Any Full Time Day Stock Traders Here?

[ExpatJ]

I was wondering if there are any full time day traders here based in Thailand. In the future, I am thinking of taking up in semi-retirement for 3-5 years...

What set up do you use (number of screens, trade software) etc?

How much capital did you have before starting?

Also what is your daily/weekly profit profit? Are you able to thrive in current market?

A lot of fairly personal info there, but would appreciate anyone's inputs.

[yoshiwara]

Retail traders will tell you that there are up periods and down periods. Some days when they are at it and some days when they are hiding.

Everybody has a method which they think is the discovery of the holy grail and it works great. Until it doesn't.

It is possible to win a lot and lose a lot of money. Playing with a substantial retirement saving can get you into trouble.

Paying for live streaming prices is really a must if you want to trade rather than being an investor and the turn can make a difference.

I use http://www.advfn.com for price action and my bank for trading.

[Bpuumike]

Check out Chris Vermuelem [email protected] I've followed him for the last 5 years. Apart from 2 or 3 daily updates he does his best to educate you and will always reply to personal email questions.

Another would be Warren Beavan [email protected] he is a very quick in and out day trader - not my style as you are tied to your computer during US trading hours.Neither of their subscriptions are expensive.[/font]

How much? Up to you. How much are you prepared to loose? Don't worry, just keep your stop-losses in place, as both of the above will always remind you. [/font]

MODS: I hope this is allowed as I'm passing on commercial info?[/font]

Edited July 30, 2012 by Bpuumike

[yourauntbob]

Rule number 1, DO NOT USE MONEY YOU CANT AFFORD TO LOSE!

Rule number 2, DO NOT USE MONEY YOU CANT AFFORD TO LOSE!

Daytrading is very risky and tricky. I remember one of someone telling me a long time ago that actively trading stocks is so dangerous because you can be 100% right and still lose money, everything is based on momentum. Do research, and i would recommend going on to investopedia and using one of their free online portfolios to practice before using real money.

Good Luck

[monty]

Daytrading is risky and extremely difficult. You have to be very disciplined, and have to be capable of taking the emotion out of the trading!

I have been doing it for about a year together with a friend, and in the end we kind of gave up, as basically all the profit we realized on the trades got eaten up by the fees of the brokerage and the expenses. This was about maybe 7 years ago, so fast internet was expensive as hell and not very reliable

Ended up not losing money over that period, so probably if we kept at it we might have eventually became profitable, but believe me, it doesn't come easy. You really have to study at it and spend inordinate amounts on research.

Add to that in Thailand due to the time difference, you end up waking up around lunch time, spend all afternoon on your daily research to prepare for the trading session which can run from 8 PM till 9 am Thai time if you include pre-market and after market trading hours!

[aussiebebe]

I've never tried it myself, but I have read into this type of trading as a colleague of mine did day trading several years ago. He and another friend were keen on it and when I questioned them it turned out they were betting quite small amounts, like a hobby. I'm impressed by anyone who can make a living out of day trading - there are many books on the subject. The first thing I discovered that put me off was that it's not taxed as it's considered gambling.

[fletchsmile]

....

Add to that in Thailand due to the time difference, you end up waking up around lunch time, spend all afternoon on your daily research to prepare for the trading session which can run from 8 PM till 9 am Thai time if you include pre-market and after market trading hours!

There are plenty of markets other than US to trade. I find Thailand's time zone position quite useful. Australia 7am - 1pm. Singapore 8am - 4pm. Thailand 9.45 - 4.55. UK 2pm/3pm - 10.30 pm/11.30pm depending on time of year... US is probably one of the most inconvenient for day trading from Thailand as you say though, given the late nights. For trading other than day trading on US market: 8.30pm on-wards for a few hours each day is fine.

--------

To OP,

Personally I'm not a fan of day trading, and I prefer just taking trading positions as and when I see fit in various markets, for varying time horizons. I like to let profits run, so naturally dislike approaches based on in and out within a day. Having spent time working in the financial sector and banking industry I also appreciate the massive disparity in resources, systems, research etc for an institutional vs retail player.

