Day trading as a profession includes three distinct styles of trading known as day, swing, and position trading. Day trading as a style is short term trading where a trade might last anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours, with most trades lasting several minutes. Swing trading is medium term trading where trade usually last a few days, but can easily last up to several weeks. Position trading is long term trading (what used to be called investing), where trades usually last many months if not several years.
Day trading is considered the most glamorous of the three trading styles, and new traders flock to day trading because of its potential to make a lot of money in a short amount of time. However, day trading also requires the most amount of effort (in learning and trading time), and can also lose the most amount of money in a short amount of time. Swing trading and position trading are considered slower and less profitable, and are often neglected by new traders. However, some of the most successful and most profitable professional traders are swing and position traders.
Swing and position trading are also very flexible with regard to trading full time or part time. Swing and position trading systems usually use daily, weekly, or even monthly charts, and can therefore often be traded in a little as a few minutes each day. I often receive questions from new traders who want to know how they can trade while they temporarily keep their current job. The answer is by being a swing and position trader, or at least focusing the majority of their trading on swing and position trades.
If you have read this far, but are still sceptical about swing and position trading, because you believe that day trading is where the money is, consider the following. I know of swing and position trading systems that regularly take trades that make over €10,000 ($15,000, or £8,000) trading just one contract, but I do not know of any day trading system that even comes close to this level of profit from a single trade. Just something to think about the next time you hear somebody scoffing at swing and position trading.
This week's economic calendar includes a few news releases from each region (the US, Europe, and Asia). Each region also has at least a couple of high volatility news releases, so there should be some high volatility and significant price movements from all three regions at some point during this week.
The US, European, and Asian news releases for this week are as follows (all times are Greenwich Mean Time, which is 2 hours behind Central European Time, and 4 hours ahead of US Eastern Time) :
US
- Monday : Leading Index at 2:00 PM
- Tuesday : Treasury News Conference at 12:10 PM, FOMC News Conference at 12:30 PM, and House Price Index, and Manufacturing Index at 2:00 PM
- Wednesday : Oil Inventories at 2:35 PM, and Beige Book at 6:00 PM
- Thursday : Unemployment Claims at 12:30 PM, Existing Home Sales, and FOMC News Conference at 2:00 PM, and Natural Gas Storage at 2:35 PM
- Friday : Durable Goods Orders at 12:30 PM, Consumer Sentiment at 1:55 PM, and New Home Sales at 2:00 PM
- This week's US news releases that should cause high volatility are shown in bold type. There are only three high volatility news releases this week, and they are all occuring on Thursday and Friday, so the US markets may experience their highest volatility at the end of the week.
Europe
- Monday : Switzerland PPI at 7:15 AM
- Tuesday : Switzerland Trade Balance at 6:15 AM, and UK Central Bank News Conference at 6:45 AM
- Wednesday : France Consumer Spending at 6:45 AM, Italy Retail Sales at 8:00 AM, UK MPC Meeting, and Mortgage Approvals at 8:30 AM, and EU Industrial Orders at 9:00 AM
- Thursday : France PMI Manufacturing and Services at 7:00 AM, Germany PMI Manufacturing and Services at 7:30 AM, Germany Business Climate Index, Business Expectations Index, EU PMI Manufacturing and Services, and EU Current Account at 8:00 AM, UK Retail Sales at 8:30 AM, and UK MPC News Conference at 5:00 PM
- Friday : EU Money Supply at 8:00 AM, and UK GDP, and Services Index at 8:30 AM
- This week's European news releases that should cause high volatility are shown in bold type. There are high volatility news releases throughout the week, so the European markets should experience some significant price movement all week.
Asia
- Monday : Australia PPI, and Vehicle Sales at 1:30 AM, New Zealand Credit Card Spending at 3:05 AM, and Japan Industry Activity Index at 11:50 PM
- Tuesday : No news releases
- Wednesday : Australia CPI at 1:30 AM, New Zealand Monetary Policy, and Cash Rate at 9:00 PM, and Japan Trade Balance at 11:50 PM
- Thursday : Japan CPI at 11:30 PM, and Japan CSPI at 11:50 PM
- Friday : No news releases
- This week's Asian news releases that should cause high volatility are shown in bold type. There are a couple of high volatility news releases this week, so the Asian markets should experience some volatility at some point during the week.
