Dan,
That was one of the best descriptions I have seen for how a SOES trader watches the market for very small (1/2 point of less) price movements and profits.
<<What I want to see on level II is lots of support, i.e., several MMs willing to pay a price very close to my buy price in case things start moving against me. If executions are going off at the offer, and the number of offerers starts to decline, while the bidders hold or increase, chances are pretty good a stock will move up. It's time to buy at the asking price. If a stock really runs, the bids and offers will rise, often in spurts that last less than a minute or two. Typically, the price will go up by 1/4, or less, before things slow down. >>
That is the key right there. Not everyone can do this. It requires that a person be able to watch alot of numbers moving very quickly. It requires the ability to watch this happening and interpret the time to get ahead of the market and move with the near term trend.
Most people do not have the ability to watch a computer screen for
6 1/2 hours per day and look for these oportunites. There is nothing magical about doing this. It only takes concentration to watch the computer screens and maintain a high level of attention.
When the average attention span of a US couch potato is a 30 second commercial, then I think it is a safe bet that most people cannot daytrade. However, it is wrong for people on this thread to credit some magical ability to the sucess of daytraders. Sucessful daytraders are simply people who can focus for long periods of time.
Jay |
