Changing your biases in day trading is a hard necessity. Switching sides in a trade is a skill that every day trader must build. There are two distinct levels of this skill, novice and advanced. An up and coming young day trader Jerry, @TheArmoTrader, penned a nice blog post on switching sides:  http://jerrykhachoyan.com/. Jerry did a great job switching sides and making some money. Something he said in the blog though prompted me to offer him a suggestion. Jerry wants to build his skills so he is open to suggestions. Here is what I wrote him:

Jerry, If you read back your words “very bullish” you will find that even though you flipped your bias you let the bias confine your trade somewhat. Knowing the set up long was very bullish you still only put on a normal size. If the very bullish set up was true then the probability of the upside break was very high. Get in the habit of finding ways to be bigger when the probability is high for a trade. This trade gave you multiple ways to either add or be bigger initially.

Jerry achieved the novice level of switching sides and flipping his bias and it made him money. Imagine though for a second whatthat more advanced skill level could have produced. The advanced trader will always factor probability into his sizing of the trade. It is second nature to the advanced trader to use probability in his decision making and give it the weight it deserves. This is a skill, a skill that takes some experience and maybe even some coaching to fully employ. Bella blogs about how one skill level just knows the level and that level of skill gets stopped, but another level of skill trades the level and makes money.  Do what it takes to build your skills.

Jeff Davis      @Shaq48_Trading