Best Time of the Day to Trade

[Patuca 13]

The purple boxes serve as key reference areas for trade entries....I enter trades based on tests of the boundaries of these areas....

so you are saying you would go long at bottom of box and short at the top ..if volume confirms it?

[steve46 12]

Yes...that's one way to use those references, another is to use them at preferred times....that what we talking about in this thread.....(just trying to stay on the topic)....if you happen to see a test of the boundaries during the first or last hour, that is often a high probability entry....In fact I teach my students to look for seven (7) possible entries during the day session....all based (in part) on specific "preferred" times....

[nakachalet 10]

Best time to trade is when there is free money left on the sidewalk. If you want to trade seriously you must be ready to do so 24 hours a day.

 

it is such a general myth that traders must glue their noses and eyes to their screen from beginning to closing hours during trading hours of whatever exchanges and locations in order to make a comfortable living.

 

in real life, such is never the case. think for a second, for yourself and for your own benefit--just where does a trader get the idea that you must glue yourself to your trading screens all the time? mostly, this idea is generated from other traders, more probably from trading gurus somewhere of some seeming authority stating that in order to make a comfortable living trading gc, cl, tf, 6e and whatever; trader must diligently apply himself/herself to the point of lunacy, in order to be profitable.

 

and if any trader wishes to be more consistently profitable, he/she must devote and apply himself/herself even more seriously in this trade.

 

you are correct my trading friend, sergso. what you said is what have been going around for years and years.... without any rebuttal.... L O L

 

if you have time, just take a look at the following attachments, perhaps, they might convince some traders to think otherwise, K?

 

the attachments are the partial records of executed trades that were placed only in the morning sessions in the u.s. perhaps, it was lady luck, just perhaps....

 

have a wonderfully profitable trading coming up week, everyone.

 

have fun and enjoy your trading spending as many hours as you deem most profitable, K?

 

nakachalet@gmail.com

[nakachalet 10]

Yes...that's one way to use those references, another is to use them at preferred times....that what we talking about in this thread.....(just trying to stay on the topic)....if you happen to see a test of the boundaries during the first or last hour, that is often a high probability entry....In fact I teach my students to look for seven (7) possible entries during the day session....all based (in part) on specific "preferred" times....

 

@steve46

 

did you just say about 7 probable profitable trades a day?

 

Ah Haa, it must be my lucky day again.... LOL

 

you just independently confirmed my attachments to previous poster.

 

take a look if you have time.

 

have a great and profitable trading day, steve; and everyone else.

 

nakachalet@gmail.com

[bredin 10]

 

Base on this graph that I have seen somewhere in the internet, what is the best time of the day to trade? Does this one require you a particular time zone? Or does trading in every part of the day will be helpful, I heard that timing means profitability, so how does this two things correlate?

 

The 'best time' depends entirely on how you trade.

 

I couldnt care less about the exact time Im sitting at the computer since I use limit orders to control entry and basic exit conditions with alerts to let me know a trade has been entered,

 

Of course, if you prefer stressful trading follow the plentiful advice in this thread.

 

G.

[steve46 12]

Yes it does in some respect depend on your style and your skill level....

 

For example, I make money trading the open....I have the skills to do it.....I've watched inexperienced traders get slaughtered trying to trade the open.....what's the difference? There's not enough room on this form to complete the answer...

 

One thing is sure.....unless you're an options trader selling time premium, you need price movement to make money....and that movement happens most often during the opening and closing hour.....

 

The attached chart taken from my blog shows today's open....

[steve46 12]

@steve46

 

did you just say about 7 probable profitable trades a day?

 

Ah Haa, it must be my lucky day again.... LOL

 

you just independently confirmed my attachments to previous poster.

 

take a look if you have time.

 

have a great and profitable trading day, steve; and everyone else.

 

nakachalet@gmail.com

 

Yes, depends on the day, but generally speaking there are several possibilities....

 

What I prefer however is to obtain favorable entry in the pre-market and (on a trend day) manage that entry until I am done scaling out.....or into the closing hour, whichever comes first....

 

What I like about this business is that I can miss the open, come back later and still make money....

 

See my previous post for today's chart

 

Good luck

[Enigmatics 10]

Oh and for the "critics" who will say it isn't in "real time"....you're right....you see I ACTUALLY TRADE and therefore I don't have the time (and I couldn't care less) to post and execute trades....figure it out...use it to your advantage.

