I stopped my CFD trading in March and April due to the volatility and ongoing uncertainty in the markets, coupled with the lack of luck on the job hunt front. Many companies are still laying off staff, especially in the marketing that has typically been seen more as a cost centre in trying times.
However, volatility can also be a friend, especially when it comes to high frequency day trading. So, similar to what I did in February 2020, I picked up my trading hat once again in May, and started trading nights when the US markets opened.
This was a little hard to do, given that I live in Singapore, and US markets trade from 9.30pm to 4am Singapore time. Following on February’s lead, I looked to trade primarily in the first half of the trading day, and close out my positions, profitable or not, within the same day. This means I need to be awake till around 1am every night. With 2 little boys running circles around me in the day… this was going to be a challenge.
Day Trading in Market Volatility
For those of you looking to daytrade to take advantage of these big intraday swings, please please take note and try to close out your positions before market close.
As you can see above, the huge red loss of that one trade (a whopping $2,341 loss) wiped out almost all of my gains for the month at the time. I held that trade over the Memorial Day weekend, and what a memorable trade that turned out to be!
I think that’s really the main lesson for the month. Close your positions before the end of the trading day, because you won’t know what news will move the markets the next day.
At the end of the day, I’m really glad to have been able to claw back some profits, and come out of the month $856 in the green.
Skills Upgrade
While I take this time to look after the 2 boys, and continue my search for a job, I’ve also started looking to see what I can improve about myself. I started a newsletter on substack, where I read up and learn about how to get better across various aspects of my personal life. If you like what you read, please subscribe!
I’m also thinking of getting some YouTube content up on the site, so I started looking at some platforms that can help create video content. Had a play around, and voila, here’s my shot at a logo animation that would serve as the intro to all my awesome future videos! Whaddya think?
