subject: 3 Simple Intraday Trading Strategies [print this page] It is generally accepted that intraday trading is where the action is. The adrenaline rush of making the right decision under a pressure cooker is like no other. Besides, practitioners of this approach concede that they dont like to leave their position overnight. The financial crash of 1987 served a painful lesson even when most brokers were raking in thousands of dollars per month prior to that. The fact that the market now is open 24 hours a day also leaves a lot of room for vulnerability. You just dont know what is happening with the rest of the world while you were sleeping. But if you are not careful, or knowledgeable enough, this is also the fastest way to lose your money.
Know your position
Theres no single system that can guarantee returns. Two people may use a different strategy and may end up making the same amount of profits. Its important that you develop your own strategy that is backed with a lot of research and trial-and-error. You can buy a day trading software for this. The goal of trading is to sell high and buy low but thats putting the cart ahead of the horse. You have to know how to make a position first, which simply means how much money are you going to risk. There are many methods to determining your position size but the most common is to multiply your account size with the risk per trade, which ranges from 1-3%, and factoring in the stop-loss margin. The total will be your position size.
Dont be afraid to change your system
Dont ever think that you already have the perfect system just because you made a few bucks. You should always subject your strategy to rigorous tests in order to find gaps in the process. The system does not only include the tool that you use for trading but also your mindset. Are you quick to the draw when you find an opportunity to sell? Or will you leave the leveraged position for a much later time to make an even bigger profit? When assessing your intraday trading strategies, the weighted measure should not be how much your profit margin is. Rather, do you trust your system with your money even when all the odds are against you?
When its time to cut losses, dont hesitate
What you need to understand is you wont always win. In fact, when you are just beginning, you will lose more than you will earn. Thats why the failure rate is high because beginners walked away just when they were about to turn a corner. With that said, one of the most crucial day trading strategies knows when to cut your losses. One way to do this is to determine the stop loss point that you are most comfortable and sticking by it.