 

No doubt about that. Hard to post charts and trade at the same time when you're day trading. Having said that, quieting skepticism is relatively easy to accomplish simply by posting screenshots of the executed trades later on along with the charts detailing the trade one took.

Edited June 24, 2013 by Enigmatics

[steve46 12]

No doubt about that. Hard to post charts and trade at the same time when you're day trading. Having said that, quieting skepticism is relatively easy to accomplish simply by posting screenshots of the executed trades later on along with the charts detailing the trade one took.

 

Yeah I have a better way to do that.....my students watch me 1)PREPARE TO TRADE.......

2)TAKE the trades.......3)MANAGE the trades....... and 4)EXIT the trades......and frankly the rest (standing in line at the bank for example) doesn't matter.

 

So here's the bottom line....I do what I think I can given the time I have available to me....I try to help those few folks who think I have something that fits them.....I let someone else further up the pay scale sort the rest out....

 

Good luck

[Enigmatics 10]

Yeah I have a better way to do that.....my students watch me 1)PREPARE TO TRADE.......

2)TAKE the trades.......3)MANAGE the trades....... and 4)EXIT the trades......and frankly the rest (standing in line at the bank for example) doesn't matter.

 

So here's the bottom line....I do what I think I can given the time I have available to me....I try to help those few folks who think I have something that fits them.....I let someone else further up the pay scale sort the rest out....

 

Good luck

 

****WARNING: DO NOT TAKE WHAT I SAY PERSONALLY****

 

Now then ..... you said posting a screenshot doesn't matter to you. I definitely get that impression. Understand that it matters to people like me who read what you post. That's the difference, especially if you're on here trying to recruit new students. Can you blame me though? It's my hard earned money we're talking about here. I'm not going to hand it over and invest my own personal time because someone's chart looks really good.

 

I've been in the market about 3 years now and there's never a shortage of people who are able to post charts after the action has happened. Posting the snapshot of the entry/exit Time and Sales after you closed out your trade takes less time than working up a chart and is bonafied proof of the results. I'd actually put more stock in that then the chart. It's not like you'd be giving away your secret recipe ..... as clearly that is reserved for your students. Imagine if you went to a hedge fund and said, "Hey guys, I've been day trading for a few years. I have this super duper system that makes lots of money!" .... naturally what is their reaction going to be? They're going to want to see your trading history and tax returns to back it up.

 

Again Steve, you should not take what I say as a potshot at you. It is just the nature of these online stock trading forums. Everyone's a complete stranger with their own motivations and I don't know you from the next guy.

 

On the subject of volume ...... I love volume studies. I'm amazed by people who are able to trade price-only. I use both VSA, volume profile, VWAP, and peaks/troughs of the regular volume histogram in order to construct my trades. I'm better able to do it at "extremes" when the market supply/demand has run out during the day ..... and then taking a trade back to a volume congestion area (i.e. VWAP or POC). I've also been working on swing positions in the same fashion.

 

The beginning of the day with all those on-open market orders has always been the toughest for me though. So still working on that aspect because I want to be able to take advantage of liquidity. Lately I've gotten a little better at it by letting the market breath for about 15-25mins, watching for a range, and then a reaction to the extremes of said range .... usually looking for volume expansion at them to signal to me which direction we're headed in. Still have a long way to go.

Edited June 24, 2013 by Enigmatics

[steve46 12]

and by all means don't take this personally yourself...

 

---------------------------------------

English seems to be a difficult language for so many people to understand...

 

"I don't care" is actually very simple to understand if you take a moment.....

 

I use money (the concept) as a method to screen the adults from the "adult" children (children in adult bodies)....because I trade for a living I don't really need to charge a fee, and in fact in each of my classes, there is usually one person who never receives an invoice...in my first class there were two who did not receive a bill...

 

For folks who feel they need to SEE what I do in person.....I show them.....since I call the shots in this life, that's what I have chosen to do....I choose NOT to show them my bank account, my P&L, my tax records, my health records, pictures of my family, pictures of my dog.....or anything else that I hold personal & private....if they don't like that, I gently encourage them to find another person to work with....

 

Interestingly once a person sees me trade....they never mention "money" or "proof" again...

