Bloomberg is good in the morning, too. It's all style. Playing video games? Listening to music? It's a bit more complex than that, but don't get the impression I'm glued to it all day. Just watching the news in the economic numbers come out.
I work out. I had a special desk built around my treadmill so I can trade while I sweat. I moved my weights and gear into my trading office, since I turned 40 and figured out it was harder to keep weight off than it used to be. I didn't want to turn into a 500-lb blob. All of my alerts give me a 1-minute warning to a possible signal. Plenty of time to stop what I am doing and get back to my desk. Youtube has an endless supply of knotheads and stupid acts, you can't make up some of the stupid shit people do on video. The potato gun and TV bloopers are some of my favorites. When those get old, I hit the kitchen. I trade on a laptop, so of course, nature calls, and there is no reason to miss a trade because of necessity. Also allows me to trade anywhere wifi is available. Traded on a cruise ship last summer (for $1 per minute). My wife and I have been known to lock the door and play during a trade. More exercise. Anything to get my eyes off the screen.
i don't get up to eat, pee, drink or anything. I don't go to other websites except bloomberg.com in the morning to check some news. I have a wire bound notebook that i draw vertical colums on. At the top of each column i write the stock im trading. in each column i write my current position in that stock e.g. " -1200 glw @ 21.25" means my positions is 1200 short GLW with an average price of 21.25. i draw a horizontal line through the prior position in that stock as it changes. this is how i stay focused on my stuff, and its good when software goes down and I have to call the cleaqring firm to zero out my trades. they straddle them. they can'[t see my positions so it's up to me to tell them what and how much to cover. This HAS happened, and the backup gives me peace of mind which leads to focus. GET a copy of the book GETTINGTHINGS DONE by robert allen, and adopt that system of mental organizing if you don't have a good one or find your focus bad. I track the market using the DIA tracking stock. so I am generally writing down those numbers every few minutes, making mental notes of the pace and strength of the moves. This helps keep me in tune with the overall market. If I can do this for 6 hours a day, I generally make at least 1400 per day. It's difficult. I guess brain surgery would require as much concentration. I concentrate on every trade, patterns etc. The markets never tell you when important price changes occur. To take advantage of them you have to be there and ready and intune. It could be at 635 am pst or 1024 am pst. Sometimes I take a mid morning break and go to the gym. But most of the time those are minimal earnings days. I drink about 2 gallons of water a day, usually a gallon by the time the first two hours of trading are done. This keeps me relaxed. Yes, it makes not getting up to pee kinda hard. When I need to, I will dump my trades on my laptop and take it with me to the john. This career is all about finding the right moments in the day. If you trade huge size (for you) this focus is paramount. If you want to make big money, I believe I need this kind of focus. It goes without saying, although I will say it, all the drama in the other parts of your life needs to be kosher. The night before have a wonderful night with your girlfriend/wife. Hug your kids, smile at them. Be in the best possible emotional place when you sit down to trade. And really be excited but relaxed about it. Know that when you put yourself in this state, and you learn the right tools, you will earn the money you wish. Life isn't over when you do earn that money, but some people feel the loss of striving, like I did. That's another topic...but do whatever you can to stay focused on the opportunities the market presents most every day. The more you focus the more you will see. Then it becomes "easy," and you have to watch out to keep doing the things that got you there. Wipe out complacency and laziness. Know that it will come up just as things feel "easy" or your profits start to get huge. If all the things in your life are cool and trading lacks focus: take time off, reduce your position size, whatever. Be sure you really want to and are prepared to trade. The markets reward this kind of preparation and dedication. They really do.
I'm still learning all about the markets and trading. If the market's open then I just sit and watch the ticker and occassionally flick between different time frames. I actually found this very useful, in combination with the RSI/OBV and the number of buy/sell orders. However, I've yet to actually profit from it and the actual practice of trading is significantly harder than simply correctly anticipating price movement. For instance, on one sell order they couldn't clear it in time so my profit turned to a loss. All these little things that you learn. It's part of the process and hat's off to those of you who have become profitable in it. I figure I have at least another two or three years of serious study and practice before I can have anything approaching a viable trading system from which I can become more serious. In the meantime I hope to keep my losses to a minimum. I see each loss as an increment on the learning curve, but I guess it would be nice to be able to actually extract profit when it is there. At the moment there are a lot of good memories of paper profits. It can be very disheartening. When the market is not in session I working my way through some of the classic books or checking out webforums or some other information on youtube etc. There's a lot of good info on this site - thanks to all of you successful traders who share it.
You are hoping in your imagination that if you behalf in this manner, then the world of trading will open up to you. It won't. If you ever start to trade a real account you will come to understand this. Just relax and focus on the important part of trading, not on what you think will bring success. You never know, you may grow to enjoy it. jjf