It would be great to hear what your experience has been on those topics. The challenges, lessons learned, how you adapted, where you are at now... Anything that strikes a cord in you.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I am new to long term trading. coming up on a month on actual trading. My answers are based on what I know today. I will defer to @wldman for expert opinions.
I like to learn with real money. I decided to go with micro futures because of the number of instruments available. Currently I have 28 pairs in my trading universe.
Do you trade single or multiple instruments? Multiple . Most open positions I have had to this point is 7 different pairs.
Single or multiple setups? Multiple. Trend breaks, breakouts.
Are you all in or do you scale into and out of trades? At this point, all in.
How do you manage your risk? Right now my risk is limited, because I am trading micro forex. However, as I scale up I will be risking 1% of capital on any one trade.
Do you trade futures and options? Forex. Looking to add micro futures in the coming months. Looking at options as well.
How do you balance the technical vs sentiment conflict? i.e. are you more discretion or more mechanical? I am a discretionary trader. I look at price movement then factor in RSI movement to determine bull/bear trend. I look for reversals in the direction of the trend. I will take a counter trend trade if the setup is good.