Yes, I am extreme short term, 3-5 days is an eternity for me. <ggg> I prefer the 1-3 day trade if I can get it, the I will even SAR and play the other side if the set up is favorable. Example, I was considering trying a long on GTW after being short thursday and Friday for a bounce back up.
My main problem, other than time to trade most of these for real, is too many things I am tracking now. My best years of trading were when I only paid attention to a handful of stocks that I knew well. Running the website and adding stocks that others find of value has made it where I don't any one stock very well any more. I used to chart using MSFT Excel and had to set each line and plug in each formula by hand. I knew every pimple on those. Now that I switched to MetaStock, I chart 997 stocks and hardly know any of them other than the waves that show up on the screen and when I am zoomed in, I don't where the beginning of many of the trendlines are until I have to move them for some reason. Since I use mostly forks, many of them hold for months and haven't been touched for that long.
Bob, money management is definitely important as well as psychology. I have very pronounced weaknesses in this area. My most profitable trades are when I am opn leave and actively trading but it takes me about 3 days just to get control of my emotions before I can actually trade for real each time as I musty sit and watch, paper trade and get used to seeing real time tick by tick transactions without getting too excited or upset. Once I have control, then I dip in and start trading for real, as I get successful, I tend to start increasing my trade amounts and eventually get over confident and throw money management out the window. That is when I often get into trouble and get reminded wuickly that I shouldn't do that. <ggg>
Thus I usually need at least two weeks of leave to trade since I need the first 3 days to get used to things, a day to trade and then Fridays I find are hardethan most other days so I tend to trade less opn Fridays and like to be flat by the weekend to study the charts in depth andplan the next week. The 2nd week is when I do most of my activity and gain the most in profits. I then tend to rush a last trade or two pushing the limits of proper set ups as I want t get that last trade to get my account to a nice round number that often ends in disaster. I hopefully have learned to avoid the pitfalls and stick with what works. Sticking to a money management routne and getting a hold of emotions and psychology are definitely have to haves. My wife is due in June and I hope to take my two weeks or more and follow my rules to a T, of course I always say that. <g>
Good Luck,
Lee |
