Day Trading vs. Swing Trading: Which Is More Profitable?

Day trading and swing trading are trading styles defined by the timespan in which financial instruments are bought, held, and sold. It is essential to know the difference between them.

Do you know what swing trading is and how it works? Let’s find out!

It is a market strategy that involves holding positions over several days or weeks. Besides, this trading style is less concerned with a market’s second-to-second price movements but instead looks to capture a portion of a more significant overall trend.

Swing traders often use CFDs in order to gain exposure to the markets. Both are derivative products, which means they can be used to speculate on rising as well as falling asset prices. You would open a position to ‘buy’ (go along) if you think the market’s price will go up, and you would open a position to ‘sell’ (go short) if you think its price will go down.

When trading derivatives, you only need a deposit – called margin – to open your position. Trading on margin can magnify your profits, but it can also increase your losses if the market moves against you.

Swing traders have the ability to use these products to speculate on markets that are bullish or bearish – providing greater scope to realize a profit within an overall trend.

It is pretty easy to open an account if you haven’t got one already.

When using leverage to open a position, you effectively borrow the money required outside of your initial deposit. For instance, if you hold a position overnight, this borrowed amount incurs a daily interest rate fee, known as overnight funding.

Popular questions

Inexperienced as well as experienced traders have several questions in mind, such as “Swing Trading vs. Day Trading which is more profitable,” “what is Swing Trading vs. Day Trading,” or “Day Trading vs. Swing Trading forex.”

Now, we can discuss day trading. What it is, and how it works. It is a style that is often used to gain exposure to short-term price movements in an underlying market. People who prefer day trading will open and close multiple positions during a single trading session, usually reacting to daily news stories or market-moving events.

In many cases, day traders prefer high market volatility because this means a market might experience more price movements in a shorter space of time, which could present a greater opportunity to profit. Typically, markets are most volatile when they open and close.

Day traders don’t leave their positions open overnight, so they don’t pay overnight funding charges. Nevertheless, they will need to pay close attention to the markets and should take steps to manage their exposure to risk in case the market moves against them.

As in the case of swing trading, you can use CFDs when you are day trading. These derivatives offer day traders the chance to profit in rising and falling markets – which can help to maximize your exposure to opportunities in a single trading session.

Day trading in forex

You can trade on any market; however, the most common ones are forex, shares, as well as indices. Forex, in particular, is popular because of the wide variety of different forex pairs and the market’s inherently high liquidity – which makes it easier to open and close your positions quickly.

Day trading in forex means you will likely pay multiple spread costs throughout the day. Because of this, it is vital to be aware of pips. Regarding forex trading, a pip of movement is a change in price at the fourth decimal place.

For example, if the price quoted for a forex pair increases from 1.2500 to 1.2501, there has been one pip of movement. Importantly, forex pips are used to calculate the bid-ask spread for a specific pair and express profit and loss.

Day trading vs. swing trading in forex

Forex is a popular market for day traders as well as swing traders due to its liquidity and volatility, which both present many opportunities for trading. That being said, high market volatility can cause prices to change rapidly, resulting in losses if you haven’t taken steps to manage your risk.

An important consideration before you start day trading or swing trading is carrying out your own analysis. It is typically most effective to use a combination of both technical analysis and fundamental analysis as part of your swing trading or day trading strategy.

Technical analysis involves looking at market statistics and historical price charts covered with technical indicators or oscillators. The goal of technical analysis is to identify recognizable patterns that indicate the right time to enter and exit the market. Examples of technical indicators include moving averages, average directional index (ADX), as well as the relative strength index (RSI).

When it comes to forex, fundamental analysis looks at the economic conditions of relevant countries, such as inflation rates, gross domestic product (GDP), as well as employment levels. Each of them could affect the strength of one currency against the other in a specific forex pair. Forex traders also often assess other figures released by central banks to gain insight into the state of a country’s economy. They look at interest rates, foreign exchange reserves, and the liquidity of the domestic currency.

Scalping in the forex market

It is worth noting that scalping in the forex market involves trading currencies on a set of real-time analyses. The purpose of it is to make a profit by buying or selling currencies, holding the position for a very short period of time, and closing it for a small profit.

Many trades are placed throughout the trading day, and the system used by traders is typically based on a set of signals derived from technical analysis charting tools. Moreover, these tools rely on a multitude of signals that create a buy or sell decision when they point in the same direction. Besides, a forex scalper looks for a large number of trades for a small profit each time.

What you should know is that forex scalping involves buying and selling foreign currencies to earn a profit on moves in exchange rates.

Traders, as well as investors, can take positions in currencies for a short period of time and book an offsetting trade. Notably, the difference between the exchange rate and of the initial trade nets out with the exchange rate of the exit trade resulting in a gain or loss.

For instance, if a U.S. trader initiated a buy position of euros at the euro-to U.S. dollar exchange rate of $1.1050 and later sold the position at a rate of $1.1150, the profit would equal 0.0100 or 100 pips, which is approximately 1%.

Which one is better: Swing trading or day trading?

Which forex trading strategy is better? Fortunately or unfortunately, the answer to this question depends on you. The best trading style will vary from trader to trader depending on personality, skills as well as experience.

For example, scalping the forex market takes skill; experienced traders suggest it takes years of practice to develop the skills required to engage with financial markets using scalping techniques.

Even though the learning curve as a swing trader and day trader is steep, it doesn’t not require the same experience and skills as scalping. Hence, for inexperienced traders, day trading and swing trading are potentially the most credible options.

In fact, although it is complicated to get precise figures on the percentage in each trading category, it is a fair assumption that, based on broker data and anecdotal evidence, the majority of forex traders do indeed fall within these two categories.

Below are some questions which you should ask yourself when deciding which trading style is the most suitable for you.

• Which trading style do you feel most comfortable with?
• How much time do you have for entering and exiting market positions? Unsurprisingly, the more time you have, the more active you can be in the market. Swing traders can quite easily manage their positions while working a full-time job. However, the same can’t be said for day traders as well as scalpers.
• What are your trading goals? You should ask yourself whether you want to become a full-time trader or not.
• What style of trading do you like? (Do you prefer fundamental analysis, technical analysis, pattern trading, price action, or indicators?).

Is swing trading safer compared to day trading?

Day trading, as well as swing trading, are only as safe as the overall trading method used to control your risk. Don’t forget that all the usual caveats apply; you need to avoid over-trading, you need to ensure your account is not undercapitalized, and you need to understand how margin and leverage can work in your favor.

Swing trading could arguably be said to be safer compared to day trading simply because you will make fewer trades than a day trader; nevertheless, it is inadvisable to enter into forex trading under the illusion that any style of trading is “safer” than the other.

Moreover, if you are an inexperienced trader, concentrating on survival should be your primary instinct.

Is day trading more profitable than swing trading?

Logic would suggest that the more trading opportunities you get, the more profitable you can be. Trade on one-hour time frames, and you will probably make more transactions than trading off the daily timespan. Nevertheless, your risk versus reward rate typically reduces in line with the time frames you trade on.

Once again, which overall trading style is more profitable relates to all the elements in your overall trading plan.