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

To: Robert Graham who wrote (10091)	9/3/2000 6:24:07 PM
From: Tai Jin	Respond to of 18137

You are thinking in pretty much one direction with this broad generalization. For every buyer, there is a seller. So is everyone* actually making money? And have you considered the MMs role in this?* No one necessarily has to go short in such a situation. They may be selling out of inventory. If they are out they can buy at a higher price and sell again at an even higher price. No one has to lose any money. A momentum stock on the move probably behaves this way. Of course, those who short too soon could lose big, and when the stock stops going higher there is a problem for the longs. I'm not sure why there is so much interest in labeling the market zero sum, as it is basically meaningless to the trader. You either make money or you don't. The important question is how to improve your odds at making money and not losing it. Perhaps there are zero sum strategies that can be used if the market is in fact a zero sum game, but I don't think this is relevant to the small trader. Have you day traded before? Scalped or swing traded? What time frame do you operate in? Or what is your average hold time? What instruments have you traded? The S&P Futures? Do you trade momentum stocks? Do you trade retracement patterns like flags? I am just curious. I find it puzzling how you lump everything in together with your broad generalized statements when the market is not homogeneous. I trade for a living. My preferred style is swing/position trading (lasting from a day to weeks), but I'll scalp momentum issues (lasting seconds to minutes) although I don't like them that much because it's a game of musical chairs and causes me too much stress. I do look for consolidation and breakout patterns, those are the most profitable. I only trade Nasdaq stocks and never trade the futures or indexes (okay, I traded the QQQ a couple times). Satisfied? :-) ...tai