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

To: Eric P who wrote (5024)	11/2/1999 6:25:00 PM
From: Richard Estes	Respond to of 18137

Why is there so little information available on daytrading? Because no one has developed and tested methods to address the unique aspects of daytrading. Street Smarts is a good book, but lets look at it. The charts are mainly daily charts showing trades that extend for days and weeks. The few RT charts are of futures and even some of them go for days on a 60 min chart. Notice that no exits are provided on a trade. There is little or nothing new presented in the setups. But, there is very little new under the sun. Cooper does the same thing. Daily charts and short term trades and No exit plans. Beginner books like Elder show mainly daily futures charts with, I think, two stock charts.Some would have you stay with a stock like IBM for 3-4 months for 10% profit. Is this trading for a living? No where do you see real "daytrading" or any evidence from backtesting to show that the methods work. Often we are left to believe that since someone wrote a book on short term trading methods that this can be used in the totally difference environment of "daytrading". Simulated/paper trading is a good tool, but it leaves out emotions. But over time you can get a hint at what works if you keep records of the trades and base them on the same method. You have to trust the "system" or plan, the only way you can trust it is to test what it has done in the past over many stocks or futures in a number of market cycles. This is too much work for many who want instant satisfaction. So the printed word is often bought at face value without knowing how to measure its value. Some Truisms for me: 1.Preservation of capital should be the prime concern. 2.It is your money, make your own decisions. 3. A trade is good only when it is going in the direction you wanted it to. 4. There is always a market, there is always a trade, wait for those that meet your criteria. 5.No one ALWAYS wins, It is how you handle losses that really counts. 6. Remember everyone from the street has a hidden agenda.