 

I believe any skilled professional should be willing to demonstrate their skills (once). The other side of the coin has to do with threads like those I posted here on this site....the way I figure it, if a person reads these, at some point it should be apparent that the author knows what he is talking about...Especially with MY threads where at the beginning so many of you rocket scientists seem to want to show up and tell me how "it won't work"....and "I read on Wikipedia that this isn't possible" (lol) and on and on.....unfortunately there seems to be no shortage of "experts" and emotional cripples who want to vent their anger at those few of us who actually know how to do this....my advice to all of you is point & click elsewhere...

 

Fortunately there are a few folks who get the message...."gee, this guy doesn't really want to build a commercial business selling mentoring (how could he with just 4 students @$200/month for a couple of months?).......duh and since he's insulting everyone within earshot and telling people to find help elsewhere.....what's the catch......

 

In the end it comes down to basic street smarts...no one can completely eliminate risk in life....at some point you have to either "go for it", or sit on the sidelines and talk about it while other people "go for it"....

 

Thanks

[Patuca 13]

Better make haste and run Enigmatics...next you will be hit hard with the nfantile and adolescent verbiage..does not help the self image..nada..zilch..zero...

[Patuca 13]

Better make haste and run Enigmatics...next you will be hit hard with the infantile and adolescent verbiage..does not help the self image..nada..zilch..zero...

[TL Staff 10]

Gentlemen, I assume we are keeping it somewhat civil?

[MaksymGra 10]

And I thought it will be innocent thread with 5-6 replies and polite "thank you" from topic starter

[Chartsky 10]

The best time to trade is when your particular market provides sufficient liquidity and opportunity for you to profit. This will be different for different markets and trader skill levels.

 

For example, trading FDAX futures is best 3:00 a.m. (Eastern) to about 6:00 a.m. But if you tried trading ES during that time you'd have to go for smaller profit targets as it usually doesn't move as well. Now at 9:30 a.m. (Eastern) ES picks up and FDAX becomes computer-dominated and whippy. So you could trade ES over-night or FDAX during the day but you'd have to be on your game and would trade them differently.

 

Trading currencies would be best from the European Open (3:00 a.m.) through the U.S. Morning Session, but Japanese Yen and Gold often move very well during the early Asian Session (8:00 p.m. Eastern). Of course, Gold moves well during the U.S. Session too almost every day.

 

Look at some charts of the market(s) you're interested in. Both time-based and volume-based, or time-based with volume as an indicator. That will give you a good idea of where to focus. Years ago I chose to be selective . . . make my money and stop in a couple of hours to enjoy my kids and golf . . . and not be tied to my computer screen 24/5.

 

Good Luck!

Chartsky

www.chartsky.com

 

 

Base on this graph that I have seen somewhere in the internet, what is the best time of the day to trade? Does this one require you a particular time zone? Or does trading in every part of the day will be helpful, I heard that timing means profitability, so how does this two things correlate?

[Predictor 11]

There are at least 2 basic approaches to trading, one is what I'll call opportunity based and the other is what we call process based (explained more on my blog). Opportunity structured traders will seek out exceptional opportunity at all times and even in multiple markets. Process based traders focus on following a specific process that enables them to read the market at a high level. Both styles can work but opportunity based trading requires a higher degree of discipline and would be better for a pair of traders then individual.

 

The best time to trade is when your most profitable, of course. Most traders do well when volatility is higher then average and direction is more predictable. I divide the market up into Pre Market, Open, Morning, Evening, After Hours/Night.

 

I've found good opportunity in the S&P 500 emini during most of those sessions/times if one know how to trade except for evening trades. The best opportunity for me is typically off the open and into the morning hours -- as well as after hours. If you trade late evening/evening then you will probably want to plan on holding some trades over the regular session close. Typically, systems that trade trends do better with longer holding periods. So, if you know the market is going to trend then buying as early as possible and holding until the close is going to be hard to beat.

 

It is not at all required to trade all day to trade well. Many would do better just trading a few hours per day.

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Home - OrderFlowDashPro

Edited September 19, 2013 by Predictor

[Ammeo 10]

When i used to day trade (which i dont do anymore) i used to like the asian timing cause it wasnt a hassle and the pairs used to make regular patterns....US timing zone is a mess to handle and soon i abandoned the US timezone..