geez, how much time do you spend screening the market while you are working full time at work(i presume it's a government job?). do you do this during your down time? i'm a newbie, so just trying to make sense of this. i am enjoying the bet unfolding/progressing in real time.
ShinL, It's hard to give you an actual amount of time, but I'll break down a "normal" day for me: I follow the market from 9:30-10:30 pretty closely. although with the market stuck in limbo, I don't trade much the first 30 min. From 10:30-1:30 I check with the market every 10 min. or so, if I see something that has a chance of setting up, then I wait to trade it, if not I just check back 10 min later. I follow 1:30-2:30 pretty close, and if nothing looks good I don't really like entering anything new the last hour of the day. As a side note..... I feel I trade MUCH better by not watching the market all day. I see if there is a set up, if not, I check back later. 2-4 trades a day is my avg. If I sit and stare all day, I will see things that never existed when you go back and look at the chart later on. I want to be able to look at a chart and spot a high quality trade within seconds, if not....there is no trade to be done. Plain and simple. Hope that helps answer you question.
thats the idea. weekly i will go through 000s of charts with multiple time frames... and attempt to spot the best trades. stockcharts is my tool
I think this is a HUGE point to make for newbies,so let me take a minute to go into it alittle deeper for whoever is following..... This is what I do: 1. At the end of the day print the chart of the stock or index you followed the most (SPY,DIA, DXD, QID,AAPL for me) in the time frame you trade (for me 5 min charts). 2. Now scan the chart and you should find 3(maybe 4) PERFECT setups that are in your trading plan. 3. Now look at you trade history and see what trades you ACTUALLY did take. 4. If the trades you took are the ones you found on your chart scan at the end of the day, then you should be a profitable trader. Remember: A perfect setup does not always work(or go to target),but as long as you keep taking YOUR perfect set ups over and over...then the overall % should be in your favor. My trading plan says I can trade at a 50% win ratio and do quite well(for me). LOSING IS NOT A BAD THING!!! EVERY TRADER LOSES But the good ones make more on the wins than losses...that's the key!....accept the loss and move on, as long as it fits in your trading plan.........stepping off my soap box now.
COST gapping down, so will have to wait on that one to short. Will be keeping a VERY close eye on AMZN to short EARLY. Scottrade did not have shares to short a few weeks ago, but the branch office said there are some shares on the list (as of yesterday afternoon), so we'll see.
Love reading the posts you seem like a very enlightened trader. Can you maybe show us a chart of one of your "prefect" setups?
regardless of your odds of this bet, I am very happy to have come across a refreshing post in a long time, after stumbling over so much trash here on ET (heck, 98.5% here is trash...). You come across as being a pretty smart guy and regardless of the eventual outcome of this I look forward to this thread, and this opinion I formed after just reading your very first post. Good luck!
lol, why dont you get lost, poser!!! You sound like one of those guys who wanna manage others funds without having discipline yourself, nor any proven way to make money. Then this "just do what you do for the next 100 days then you made it". Thanks kiddo, we can all do that math. Its unfortunatly not that simple. You may not have fully understood his earlier humorous but nonetheless true comment that translates to something similar than this: "prove yourself first then you may gain the trust of others who may eventually entrust some of their funds to you". Now hush hush, back to your paper trader ;-)