Bear in mind your internet connection and power outages too. We have internet with TOT, and like many things in Thailand it has reliability issues with poor connections or cut off. I have an air-card with DTAC as a back-up connection. This is fine for most trading, but I wouldn't like consistently to be relying on very short term timing. Power cuts make a notebook or UPS important. For the UPS, consider getting one that can do 3 appliances: computer, monitor and internet if using wifi. One of the things I've been happiest with is buying a 23" monitor. If you're going to spend time in front of a screen, have a few comforts. Actually the wife got me it as a present as I was just using the screen I'd always been used to.

I "(semi-)retired" last year - although that's a very much open for debate status and would probably describe it more as reaching my financial independence goal. I decided to carve out about 10% of my investment portfolio, and trade with that. So my main income is from investment rather than trading.

Trading is a nice sideline though. Given my investment is longer term horizons and mainly long positions, the trading also offers some opportunities to nicely complement it on short term opportunities. While people comment about the risks of trading above, and while that may be true in isolation, I would actually say that combining trading with longer term investments if anything reduces overall risk.

Example: For investing, overall I have been long Thai equities for more than 10 years mainly via large positions in mutual funds I and expect to be long for the next 10 years too. TFEX trading allows me to take short term positions (mainly via options for me) where I can profit from short or long positions and make money on trading in either rising or falling markets. eg My Thai mutual fund investments are up over 20% YTD, they have slight negative returns over the last couple of months, whereas SET50 option trading has given me about +15% in that same couple of months. This suits my views of long term bullish on Thai equities, but short term uncertainty and possible downside. The SET50 positions I have for Sep settlement will be profitable as long as SET50 ends between 740 and 920. Above 920 I start to lose quickly due to leverage, but don't mind as the losses on the short term trades would be dwarfed by the investment gains. With SET50t around 829 my main risk to watch and dynamically manage is a fall exceeding 10% on SET50, although my leverage is much lower on the downside.

So I guess my messages are:

- I left 90% in investments I've built up over many years, and trade with only 10% to see how it goes, so key capital is not at risk

- Ask yourself why day trading - particularly as a one man operation compared to institutions? If you're doing research and given the time you invest in it, why not make it research that suits for a longer time frame? Also if you've generated enough income to semi-retire why suddenly change all your successfulinvestment habits? Day trading is a different ball game.

- Thailand offers some great opportunities due to the time zone. No need to be tied to just US or any other market. One of my favourites has become TFEX, even though it's one of my smallest portfolios at the moment

- Be prepared for the usual Thailand problems like internet and power failure and have a back up

- Get yourself a nice large screen or two if you haven't already. It makes a big difference, as well as giving a nice feel to what you're doing

Edited August 1, 2012 by fletchsmile

[Time Traveller]

Daytrading is risky and extremely difficult. You have to be very disciplined, and have to be capable of taking the emotion out of the trading!

I have been doing it for about a year together with a friend, and in the end we kind of gave up, as basically all the profit we realized on the trades got eaten up by the fees of the brokerage and the expenses. This was about maybe 7 years ago, so fast internet was expensive as hell and not very reliable

Ended up not losing money over that period, so probably if we kept at it we might have eventually became profitable, but believe me, it doesn't come easy. You really have to study at it and spend inordinate amounts on research.

Add to that in Thailand due to the time difference, you end up waking up around lunch time, spend all afternoon on your daily research to prepare for the trading session which can run from 8 PM till 9 am Thai time if you include pre-market and after market trading hours!

What are you talking about, Thai brokerage fees are the lowest I've seen in any country. Just 0.15% for internet trading with min. of 50 Baht per day.

[monty]

Read my post!

I'm referring to day trading on the American markets, 7 years ago.

Back then (and I assume today as well) you needed access to real time streaming info, direct access to the ecn's (nasdaq, arca, island) through a software package.

This came at a price, back then average 10$ per trade. Doing between 10 and 20 trades a day gave us a brokerage bill of between 2000 and 4000 US$ per month!

As per Fletchsmile's post (who has much more recent experience), it seems that now more markets are suited for daytrading, but I seriously doubt the Thai market has enough liquidity to allow day trading.

