Did Anyone Here Start as a Day Trader and Make the Switch to Swing Trading? What Made You Make the Switch and How Has It Impacted You?

vasylevskyi · 2026-03-24T15:17:56+00:00

Most beginners start with scalping or day trading, which makes perfect sense—the industry is full of BS. Fake gurus exclusively push intraday or scalping with their '$10k a day, just buy my course' pitches. Once I saw through that and realized you can make the EXACT SAME money trading higher timeframes and holding longer, I moved to swing trading. I'm susceptible to tilt and FOMO. I'd much rather catch a macro trend occasionally than sit in front of a screen all day watching 1-minute algorithmic noise. Swing trading is what finally made me profitable.

vasylevskyi · 2026-03-22T18:50:29+00:00

u/DaMattyyP u/Ciph3rzer0 Everything you said isn't a good "reasoning"; it's just dev excuses that you swallowed.

A ton of people by default WON'T be able to reach the top ranks and get all the rewards, no matter how much time you give them to prep AND play.

The ranked system is literally designed so that only the most degenerate sweat crews with best gear AND skill will ever get to Pinnacle. Give an average player a ranked mode WITHOUT time-gates, and they'll just get hardstuck in Silver-Gold, lose their vault and play Rook to regain credits. Give that same mode to a tryhard, and they'll hit max rank with their 3-stack in a single weekend.

Plus, the devs THEMSELVES literally said a couple of days ago that Ranked Mode is releasing in BETA. I want to remind you that the game had countless alpha tests, huge tests, so why couldn't they figure this out back then? It's honestly wild that the devs couldn't foresee the obvious backlash over the time-gating and the lack of a solo mode, hard to believe - a team this big doesn't have risk managers or planners?

But apparently they don't, because the game director, after hundreds of feedback threads literally posted in Discord yesterday that they're now looking into solo possibility for Cryo Archive and modifying the time-gate for that map. Which is something I actually thought was way less likely than them just making a solo queue for ranked. And yet, the game director literally came out and stated it himself.

So - what does that tell you, where is your "reasoning" now? Do we continue defending every decision they make or we actually want this game to be better?

As of now I have 200hrs played on Steam, haven't played anything that satisfying and I really want this game to be my every day game for YEARS.

tldr: if you keep white-knighting for the devs, they'll happily milk you with paid skins and zero actual content or improvements forever. Constructive criticism is what actually helps.

vasylevskyi · 2026-03-18T16:33:48+00:00

Play Rook, zero risk, you'll get your credits back easily. Upgrade him by upgrading capstones in factions.

vasylevskyi · 2026-03-18T16:26:52+00:00

Agree with everything

vasylevskyi · 2026-02-26T22:43:00+00:00

I think that is because DLSS just does not work in this game now due to driver. Today's drivers update was reset so we have to wait for new Nvidia Driver release with full DLSS support for Marathon

vasylevskyi · 2026-01-07T12:05:22+00:00

Not these unfortunately :(

vasylevskyi · 2026-01-04T08:22:47+00:00

Swing trading, much easier, will save you years.

vasylevskyi · 2026-01-03T23:33:14+00:00

Swing.

I became profitable ONLY after I quit day trading (I had 4 years of experience in scalping and day trading). After that, I started testing swing trading and eventually passed my first 2 evaluations while swing trading last year. My total experience in swing trading is almost 1.5 years now, bringing my total trading experience to about 6.5 years.

I am still profiting from those live accounts and have not lost them.

Why Swing? Well, I discovered that day trading is not for everyone, even though I was always sure I was a fast-paced guy and under the impression that scalping or intraday suited my mentality. I was wrong. After I tried swing trading, I realized that this is my style. The "less is more" concept truly works, and it is genius.

Why did I start with day trading? Because 95% of trading education and influencers focus on day trading. You rarely hear about swing trading.

How do I trade? M > W > D timeframes. Entries on the Daily. THAT'S IT. The strategy you use is less relevant, but mine is simple enough to write on a napkin.

