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

To: OZ who wrote (4760)	10/6/1999 10:47:00 PM
From: Mark Davis	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 18137

>SOME POINTS: >1. The incredible leverage of the SPOOS adds to the stress. Trading the E-mini or 'small' relative to the bankroll should take care of most of the leverage stress. Those guys trading stocks at 10-1 leverage must be pretty stressed out too ;-) >2. The competition is stronger. (more sophisticated) Not so sure. It may actually be easier to move in front of a turning Ocean Liner than a speedboat, if you get my meaning. Not trying to minimize, but stock trading has become a very twitchy game these days, especially if you are in the highflyers. >3. Theresa (I.S.) is a highly experienced scalper ot the SPOOS and >monitoring her chatroom makes it seem easy. It is not the norm by >any means. Yes she is. And her style seems to be one of taking the 'easy' clean trades and leaving the macho stuff to others. Bravo. Very little if any of her recap comes off as monday morning quarterbacking. Take the trades where the market tells you where its going. Requires discipline, and the ability to pass. I find that in trying to capture the action in many different stocks, I dilute my efforts and move away from something just before it takes off. You stare at a stock for 5 minutes, it bores you, so you look elsewhere for action. Three minutes later it's up 2 without you. I was hoping that focusing on a single (or a very few) trading devices may overcome this problem of jack of all stocks, master of none.

To: OZ who wrote (4760)	10/6/1999 11:04:00 PM
From: marketbrief.com	Respond to of 18137

hi OZ, you make very good points in your post: it is the leverage which attracts many folks to the sp futures, and trading a highly leveraged instrument is a very risky proposition, especially for the undercapitalized. Just look at yesterday's spoo chart around Fed time to see what the volatility can look like (a 30 pt. range in about half an hour)... imagine a tiny account being on the wrong side: instantly tapped out. Also it is true that the best of the best are in the spoos. That doesnt mean a lot of retail pikers don't give it a whirl, but it is really the preserve of big money and the floor guys -- the old transfer of wealth from small and weak and greedy to big and strong and patient. I think it is the last place a beginning trader should learn to cut his teeth, because he's likely to get them knocked out, and quick. Just ask the futures industry for the "success rate" of their retail clients. ~Smart$