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Strategies & Market Trends : Jim's Nasdaq100 Special as a basket. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Matthew L. Jones who wrote (1121)	8/20/1999 8:34:00 PM
From: James F. Hopkins	Respond to of 2103

Hi Matt; <G> Ya I don't trade my IRA as much as my regular account and it does better too. The expence of flipping to many times adds up. I don't consider myself a day trader but at times I wind up trading like one. Part of that is after I learned to use Margin which I can't in the IRA. Well when I do use margin I don't like to stay exposed to it very long so that adds up to my trading more than I normally would with out it. -------------- But for the serious day trader I don't see how they do it, IF they bet their whole wad every day and sometimes even more. Just look at the expence, ( I ran an average on the cost of trading Nasdaq stocks, spread and all was most 2% ) Lets be real consevative and say 1% , but for a day trader that 1% of his whole wad every single day he trades. If he trades 100K a day in 100 trading days he pays the market makers and brokers at least 100K, if he starts with 100K it means he has to be right enough to win enough to double his money every 100 days to just feed the machine. Like no matter what he bets say take one stock or the QQQ if he rolls it every day he has to catch a 1% improvment in price every day to break even, if he never misses one. The odds are not good for day trader type of betting. The one short coming of my DVI index is that as far as I can see it's a very short term market indicator, and I don't know how to make it a longer term one. So while it will be exelent for a "don't bet against it" attitude it's hard to say it will show when there are bets you can sit on for a week or so, at least not in and of itself. ------------ But primary is conservation of capital, and the DVI should be at least a warning of when not to place a bet. Going against it will for sure make you wish you hadn't. Jim