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

To: TraderAlan who wrote (10917)	12/14/2000 6:39:31 PM
From: TraderAlan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 18137

If I could share something with the thread: I just got 20 copies of my book, which is now being distributed to sellers/distributors etc. I'm in shock. It looks fantastic. Looking at the materials, I'm trying to figure out who the heck wrote all this stuff. It's like giving birth (or at least being part of the procreation <g>). I'm also afraid to look at it too closely. After 4 edits, there wasn't time to review the final product before it headed to the printers. I'm sure there are warts and bruises in it. Apologies to readers who find them. If we get to a 2nd edition, I promise to clean them up. Finally what a POS market to release a book in. Where was I the last 6 years when the bull was running? Anyway, enjoy. I'd love to hear what you think. If you like the materials, please post a review at Amazon. If not, don't post a review <g>. Just send me a private flame message. Alan

To: TraderAlan who wrote (10917)	12/14/2000 8:43:37 PM
From: Dustin	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 18137

Many folks prefer to avoid that psycho environment and play the numbers in a less stressful manner. I couldn't resist commenting on this. The investing public thinks that scalping is a stressful way to trade because of the press. I scalp all day, every day, and think I have the least stressful strategy (or job for that matter) of anyone I know. Quick Story: In fact, I was talking online with another trader last week. We entered the same trade, at the same time. He was in it for a 20-40 min time horizon, while I was in it for my quick scalp. I was out of the trade in about 2 minutes with a nice profit, while he rode it out and ended up just breaking even. After that trade he said "I don't know how you do it, that just seems so stressful." I laughed and pointed out that he was the one worrying about his trade, while I was sitting back being rich, fat, and happy. Can you tell I'm bored... Dustin

To: TraderAlan who wrote (10917)	12/14/2000 9:29:01 PM
From: aldrums	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 18137

No offense but the scalper gets far too much attention and credit in the day trading movement. Many folks prefer to avoid that psycho environment and play the numbers in a less stressful manner. Please Alan. No reason to bad mouth an entire segment of the day trading industry because you don't agree with it. To quote Linda Raschke, "The less time you are in the market, the less exposure you have and the less risk you are assuming overall." BTW, how many posts are we going to have to endure about your book before it finally comes out?

To: TraderAlan who wrote (10917)	12/15/2000 3:48:59 AM
From: Apakhabar	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18137

Hi Alan, No offense but the scalper gets far too much attention and credit in the day trading movement. Many folks prefer to avoid that psycho environment and play the numbers in a less stressful manner. No offense taken. You may have, inadvertently, gotten to the heart of the difference between scalping (or pure tape-reading) and swing-trading. The "psycho" environment, which you humorously mean to be psychotic, is actually IMO a pure "psychological" environment in which "playing the numbers" (using charts, moving averages, and other classic TA indicators) is, if ever, only a very minor contributor to a trading decision. While the best swing traders must have a psychological advantage (if they didn't then wouldn't computers would make all the money?), their main game is a faith in human nature to replicate certain patterns of behavior. (Leaving aside your substantial contribution to TA the ability to profit from panic following the failure of those patterns to hold.) My concern about SuperMontage and SuperSOES is that the new system may render less valuable the psychological skills and intuitive insights employed by scalpers. What good would it do me to sense an important move if my order gets by-passed by others at the same price just because the other orders are larger? And it may be almost impossible to jump in a stock in the middle of a strong momentum move because one big ax may simply shorten up the time of that move by simply buying all the shares in several levels (this is a special concern to me because I trade the less-liquid stocks). From my perspective I can only hope that the ECNs will be sufficiently divorced from the SuperSOES so that scalpers can find executions when they need them. Much more important is "predictability," ie having something in the landscape that allows inefficiency to translate into opportunity. It may be that scalpers and swing-traders are going to sharply disagree on many ideas about trading as well as whether or not the proposed changes to the Nasdaq system are helpful or harmful to us. For example my view of the market is heavily influenced by the Mark Douglas line of thinking: traders can only control themselves, and reacting to the market and especially to the reactions of other traders is safer than predicting what the market will do next. What the current market is begging of swing traders is proof that their successful methods of prediction are more due to brains than bull-market. I suspect that what most swing traders are going to learn when the market becomes bullish again is that because Nasdaq swing-trading during bull times is so wildly lucrative the best course of action during bear markets is not to trade at all (like Jon Tara) or to trade slower, non-Nasdaq stocks (as I understand you have been doing). What's wrong with this? Nothing. Making enough money in bull markets to "temporarily retire" during the bear markets certainly is less stressful than scalping. <g> I like the current market, and the current Nasdaq trading system (with the exception of the needlessly regulative uptick rule). As a scalper I want the MMs to continue to be devious and tricky, to play dead when they're planning an advance, to hold up an advance (if they can) using 17 second SOES fills, and all the rest. I want them to do all this because they are engaging me and other traders in a psychological game and psychology and intuition is my strength in the five-minute pool where I trade. I want the status quo to continue because like the MMs I too want to trade with the scared, the inexperienced, and the recklessly bold, whether they are retail investors, novice daytraders, or the less-savvy traders employed by MM firms (hence my appreciation for the less liquid stocks). Alan, I for one welcome and would like to hear more comments that are perhaps derogatory toward scalpers. There's no reason at all for swing-traders and scalpers to not to recognize that we will sometimes be competing for the same execution or that scalpers may very occasionally aggravate somebody's precarious position and help cause them to get stopped out or any number of things. That doesn't mean we can't have a productive and civil conversation in this forum. This forum is rare in that it seems to bring out honesty rather than posturing. One reason I greatly respect the participants of this forum is that everybody here seems to genuinely believe that you can't succeed in trading if you practice self-deception.

To: TraderAlan who wrote (10917)	12/16/2000 2:31:13 AM
From: TheStockStalker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18137

No offense but the scalper gets far too much attention and credit in the day trading movement. From Whom. I certainly have not found that to be the case in any of the trading offices I have been in. Perhaps in the non trading media world but not the real trading world. It seems to me that the term "Swing Trader" is the in thing and people that only like to hold things 10 minutes are even pretending that they are swing traders. As far as I am concerned, if one does not sit through the first major intraday wiggle (true retracement) they are not even close. Holding for a straight line with no wiggle to achieve a multi point gain is the exception and not the norm. What is in Your Opinion the true definition of swing trading? I am buying the book buy the way so I hope you choose not to just answer "read the book" to find out. PDT