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

To: Matthew L. Jones who wrote (4199)	9/19/1999 8:20:00 AM
From: ig	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 18137

Lightning Fast Fingers Carl asked: "...do you find that lightning fast fingers is what makes you money?" Sometimes, yes. Certainly. Especially when I am among the first to get a news story. Not long ago, a story came out that Paul Allen was an investor in some unlikely stock. No one had known about it. I happened to see the pop in price and volume, and for some reason my little-known newswire had the story earlier than the just about anyone else. Others could see the pop, but few knew the reason. Well, I fired off a buy as fast as I could. In the next 10 seconds, the stock went up about a point. I bought around 5 and sold around 10 a few minutes later. If I had been a few seconds slower, not only would I have had to shoot for a higher price, but I would have been at the back of a long line. I might not have gotten a good fill. Those who can't play fast always say they don't need to play fast. Funny how that works out, eh? And it's often true, too. If you can't play fast, then you have to find a way that you can successfully play. I'll say this, though: the faster you can play, the more opportunities you have. It simply stands to reason. A fast player can do everything a slow player can do, and more. A slow player can only do what a slow player can do. Fortunately, however, one needn't be a fast player to make money. This kind of reminds me of chess players. The ones who are good at playing fast love to play Blitz; the ones who are just good settle for winning the slow tournaments once in a while; but the slow ones always say that they just don't understand what the fast ones see in playing Blitz. ;-) ig

To: Matthew L. Jones who wrote (4199)	9/20/1999 4:36:00 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 18137

Hi Matthew L. Jones; Regarding "quick draw" traders. People have to trade within their limitations. I found that I was very fast, so I take advantage of this. One of the things that direct access people do is buy illiquid stocks that get positive mentions on CNBC. At one time, a lot of people in the office would play these at the same time. I found that I was usually the first into the stock. Twice I was the first print in the country. The theory is that you will sell the stock back to the mom and pops on internet accounts who will want to add the stock to their long term portfolio. They typically don't mind paying an extra 1/4 for such a stock, and we don't mind running the price up for them. The market makers don't watch CNBC (or they are on auto pilot), so they don't pull their quotes before you hit them. But to make a profit doing this, you have to get the stock before it pops up. There is another group of traders with slightly slower fingers, who short the stock after it makes its run up. This is also a good trade, but it is not quite as safe as buying before anybody else. Most of the techniques of trading (as opposed to investing) consists of front running. It would be neat to be already out of the theater when "fire" is yelled, but it is also possible to front run the crowd. Fast fingers just means front running the people with slower fingers or slower connections. If you've got it, use it. Otherwise, don't try, the competition is nasty. -- Carl