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Strategies & Market Trends : Trader J's Inner Circle -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike McFarland who wrote (12)	11/1/1998 1:56:00 PM
From: Trader J	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 56535

Mike, I normally don't use private mail about questions like that. I am perfectly willing to share performance issues. We all must be willing to share experience, good and bad. Firstly, I , like JEB do not trade options. A little too much risk for me and I do not like being "locked" into any time frame. Some traders do very, very well with this style but I like to balance risk and reward. Next, I do not trade huge lots (depends on what your definition of huge is I suppose). I have friends that could only afford to trade 100 or 200 share lots, this is perfectly ok. Your gains will be reduced, as will your losses, but you are trading none the less, getting experience and over time your volume and lot size will pick up if you do well. Anybody can trade if they want to. Many are too intimidated by the thought. Trading is not for everyone. I normally trade between 1000 to 5000 share lots and I do my homework each night unless I don't feel like it. It is that simple. I watch the most actives, biggest ups/downs, and especially the news. Most of all, interract with other traders. Set a realistic goal for what you want to achieve. Bold face the word realistic. What will you be happy with gain, what can you lose. I do this for each trade. For a daily goal, I have set a goal of $500/day. Some consider this high, others low. I feel I could set and reach a much higher goal, but for me, I consider it realistic based on my style of trading. I do not want to be consumed by trading, remember it has to be fun, and if it is fun.....usually you will do well. I have been able to achieve this goal. Note that not every day will be an up day but what counts is when you step back and take a look how you have done the past week or month. I have found that you will not necessarily pick winners more often than losers, but ..... your winners will run much farther than your losses will fall if you are willing to take the loss when the trade is not doing what you expected. I trade both my IRA and regular account. Remember that unless you file as a "Trader" you are still limited to $3000 capital loss. But I have been playing around with what I call a "quality" trading system. Similar to you trading once a week, Traders just starting out or those that may want to hedge themselves could trade those issues that are relatively heavily traded, don't switch directions on a dime, and most of all, could be long term holds in such case you don't want to take a loss. I am toying with the "quality" trading theory now and my try it out. Such company's could be CCI, F, CPQ, etc. I usually spend between 0 hrs a night doing research to 3 hrs. with the average being about 1.5. It does pay off to do your own research. Hope this helps Jeff