Trade only market close? (Live in Ireland)

[Fintan Sealy 0]

Hi All,

Due to my schedule and location (Dublin, Ireland) I will only be able to trade from about 14:30 EST till market close. Throughout Andrews book, he suggests to only trade the market open. 

Would it still be worth it for me to get into day trading, based on this? I have been following the daily YouTube videos and monitored the volume of the stocks that Andrew trades in the morning - the volume of these stocks during market close is a fraction of what it was in the morning. However, maybe there are other stocks which are busier during market close? I can't find out for certain as I don't have any monitoring software at this point. Does anyone with experience have with this?

I read Andrews book and I am really eager to dive deeper into this sector, however I am wondering if I am wasting my time due to my circumstances - I have been looking into this for a while now and have not been able to find much detailed info on this. I thought it would be a great place to ask this here since I found Andrews book so helpful as well as the YouTube videos.

As a side note - Initially I would only have 5 - 10k to put into my account. What are peoples opinions on trading with this amount. I realize that if for example, I used TradeZero, I would pay 99c on each trade. Meaning if I opened a trade with 2% of my account size ($100 - 200). I would have to make at least 1% on that trade to break even... (Please don't let this distract from the main question I am asking in this post. I may just use a demo account for the market close until I can earn more money)

Any opinions / insights / suggestions would be highly appreciated. 

Thanks,

Fintan

Edited February 11, 2019 by Fintan Sealy

[Daniel Thomas 23]

There are some pretty good moves each afternoon starting around 14:00 EST (which is usually a reversal from the 11:00-14:00 consolidation).  

Between 15:00 - 15:30 each day there are A LOT of shorts covering their positions, which will often result in two (ish) bull-flags to VWAP on many oversold tickers. 

At about 15:30 each day some of the overbought tickers sell off toward VWAP, but be careful-- because they'll oftentimes catch support near a prominent moving average (usually the 200simple).  

At about 15:45 each day you'll get another pivot, then during the last 10 minutes, or so (15:50-16:00) all hell breaks loose!  Lol...

Also...  There are post-market earnings releases nearly every day.  I'll often play these moves when/if I'm bored, and still have the trading station up and running.  The key to after-hours is to WAIT until the initial move is over (usually a huge spike up on "good" earnings, or down on "bad.") -- then choose whether you want to play the pullback, the continuation, or both.  There are lots of "dead-cat" bounces on bad earnings, which are easy money in the after hours.  The AH closes at 20:00 EST, and some brokers shut down trading before that (CMEG, for example, shuts down at 17:30), so be cognizant of that if you play it.  

Moral of the story is yes, you can find worthwhile trades in the afternoon.  And though the moves may not be as ubiquitous, or as "rangy" as the first 15 minutes of the day, I would argue that you can find stuff that nearly parallels the 09:45-10:00 action with regards to range and volatility.  Whatever you do, STAY AWAY from "chop," which is typically between 11ish - 14:00.  

Hope that helps; STAY GREEN!