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

To: funk who wrote (3342)	8/28/1999 3:04:00 PM
From: Robert Graham	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18137

I agree that it does not help when the media generalizes about the dangers of day trading and the problems that the day trader is thought to cause the markets. In this vein I agree much of what is being written is just "pot shots" being taken at an easy target. Any time there is outrageous amounts of money that can be siphoned off from an activity, there will by the unscrupulous taking advantage of this situation, and I will add here likely in many of the same ways being documented by the media when specifics are mentioned. But we as bystanders to this media event need to recognize the players, both sides being able to advertise their slanted views. On one side we have the more well-established brokerage industry that the day trading firms are taking profits from. Yes, we have the media itself and its own agenda. And just as importantly we have the day trading firms themselves that are there to protect their interests. IMO the reader needs to weed through this information, in many instances the result of propaganda machines, and determine what is real from that which is being painted in an artificial picture by self-interests. This can be a difficult undertaking particularly for those outsiders who the articles are addressed to, the people with no experience in this business who are considering day trading online. As far as day trading goes, as usual it is a "buyer beware" situation, not meant for the addicts like gamblers, the confused who are looking for "easy" money, and those others who are vulnerable to the allure of money. However, much of what I have seen here at SI tells me it is these very same type of people that the stock market attracts, those most vulnerable to significant losses in the market. IMO well before the aspiring trading discovers the target on their back placed their by their very own behavior in the market, they are likely to have lost money that the could not afford to lose. On a related topic of the newbie trader, I also want to say that IMO there is one aspect of trading that do the most to keep a trader's stake intact which is totally under the trader's control. That is money management. This allows a low success rate system to succeed in the market. It has also been my experience that money management is key in helping traders' minimize the impact of their mistakes on their trading account. Also it may keep a new trader "alive" long enough to figure out what works in the market, or at least determine the stock market is not for them. IMO this is the topic that should be given the most consideration by new traders. Bob Graham