Swing or Day Trading, Which Should You Choose?

There are various different ways that you can build a financial portfolio with your choice of securities and assets. You might decide to simply invest in long-term strategies that allow you to gradually make cash over time based on changes in a marketplace or industry. If you like the idea of taking a more active approach, the chances are that you’ll make the choice between day and swing trading. 

Although both of these money-making strategies focus on the shorter-term financial landscape, they’re slightly different. Swing trading typically involves an overnight hold, or the decision to maintain a position for several week. Alternatively, if you’re a day trader, you will aim to close out any positions you have before the market closes at the end of the day. By holding a position for longer, swing trading opens the door to unpredictable issues like gaps in the position of a security overnight. However, there are pros and cons to both types of spending.

Capturing Risks and Rewards in the Market

Both swing and day trading require a careful assessment of your chosen marketplace, and a strategy that helps you to pinpoint opportunities as and when they occur. Swing trading professionals hold a position for a period often longer than a day and less than a month. If a day trader attempts to capture one moment of movement in an industry, the swing trader wants to capture an entire leg of a movement, either up or down. 

On the plus side, taking the swing route means that you can achieve a significant number of returns, similar to those of day traders, and often within a shorter space of time. You also don’t need to spend all day in front of a computer screen to take money. Positions take days or weeks to unfold, so you can run a relatively normal life alongside your strategy. 

We are primarily funded by readers. Please subscribe and donate to support us!

Alternatively, day traders need to keep a much closer eye on their positions, and how the market is moving, so that they can see small opportunities wherever they are. There’s slightly more mental strain involved with staying active every day, and a greater risk that you’ll be tempted to overtrade. Additionally, you may pay more fees in day trading too. 

Is the Swing Option Always Better?

There are positives and negatives to all kinds of active buying and selling. Day trading definitely has its benefits to offer too, including the fact that you don’t have to worry about overnight risk changing your position drastically in the time when you’re not able to do anything on the stock market. It’s also worth remembering that as well as being able to flatten their position fast, day traders are in a good position to benefit from multiple purchases and sales on a trend day. 

This means that you can pull as much cash as possible from a specifically good day. The key to success, as with most things in the financial world, is examining the market, learning about all of your options and deciding which strategy fits with your risk capacity and general approach.

Disclaimer: This content does not necessarily represent the views of IWB.

Views:

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.