The Best Day Trading Stocks Are The Most Boring Stocks

Last Updated on April 19, 2022 by Quantified Trading

My experience is that the most boring stocks are the best for day trading. Many day traders are thrill-seekers, which is too bad, because I think the best stocks are those that are most boring.

Low beta and low volatility are good for day trading

I haven’t really thought much about it until this fall, but after starting reading a lot of academic papers I have realized the following: I basically only daytrade stocks that have a low beta/low volatility. I trade the boring stocks.

If I take the average beta for the whole stock market, I trade more or less only stocks that are in the lower half in terms of beta.

Also, I trade none of the “hot” stocks like FB, AAPL, GOOG, BIDU, etc.

Actually, after 10 years of daytrading and 175 million shares traded I still haven’t traded one single share in those stocks! And I have traded more than 3 000 different tickers so far. I did try LNKD but lost more in just a few trades than I did in dozens of others. Not my cup of tea.

This gravitation towards low beta stocks is not intentional. It’s just a result of all my research. My thinking and my take on the stock market simply fit better to those stocks. Risk-adjusted return improves a lot the less volatile the stock is.

One of my key parameters is looking at each stock’s max loss vs. max win. I prefer stocks in each strategy that has on average bigger winners than average bigger losers no matter what win rate etc. Bear in mind I never use a stop-loss. I only use time stops.

Actually, looking at my stocks I can say the following: The more dull and boring the stock is, the better! Southern Company (SO) has been one of the best stocks over this 10 year period. Can you imagine a more boring stock? My other favorites are KO, PG, and JNJ. Previously I also made good money in KFT, but that one is split into two companies now. This is not the typical daytrading stocks mentioned on message boards etc.

Why high beta stocks are bad for trading

Why are high beta stocks bad for day trading?

In my opinion, high beta stocks are more difficult to trade because they occasionally produce bigger losses and the distribution curve is often negatively skewed. That shouldn’t be a problem as long as the profits are bigger, but human nature tends to ride losers and cut winners we make behavioral mistakes. I’m prone to that, and I guess low volatility stocks minimize that (for me). Risk-adjusted return improves a lot the less volatile the stock is.

That’s why I stick to the boring stocks.