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

To: Eric P who wrote (16841)	8/20/2003 6:53:11 PM
From: Bridge Player	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18137

Hi Eric, I read with interest this clip from your post. "Once the bubble burst, I suspect the number of professional traders were reduced to such a level that insufficient 'critical mass' remained to make the trip worthwhile." This caused me to think about a question I have often wondered about. How many traders (of your own acquaintance or your guess as to those in the actual population) do you think are equally comfortable going either short or long? I can't say that I aspire to becoming a professional trader, but would surely like to pick some brains in order to improve my own results. It seems to me that using either technical (month after month of negative indicators and a strongly trending market) or fundamental (valuations totally beyond the pale) methods, that the 3-year or so bear presented a tremendous opportunity for professional traders to get rich. Yet I understand the psychological difficulties that might be involved in not getting an opinion on one side of the market, say the long side. It would seem that many of those who blew out remained wedded to the bullish case long after it made sense to do so. What is your view on this? How hard is it to simply "trade what you see and not what you think" in a raging bear? Thanks for any insights that you might offer here.