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

To: Hands Off who wrote (2729)	8/13/1999 3:29:00 PM
From: JB2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18137

Marshall, your analogy to tennis hits home for me. In my observation, shorting is like the backhand, and going long is the forehand. Plenty of people try and run around their backhand and avoid using it, but they are not the winners. Two more Niederhoffer proverbs: "In order to play a game today, you should have studied yesterday." "The winner of a match is not always determined by who is right...but in the end...who is left." Otherwise, as Lightning Hopkins sings: "Y'know I once was a gambler, but I lost my money roll" I love trading---it is so distilled, cut and dried. You either make money, or you lose, and other than your broker there is no middleman standing between you and your paycheck. FWIW, why don't you divide your capital up into a few different piles. Then daytrade with some of it, and position trade with other of it, and put some into IRA's etc. This will distract you and fill your time and keep you from overtrading as you daytrade, as you can stop during the powerlunch lulls and do your research and check on your position trading account. I often wonder how the clients at daytrading shops do it for the entire day. To trade constantly from minute to minute doesn't seem like it would be profitable in the long run. Also, it sounds like you could use a mission statement. That way you put your aims and methods in writing and look at them often, to encourage yourself to stick to a plan. As I say, just my thoughts, for what it's worth.

To: Hands Off who wrote (2729)	8/13/1999 4:33:00 PM
From: Dave O.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18137

< struggling with myself as I desperately try not to day trade and yet can't really define what kind of position/swing trader I want to be > Marshall, I'd strongly suggest that you solve the inner conflict of "how" you want to trade before risking any more money. Hey, whether the market heads up or down, it'll always be there tomorrow. If you're torn between swing trading and day trading you need to dig deeper to find what you are most comfortable with. You mentioned struggling between intuition and TA based trading. Again, only YOU can resolve that dilemma. I've traded a number of ways: momentum, pure day trading, TA, ... and found what works best for me. And once you find what works, your confidence builds and you realize you can succeed and make a living with this endeaver. Dave

To: Hands Off who wrote (2729)	8/13/1999 10:45:00 PM
From: TraderAlan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18137

Marshall, Good to hear from hear from you and thanks for the comments. <held hostage to the PPI, CPI, Alan Greenspan, FOMC, Humphrey Hawkins, whether the Bejing is mad at Taiwin, what is happening in Brazil, the weather and the price of grain and oil, etc> So what else is new <g>. There's always some wall of worry the market climbs or falls from. One of the benefits of TA is being able to process all these news and events through only the numbers. Makes life a lot simpler than trying to be Gandhi, Hawkings and Galbreath all wrapped into one genius able to understand how macro events move the markets. You can't trade everything well so why not pick your narrow poison and fry yourself a little more with winning and losing. One of the best low risk ways to use TA in your trading is to short-term trade RBOCS or Utes. The TA works but the moves are small so you can't get too hurt. Another great way is to trade 100 share lots using a $5 broker. You'd be surprised how much money there is to make riding the right stock a dollar at a time. Alan