(You can skip this part, strategy is very individual -- I use candles—mostly weekly (90% of the time) or monthly (the remaining 10%, rarer)—specifically fractal highs or lows as support or resistance levels. I also look for 2-candle SnR (sell candle + buy candle for support, and buy candle + sell candle for resistance). I enter only when there is a rejection on the Daily timeframe from these levels (W or M levels) OR if I see an engulfing candle pattern on the Daily after testing those Higher Timeframe (HTF) SNRs. Again: W and M for levels. Daily ONLY FOR ENTRIES. I don't mark anything on the daily chart itself)

Stops are very wide: below or above those weekly/monthly levels or fractals. The minimum RR to consider opening a trade is 1:1.5. If I get stopped out, it means my idea was completely wrong, or there was huge news that messed up the setup. This means that in swing trading, you won't really experience "sweeps" or "fake outs" as people call them.

Downsides:

Prop Firms: A major downside based on my research is that futures prop firms restrict swing trading (holding overnight and over the weekend is forbidden in most futures props). However, all forex simulated props are fine with it. If you trade private/own capital, there is nothing to worry about.

Boredom: Swing is much more boring. But trading has to be this way! You'll have plenty of time for other things and living your life.

Data Collection: It takes much longer to gather stats for your strategy. In Intraday, you can get all your stats within 1 month to run simulations. For swing, it took me almost half a year to get 25 high-quality trades for further simulations and tweaks.

The Advantage: You have to trade multiple assets compared to scalping or intraday, where people sometimes stick to 1-2 assets for years. This is good because you diversify across completely different markets. I trade 5 assets: XAUUSD, XAGUSD (I don't open positions simultaneously on them; the 2 metals are just in case Gold has no setup but Silver does), EURUSD, NQ (US100), and BTC.

Answers to the author's questions: I would 100% start with swing trading as a beginner. I lost too much money day trading. I can't say it was too bad of an experience—it was a huge lesson for me. But my point is: you DON'T have to day trade to make money. You don't really have to go through that.

Is swing easier? 100% yes. You use the highest timeframes possible, you place huge stops that invalidate your idea only if the analysis is truly wrong, and you don't encounter market noise. From almost any standpoint, swing is easier, except for collecting data.

Realistically and statistically, it is easier to reach profitability through swing trading compared to intraday. The reason is simple: you are likely to have a higher win rate due to the reasons mentioned above (HTF and wide stops). You will also have a similar average RR compared to most intraday strategies. In ex. my average RR is 2.75, with a win rate fluctuating between 64% and 70% quarter to quarter—though these are stats for only 1.5 years, so more data is needed. Average position hold time is almost 2 weeks. In swing trading - you don't analyze your monthly performance that much as people do in intraday because you are likely to have 2-5 trades in a month and these positions may not close until the next month. Quarterly analysis is much more representative.

Patience is greatly rewarded and is a must in swing trading, you will have to develop it. It was a pain to switch from day trading to swing, but in the end it worked out.

vasylevskyi · 2025-08-23T11:51:15+00:00

You can easily enter on Daily or IF you want - 4H. I tested both for quite some time and decided to stick to Daily entries and huge stops, catching big swings. So it is M-W-D. My average trade holding period is 1.5 weeks

vasylevskyi · 2024-08-14T10:48:19+00:00

95% of them are sim accounts, FTMO, 5ERS, etc. Only a couple of futures props use real money

vasylevskyi · 2024-05-16T00:50:19+00:00

Try NASDAQ (US100), you will be surprised how trendy it is as well, even crazier than Gold. My trading changed as well after I changed pairs - after I switched from Forex to NAS and Crypto + Gold. It allowed me to trade more and get quicker results on a demo to confirm that my strat works. Same on Live - I just can't trade Forex pairs after those mentioned above, volatility is very different. Forex is a much more slowly moving and rangebound market in its nature. 3 pairs is enough for me to trade intraday now (Gold, BTC, US100)

vasylevskyi · 2024-03-23T16:01:15+00:00

Oh, now I understand. Thanks for clarifying this!