Sent from my GT-I9001 using Thaivisa Connect App

[ExpatJ]

Thanks to all for the useful advice. In my mind the way to make day trading worth while is to invest a high enough amount- 100,000 USD/3 million baht to buy stocks in the morning (using technical analysis) ,that would have a commission of @14,000 baht (to buy and sell combined) with my brokerage, just a- say- 1% price increase during the day and then selling before the close would give a 500 US$ profit - not bad for small portion of a days work.

[monty]

Thanks to all for the useful advice. In my mind the way to make day trading worth while is to invest a high enough amount- 100,000 USD/3 million baht to buy stocks in the morning (using technical analysis) ,that would have a commission of @14,000 baht (to buy and sell combined) with my brokerage, just a- say- 1% price increase during the day and then selling before the close would give a 500 US$ profit - not bad for small portion of a days work.

How do you reach the 14,000 commision?

Of the popular trading houses, e*trade charges a flat 12.99$ per trade, Scottrade even as low as 7$ per trade (but they charge a percentage if trading penny stocks).

So if you split your 100,000 over 4 positions of 25,000 each, you would do 8 trades a day, costing between 91 and 104 US$ depending on brokerage...

[ExpatJ]

Thanks to all for the useful advice. In my mind the way to make day trading worth while is to invest a high enough amount- 100,000 USD/3 million baht to buy stocks in the morning (using technical analysis) ,that would have a commission of @14,000 baht (to buy and sell combined) with my brokerage, just a- say- 1% price increase during the day and then selling before the close would give a 500 US$ profit - not bad for small portion of a days work.

How do you reach the 14,000 commision?

Of the popular trading houses, e*trade charges a flat 12.99$ per trade, Scottrade even as low as 7$ per trade (but they charge a percentage if trading penny stocks).

So if you split your 100,000 over 4 positions of 25,000 each, you would do 8 trades a day, costing between 91 and 104 US$ depending on brokerage...

I am talking about Thai stocks/stock exchange- commission is about 0.2% per trade, using thai brokers- slightly lower if you place the order yourself online.

Edited August 2, 2012 by ExpatJ

[monty]

Thanks to all for the useful advice. In my mind the way to make day trading worth while is to invest a high enough amount- 100,000 USD/3 million baht to buy stocks in the morning (using technical analysis) ,that would have a commission of @14,000 baht (to buy and sell combined) with my brokerage, just a- say- 1% price increase during the day and then selling before the close would give a 500 US$ profit - not bad for small portion of a days work.

How do you reach the 14,000 commision?

Of the popular trading houses, e*trade charges a flat 12.99$ per trade, Scottrade even as low as 7$ per trade (but they charge a percentage if trading penny stocks).

So if you split your 100,000 over 4 positions of 25,000 each, you would do 8 trades a day, costing between 91 and 104 US$ depending on brokerage...

I am talking about Thai stocks/stock exchange- commission is about 0.2% per trade, using thai brokers- slightly lower if you place the order yourself online.

I have no idea on how the Thai brokers operate at the moment and how their online systems work.

But I'm of the impression that you are not planning to do real day trading, as I seriously doubt Thailand has the tools to do just that. In day trading making a profit or a loss can be a matter of minutes or even seconds, manual trades by calling your broker are simply unheard of in day trading!

Also, your trading platform should allow you to set stop loss and stop limit orders, if not you are missing major parts of the day trading art.

Without these tools it is very difficult to take the emotion out of the trading, you set a stop loss and you execute it. Without fail!

Having to do this manually brings in the emotion again unless you have a heart of steel

I have read an article stating that the SET does not allow stop loss and stop limit orders, but have no idea if this is correct/up to date.

source:

http://www.thaistocks.com/index.php?module=Pagesetter&func=viewpub&tid=2&pid=50

[John 1]

Thanks to all for the useful advice. In my mind the way to make day trading worth while is to invest a high enough amount- 100,000 USD/3 million baht to buy stocks in the morning (using technical analysis) ,that would have a commission of @14,000 baht (to buy and sell combined) with my brokerage, just a- say- 1% price increase during the day and then selling before the close would give a 500 US$ profit - not bad for small portion of a days work.

