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Strategies & Market Trends : From the Trading Desk -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve goldman who wrote (2269)	1/11/1998 2:57:00 PM
From: Don Green	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4969

I would rather be lucky than skilled, I prefer both...Thank You... I also prefer to working for myself.. As I said you don't understand the Big picture.. Why, don't you post your trading action as you do for a few weeks so we can evaluate your vision with our hindsight... Regards Don

To: steve goldman who wrote (2269)	1/11/1998 3:42:00 PM
From: Robert Graham	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4969

I agree with the point Steve is making here. This is not to reflect on Don and what he specifically did in his trade that (fortunatley) ended up turning into a profit. As for as this thread goes, I believe Steve is interested in framing what is discussed here in terms of the more beginner trader who is just learning how to trade, and who does not know the markets or even understand themselves and what they are about in the markets. I think that Don would agree that his execution of his trade is not recommended for the unexperienced. If you do agree with my observation here, Don, it may help others who listen to you if you were to acknowledge that the beginner traders best not attempt to imitate your trading style. I also want to suggest that you take my last comment as having no reflection on the contributions you have made to others through your posts at SI. Now the purpose may be to determine if Don's trading strategy is suited for an experienced trader. My definition here of an experienced trader is one who has demonstrated knowledge and experience in the markets by successfully day trading over a significant period of time. However, this comes down to being a personal choice when a trader is operating at this level of experience. The trader like Don (hopefully) understands the risks he is taking in executing such a strategy and is willing to deal with the losses that may be realized with such an approach. Still, I have to admit that this is the first time I have heard an off-the-floor trader double down on a losing trade. And this is the first time I have heard of any trader on or off of the floor double down on a losign trade that was held overnight. This does perplex me. The "doubling down" approach goes contrary to everything that I have come to understand about day trading. But perhaps I have not interacted with enough traders nor learned enough about day trading, including floor trading, to make this observation? This is a possibility. From everything I have read and heard about the subject here on SI talking to other traders, day trading involves profiting from small changes in the price of a stock. Anything more than a small change of lets say 1 to 2 points is "icing on the cake". The profit comes from leveraging the change in price through trading large blocks of stock and trading on margin. So this approach maginifies the benefits of the small increases in the price of a stock, along with magnifying the damage that small decreases in the price can do to the end result of a trade. This is to me a very obvious reason why it is not prudent to hold stock as a position trade into the next day. Everything else about what makes for successful day trading comes from understanding this purpose of making profits on small price changes in stock. Day trading for my purposes is not difficult to understand in terms of its purpose, potential hazards, and what some of the important "rules" are that need to be in place for a successful approach to day trading. To me this is not rocket science. However, understanding day trading, and learning what I need to know to execute successful day trades I admit are two different things. The former can be intellectually understood with some trading experiencevery helpful, but the latter is only understood from experience. This difference I have discovered in my pursuit of profitable short term trades. So what am I missing here about day trading? Bob Graham