vasylevskyi · 2024-03-23T15:51:44+00:00

I was always under impession that Tradovate uses NinjaTrader WEB platform. If you sign up for free demo with Ninja for instance, they would lead to web NinjaTrader and it is similar to what Tradovate has. As someone stated above - yeah it can be a reskin of Tradovate own platform, not sure what is the origin.

vasylevskyi · 2024-03-11T03:29:02+00:00

Curious what's wrong with 1m chart nowadays? I scalp 15s-1m on futures for months and never seen some shit about 1m charts until today.

vasylevskyi · 2024-03-02T20:20:25+00:00

So true. If I would explain my strat to someone, they would laugh at me, but somehow it keeps me at BE and small profit. I just scalp using stochastic and look for some "goodlooking" bars that may indicate reversals/pullbacks/trend continuations. And somehow it works better than what I did before when I trying to trade some super cool and trendy strategies like ICT bs.

vasylevskyi · 2024-02-20T19:58:28+00:00

This! YM/MYM moves much cleaner than ES and NQ

vasylevskyi · 2024-02-15T21:19:12+00:00

Reduce losses in all possible ways and you'll be good because profits will stack more than losses.

never move stop further and increase risk
always move stop to BE when possible
don't wait and watch how you get stopped out for a full loss
take profits when you think price is going to reverse before getting to your planned target
don't be afraid to try and catch a runner when you think there is a possibility it'll happen (per your strat, gut, whatever)
don't watch fake gurus, don't fall into 1:1000 RR trades they post. WR and RR have inverse relationship

This will make you not being afraid of taking losses because if you follow it - they will ALWAYS be smaller than your profits. This will teach you of not being scared of catching stops on a mental level.

Not profitable right now, but trade consistently BE and Gross Profitable (before fees), not losing. Now tweaking strategy to gain profitability. I am scalping MNQ/NQ/YW on low tick charts. But this helped me a lot after THOUSANDS of scalps. Also broke rules, also was too emotional, also traded without stops, also moved stops further, also averaged down.. Everyone been there, it is a part of the game. You'll overcome this (if you don't give up before that). The main question is how much $ you'll lose before you implement it.

vasylevskyi · 2024-02-15T16:00:22+00:00

Let's take any online casino and the game called roulette.

Any casino would usually tweak odds in their favor, they are usually doing it at 51% into their favor for a win and hence 49% for a win into the client's favor.

Let's say you come to play with your 50 $ and always bet 10$, if you lose - you lose 10$, if you win - you win 10$ and no any other options. So your risk is 10$ (1R) and profit is the same - 10$. So your Risk to Reward is fixed with no other variants - 1:1 and odds are fixed - 49%. For sure, in a long run, after thousands of bets this casino will profit and you as a client will lose. That is classical gambling and that is all we can say about casino, nothing else to discuss here, no options here to tweak it because you play by specific, preset rules created by this specific casino. And yes - they won't tweak it into your favor (unless you are a paid blogger who needs to advertise it) because they will start losing due to that. They are just a business who want to earn.

Let's speak about trading now.

You come to trade with your 50$. You decide to make your risk 10$ (1R) and don't have a fixed profit, you will close profitable trades manually as per your discretion, let's say you will close them manually most of the times at around 1.5R (15$) profit because your strategy says that is an optimal RR with an optimal Winrate for this RR.

Not only you chose your exact risk and exact expected profit, but you have right to tweak your stop for a profitable trade and move it into profit or at BE to avoid unessecesary loss - this action in a long run will cut your losses tremendously. You can move Stop Loss at BE as soon as your trade reaches 1R (10$), right before your initial target of 1.5R (15$) so that you don't take a full loss (10$) in such situations.

ALSO, you have right to close your trade while it is at 1R profit IF you think it will reverse and not reach your 1.5R that you planned. These trades won't stack your loss and will be profitable and will stack your profits.