How do you reach the 14,000 commision?

Of the popular trading houses, e*trade charges a flat 12.99$ per trade, Scottrade even as low as 7$ per trade (but they charge a percentage if trading penny stocks).

So if you split your 100,000 over 4 positions of 25,000 each, you would do 8 trades a day, costing between 91 and 104 US$ depending on brokerage...

I am talking about Thai stocks/stock exchange- commission is about 0.2% per trade, using thai brokers- slightly lower if you place the order yourself online.

I have no idea on how the Thai brokers operate at the moment and how their online systems work.

But I'm of the impression that you are not planning to do real day trading, as I seriously doubt Thailand has the tools to do just that. In day trading making a profit or a loss can be a matter of minutes or even seconds, manual trades by calling your broker are simply unheard of in day trading!

Also, your trading platform should allow you to set stop loss and stop limit orders, if not you are missing major parts of the day trading art.

Without these tools it is very difficult to take the emotion out of the trading, you set a stop loss and you execute it. Without fail!

Having to do this manually brings in the emotion again unless you have a heart of steel

I have read an article stating that the SET does not allow stop loss and stop limit orders, but have no idea if this is correct/up to date.

source:

http://www.thaistock...ub&tid=2&pid=50

Go to www.ktzmico.com plenty of info and can do trade via your computer completed in seconds. available in English also easy to open an account.

[fletchsmile]

I use KGI as a broker for trading Thai stocks. Their systems seem fine. It provides free real time streaming on prices, as well as other info If you go to the following website:

http://www.kgieworld.co.th/en/index.asp

Then move your cursor over "how to trade" and click on things like "streaming" and "trading demo" you will get a flavour of using it. I don't think the demos are very good though, and the real system is much better. It covers equities as well as derivatives. The platform, system, streaming etc are all free. I was a little surprised at this to be honest. For UK/US you pay for this stuff as mentioned above, and if day trading you really do need real time prices, so having it all free in Thailand was a nice surprise.

There is also a free underlying system for SET/TFEX trading which is not specific to the broker called "One Click". This has some very useful tools for things like portfolio analysis, although the interface isn't as good/ easy to use as KGI's own platform in my view. This also allows things like inputting multiple trades simultaneously which is useful for option trading. You can also set "stop orders" via this. If you move your cursor over "how to trade" and then click on "manual one click" you can open/ download the manual. The manual is all in Thai, but again gives a flavour, as the systems are intuitive. I've rarely used the manual, and just started trading straight away, but occasionally there is something you want to do but can't find so the manual/reference comes in.

[ExpatJ]

Go to www.ktzmico.com plenty of info and can do trade via your computer completed in seconds. available in English also easy to open an account.

Very useful- does the platform include a technical analysis stock screener?

[ExpatJ]

I use KGI as a broker for trading Thai stocks. Their systems seem fine. It provides free real time streaming on prices, as well as other info If you go to the following website:

http://www.kgieworld...th/en/index.asp

Then move your cursor over "how to trade" and click on things like "streaming" and "trading demo" you will get a flavour of using it. I don't think the demos are very good though, and the real system is much better. It covers equities as well as derivatives. The platform, system, streaming etc are all free. I was a little surprised at this to be honest. For UK/US you pay for this stuff as mentioned above, and if day trading you really do need real time prices, so having it all free in Thailand was a nice surprise.

There is also a free underlying system for SET/TFEX trading which is not specific to the broker called "One Click". This has some very useful tools for things like portfolio analysis, although the interface isn't as good/ easy to use as KGI's own platform in my view. This also allows things like inputting multiple trades simultaneously which is useful for option trading. You can also set "stop orders" via this. If you move your cursor over "how to trade" and then click on "manual one click" you can open/ download the manual. The manual is all in Thai, but again gives a flavour, as the systems are intuitive. I've rarely used the manual, and just started trading straight away, but occasionally there is something you want to do but can't find so the manual/reference comes in.

Thanks, same question- does the platform include a technical analysis stock screener?

