Hi: I'm curious as to what a "sane" number of underlyings is to trade. I watch/trade a list of 30 high Beta stocks with Weekly's. Anymore than that and I begin to feel overwhelmed. What is everyone else thinking/doing in terms of a comfortable number to watch/trade? Thanks
Watch 3 closely; trade 1 mostly. Watch 10 idly; thinking about trading them, but let's not be hasty. Watch 100 out of the slightest curiusity -- trade them maybe once a year...... Depends too on where you're going with weekly(s). Work 'em far out, and there's less to do. Work 'em close, and when the market moves, you'll be scrambling *very* hard. (A great way to lose money.) Wait for one of those 3% days -- that will make clear what what a smart workload is. OR, put 'em into a basket, that you can evaluate with a single line of data, and trade with a single click.
ATRP2iz has a good list, watch Index, Currencies, Bonds, Oil, and Gold, those are the big ones that will move the market, i only have them on a quick glance, to determine long/short bias, like if the markets cratering you dont wanna be buying breakouts, its just an overall view, then i make a short list of 9 stocks every day, and of those 9, I have 2 ideas that im going to take right off the open if the stock does what i think its going to do. Most days i dont stray very far from the 2 best ideas, might trade 1 or 2 new ideas that pop up on the scan but mostly, i just keep adding in too my two if its going my way or keep trading it on the same side i thought it was going to go before market. The 9 charts i keep on other screen is just so i can glance over and see if anything is really obvious when the main 2 dont pan out. (only reason its 9 is cause 9 takes up 1 screen) but dont get yourself too hung up on a million stocks otherwise your going to feel like you missed everything. And your going to get confused, the way i see some newbs trade its a goddamn miracle they are able to do anything with how much their paying attention too. Ive seen guys with 4 screens full of charts and they dont short list it and they just think they are going to look over and buy or sell what looks good, it rarely works.
np feel free to ask away, the other thing id recommend anyone starting out is see if you can find a mentor, ive been trading for ten years and i still have a mentor i fall back on, hes been trading since the 90's, its an up and down business your going to go through tough times, its how you keep your wits about you during the hard times that will make or break you, thats why its nice having a mentor. I literally owe everything i have to my mentor.
Stocks Dow 30 and next 20 with high volume/options, NAQ/ETF 15/5 high vol/options, and 40 plus commodities-try to do always in approach, 95% automation. When I started, I did 3 stocks and that was it, wished I had worked more on risk than profit.
I check 200+ instruments/products everyday on all markets: Forex, Commodities, Futures, Indexes and Stocks.