What will happen tomorrow is anyone's guess. A better plan is to scalp the trend. I trade financial stocks every day. On a day like today, the trend of the sector was down. Care to guess what my bias was? Hint: It wasn't long. A mentor of mine gave me some good market advice a long time ago: Trying to figure it out WILL only confuse you so let them do that and just go along for the ride.
How do you identify the ride? What if it is a ride and then suddenly changes into an opposite direction?
Great advice SPIN, but do you really think anyone can just decide to do this and not get clobbered? You have developed a skill set that cannot be easily transferred to others. And you are a grayback. I've been trading for a long time (graybeard and grayback) and I would have no chance of earning a living by doing what you do. I simply lack those skills. Mark
1) Yes, anyone can decide to do this and not get clobbered. One may not make much initially but if one approaches it with a risk averse mentality and decides that protection of principal is paramount then one will survive. How many times have you read here where an experienced trader suggests that a noob start with one spread or one straddle or one anything? It's no different with equities and I suppose futures. Start small. Pay small tuition. Learn. There's no guarantee of success but one can guarantee no failure. OK, mild failure My initial goal was just to beat money market rates each year (feel free to chime in Phil . It doesn't sound like much but in a business where defeat occurs somewhere in the vicinity of 50% of the time, more or less, I think that's a reasonable goal and achievement for a noob. 2) I do not believe that the skill set can simply be transeferred to anyone, particularly things like confidence, awareness of one's abilities and limitations as well as calm in the storm when the sh*t hits the fan. It surely helps to have a friend/mentor to guide/lead one in the right direction but ultimately, it's a skill set that takes time to build and hone. Sorta like learning a foreign language (except that's way harder, at least for me). No one gave any of it to me. Graybeard I get. Grayback? Certainly not the bird. An old gorilla ? 3) As for you, you sell yourself short (no pun intended). You mastered options and you are an iron condor rock star