[John 1]

I use KGI as a broker for trading Thai stocks. Their systems seem fine. It provides free real time streaming on prices, as well as other info If you go to the following website:

http://www.kgieworld...th/en/index.asp

Then move your cursor over "how to trade" and click on things like "streaming" and "trading demo" you will get a flavour of using it. I don't think the demos are very good though, and the real system is much better. It covers equities as well as derivatives. The platform, system, streaming etc are all free. I was a little surprised at this to be honest. For UK/US you pay for this stuff as mentioned above, and if day trading you really do need real time prices, so having it all free in Thailand was a nice surprise.

There is also a free underlying system for SET/TFEX trading which is not specific to the broker called "One Click". This has some very useful tools for things like portfolio analysis, although the interface isn't as good/ easy to use as KGI's own platform in my view. This also allows things like inputting multiple trades simultaneously which is useful for option trading. You can also set "stop orders" via this. If you move your cursor over "how to trade" and then click on "manual one click" you can open/ download the manual. The manual is all in Thai, but again gives a flavour, as the systems are intuitive. I've rarely used the manual, and just started trading straight away, but occasionally there is something you want to do but can't find so the manual/reference comes in.

Thanks, same question- does the platform include a technical analysis stock screener?

Just go and open demo account and all will be revealed.

[monty]

For those using the SET to trade, how is liquidity? Especially on the smaller companies listed.

It's all good and well holding 10,000 shares of a company, and when price is up you want to sell, but only small lots of a few hundred shares are being traded...Or finding sellers when you want to get out of a short position which is on the way up again...

Even on the Nasdaq it could be an issue with smallcap companies (often pennyshares, so you know the risk beforehand)...

Doesn't matter for longer term investments but can be very difficult daytrading...

[ExpatJ]

For those using the SET to trade, how is liquidity? Especially on the smaller companies listed.

It's all good and well holding 10,000 shares of a company, and when price is up you want to sell, but only small lots of a few hundred shares are being traded...Or finding sellers when you want to get out of a short position which is on the way up again...

Even on the Nasdaq it could be an issue with smallcap companies (often pennyshares, so you know the risk beforehand)...

Doesn't matter for longer term investments but can be very difficult daytrading...

For the big 'blue chip' type Thai stocks liquidity is not a problem. However for quite a few other stocks it is if you are looking to purchase lots worth 500,000 baht+++

I apply my own stock screen criteria focusing on top growth stocks in the SET and one of the criteria also includes liquidity- basically this narrows my list down to @10 stocks which i monitor weekly and buy when RSI (relative strength) dips close to 30, hold for 0-4 weeks then sell normally. During dividend season i buy other stocks that have high dividend payments about a month before the XD date (if their RSI is 50 or below) then sell the day before XD to take advantage of people entering the market to buy good dividend stocks

Edited August 2, 2012 by ExpatJ

[DrTuner]

How do the day traders get work permits ? Usual way, set up a company, Thai employees, etc, or work for a Thai company owned by somebody else ? I'm interested as this could make a nice hobby, but there's the usual permit thing.

[ppam888]

How is the liquidity of SET50, oil, gold in the TFEX market?

[monty]

How do the day traders get work permits ? Usual way, set up a company, Thai employees, etc, or work for a Thai company owned by somebody else ? I'm interested as this could make a nice hobby, but there's the usual permit thing.

Most don't.

They just keep quiet about it. The banks/brokerages are not going to talk to immigration/labor department, so if you keep quiet about and trade from home on your PC, nobody would know.

It's a thin line anyway. One can enter Thailand and invest in government bonds or long time stocks, or even simply deposit funds in a fixed term bank deposit, and nobody would call this work.

Day trading would just be doing this a few times a day, managing your investments...

Even in the brokerages where they have a big trading room with PC's for their customers to do their trading (visible from the street as at least one location in Pattaya), with many foreigners present, never heard immigration doing a raid there over the many years they exist!

Nor would labor department be staking out a bank to check on foreigners managing their investments/bank accounts...

Little bit the same discussion of being allowed to cut the grass in your own garden or paint your own house...

You do have tax liability though!

[DrTuner]

You do have tax liability though!

