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Strategies & Market Trends : DAYTRADING Fundamentals -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jerry Olson who wrote (1286)	6/22/1999 8:44:00 PM
From: TraderAlan	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 18137

OJ, This paragraph from MTT comes to mind: "Plan the trade; trade the plan. Pretty annoying word play but you get the point. If you haven't sat down yet and written out your personal trading strategy, you really don't know what it is. Then the next time your wallet really depends on it, you're out of luck. Your rules must tell you what your holding period is, the type of stocks you'll trade, how you will enter and exit all your trades and a series of filters that describe specific conditions in which you will stand aside. Mastering the Trade may give you good ideas on what belongs in each column. But it's your money, your time and your decision. Start today to think about your personal identity and style within the trading game." Time frame gets traders in almost as much trouble as their emotions. The only reason I know that I'm a day trader is that I started off as a position trader but couldn't bear risking a new profit so I would take my money much faster than I expected to. After awhile, I figured out that was me so I started to plan for it. Short-term traders are actually risk adverse, which I'm sure no reporter could ever believe or figure out. We hate risk so much that we jump in and jump out quickly, leaving market crashes or overnight surprises for our neighbors (or our 401ks). (From personal experience) I believe an inability to take a sizable profit off the table and put it in your pocket reflects some lack of confidence that you'll be able to duplicate that profitable situation with another position. BTW I constantly change my rules and the markets I trade. But not when I'm trading them. Alan