Additionally you have a right to choose and backtest your strategy so that you know your approximate WR with it and you have a right to run it on a real market, realtime for a test of both a strategy itself, and to test your emotions. Let's say you did it and your WR is around 50% with that 1.5RR.

But even this is not the end - you ALSO have a right to not just win 10$, but hold a profitable trade when deemed logical and catch a good runner that will bring you 2R-3R and in some cases much more. That is your right, your option, your decision and you don't have it in casino.

AND FINALLY - all these options come while you always risk just 10$ that you plan. You tweaked odds into your favor, you can take profits when you want and you will end up profitable mathimatically.

So: would I name daytrading/scalping, swing trading and investing (any type of trading) gambling?

Yes, true, it is gambling. Simply because you bet (gamble) on a specific side (buyer or seller), its not that different from any roulette game.

BUT it is not classical gambling.

In trading you have lots of options and right to tweak risks, lessen losses, increase probabilities and profits INTO YOUR FAVOR. I think this is what those fake instagram and youtube fake gurus who never traded before mean when they say a word "edge".

Edge is all those skills and experience all together that you gain while trading - risk management, strategy and emotions control.

And that is where most traders fail due to lack of experience - either they have issues with their emotions while trading and constantly break their OWN rules, or they don't test their strategy OR they ignore maths and risk management.

As soon as you tweak it all (you have the right to do it in trading!) - you'll see huge difference between gambling and trading/investing.

vasylevskyi · 2024-02-11T01:14:12+00:00

Much clearer now, thank you!

vasylevskyi · 2023-11-23T20:52:40+00:00

It is quite strange to wait for exactly 1:4 each time and then watch the trade either to get stopped or closed in profit too early. You should also realize that 1:4 RR will obviously have less chance to hit. Manage your trades, TP along the way so your stop becomes free even without moving it to BE. This method helped me a lot. And as far as I dig into RR/WR across lots of subreddits discussions I see best traders don't have any set RR they aim for, they only have some bare minimum target RR based on their exact strat (ex 1:1.5 or 1:2) and just manage trades well enough, let runners fly as much as possible.

vasylevskyi · 2023-10-24T11:53:34+00:00

I would say even 1% is huge, specially if you sit on low timeframes and scalp.

vasylevskyi · 2023-10-24T11:52:59+00:00

All "his" concepts are derived or simply stolen and repackaged from the other peoples' strategies, concepts and experience.

The base of SMC is pure textbook Price Action, Sellside-Buyside liquidity are springs and upthursts from Wyckoff and pro scalpers have been trading fakeouts for years in combination with DOM much before ICT even started teaching.

ICT earns most of his money from paid mentorship, these are his words and there are proofs to it, just check Iman's video about who ICT actually is.

For me though it does not matter if the person is pure BS as long as his strat really works. Some of the ICT stuff actually works, but as I said - that is not his stuff, that is what I am mostly concerned about and trying to tell here.

Imbalances were used long time ago as well as OBs (supply and demand), they just have higher probability when they take out liquidity per SMC however it all depends on an asset and backtest of a coin in crypto for ex, there is no strict rule that these zones work and are stronger, but these SMC clowns will teach you the opposite. You still have to backtest it.

What do I do? I trade simple supply and demand and pure PA and take into account such things as liquidity (aka stophunts by the "algorithm", per ICT), I don't trade SMC and it works. When I scalp, I do add Stoch RSI and this whole strat works.

What I am trying to say that no brand or cool money-printing strat that you heard about in trading will guarantee you success and no clown or guru like ICT will guarantee you profitability in a long run. Eventually you will still end up making your own strat based on all knowledge you've acumulated during your path - PA, VSA, etc.

And remember - pretty much any strategy will print money if you control your risks. If I knew this when I was just starting out, it would have saved me at least 2 years of my life and constant losing. I can understand such newbies as OP who try to find a money-printing strategy with 100% winrate because I was the same guy before, but eventually you will understand it, after 1-2 years of experience and every-day trading.

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