Yeah. This is what I stumbled on back in those days when a marriage extension needed 40kbaht/month and the 400k option was not there. I found out that it is possible to pay taxes without a work permit, but you'll need a Thai tax number, which they usually would take from the work permit so another Catch-22. At that time I was thinking about making an offshore company that would pay me "salary" for picking my nose. I don't actually work anymore. Later I then heard that once you get a yellow Thabian Baan, you'll have an Thai ID number (but not an ID card, those are for Thais only) issued and can use that anywhere. I'll get my yellow book soon, so I guess I could voluntarily pay taxes after that .. just would have to create some income source that does not need a work permit.

It would really be beneficial to all parties to update the work permit rules so a freelancer with no business in Thailand can get one. There's even a provision in the work permit application for that now, but someone asked already and the answer was "no, we don't grant work permits for freelancers". Blah.

[fletchsmile]

You do have tax liability though!

Yeah. This is what I stumbled on back in those days when a marriage extension needed 40kbaht/month and the 400k option was not there. I found out that it is possible to pay taxes without a work permit, but you'll need a Thai tax number, which they usually would take from the work permit so another Catch-22. At that time I was thinking about making an offshore company that would pay me "salary" for picking my nose. I don't actually work anymore. Later I then heard that once you get a yellow Thabian Baan, you'll have an Thai ID number (but not an ID card, those are for Thais only) issued and can use that anywhere. I'll get my yellow book soon, so I guess I could voluntarily pay taxes after that .. just would have to create some income source that does not need a work permit.

It would really be beneficial to all parties to update the work permit rules so a freelancer with no business in Thailand can get one. There's even a provision in the work permit application for that now, but someone asked already and the answer was "no, we don't grant work permits for freelancers". Blah.

Getting a tax ID is easy. You just go along to your local tax office and ask for one. No need for a work permit. There have also been various threads on here about reclaiming tax paid on things like bank interest (fixed deposits), where people don't work and don't have a work permit.

[KeyserSoze01]

The OP's post reads as if he has zero experience trading equities, much less day trading.

My advice is to spend the next 3 - 5 years learning the profession, then consider quitting his day job and then rely on income from trading. That is if he has any capital left.

Trading equities is not for the faint of heart and those that don't have deep enough pockets to suffer setbacks. Many think, wow, I can make a living trading stocks. Why I don't know. It's like someone flying a kite thinking they can fly a 747 without any formal training. Sure you can try it, but don't be surprised when you crash and burn.

[Time Traveller]

To clear up some untruths here. Investing, even day trading, is not working. You do not need a work permit for that. Also there is no tax liability on capital gains from the Stock Market in Thailand (unless you are trading through a company).

Recovering tax paid on dividends received in Thailand is easy (provided you are a tax resident here) and as fletchsmile said, you just need a tax payer id number which does not require a work permit.

Edited August 3, 2012 by Time Traveller

[Asiantravel]

The OP's post reads as if he has zero experience trading equities, much less day trading.

My advice is to spend the next 3 - 5 years learning the profession, then consider quitting his day job and then rely on income from trading. That is if he has any capital left.

Trading equities is not for the faint of heart and those that don't have deep enough pockets to suffer setbacks. Many think, wow, I can make a living trading stocks. Why I don't know. It's like someone flying a kite thinking they can fly a 747 without any formal training. Sure you can try it, but don't be surprised when you crash and burn.

yes indeed and how can anyone these days possibly compete with the bots ?

[yoshiwara]

I remember watching a programme some time ago about a US guy who was using his redundancy pay cheque as the stake for his short-term trading.

This wasn't play money, it was his life savings and made for very uncomfortable viewing.

One thing I have noticed with expats is that many like to climb out on the adventurous ledge, hoping to strike it rich and then dig in their heels refusing to take a loss when it (often) occurs.

[al007]

I use interactive brokers,personal account and QROPS costs per trades only pennies,but min $30 per month if you have an address in thailand you can set up account online, or use an address outside thailand

how much can you make only depends on how good you are

how much can you loose depends on how well you place stop losses

with internet in thailand stop losses need to be placed quickly