=========================== Like most of the above books. Add Jack Schwager's 3rd book; & liked more of Joshua Lukemans multimonth charts than his daytrade info.
Robert You are a wise man to heed steve46's warnings, he speaks the truth. I think your doing fine by the sounds of it. Just jump in and start trading (VERY SMALL) until you do this, all the education and knowledge you gain will not make sense.
I HATE the term "daytrader" - let's just say short term trader and you follow the advice given thus far, yes, you can expect to pay plenty of "dues" Why is that necessary in this day and age of computers? I had to do many tests of systems by hand mostly out of stubborness, I guess. I still remember the time arguing that a computer couldn't produce the same quality as my hand done charts. I advocate NOT listening to anyone- certainly not people telling you to examine the relationship between volume and price. Show me a defined, quantitative system that makes money based on volume and I'll shut up. One that a computer could follow. (I just read 30 odd pages of dbPhoenix volume thread and man, it might sound good, but there isn't a sound principle you can hang your hat on to make a buck. Again, try to hook up a computer to that 30 pages and produce consistant trades). The same for all the other crap- that works maybe half the time at best like double tops for instance or candlestick patterns are my favorite for you to get a computer to trade. Too subjective! You want to put your hard earned money on the best bet you can- not 50-50! That means my friend, you've got YOUR work cut out for you. Don't ask anyone to do it for you because it just aint gonna happen! I've just saved you a bunch of money. And btw, paper trade until you are sure you have something the other guy doesn't know about and then you'll see RESULTS- nothing fancy either- keep it relatively simple. If you back test it to make it work, you're on the wrong track- you're curve fitting. It has to work going forward in real time- so be patient- it will take time- lots of time. Are you willing to put in the time and effort required to see your "baby" work in all kinds of markets? That's what it takes. Otherwise you got nothing! It WILL blow up! Good luck.
I agree 100% with everything you said except this statement. Making a bet in trading is similar to making a wager when betting horses. You don't necessarily try to find the best horse, you try to find the horse with the "best odds" for a given finish, and then bet accordingly as if the same exact race were run 100 times. The problem with these kinds of "systems" that I am hinting at, ones that have a higher "lose frequency" than their "win frequency" is that psychologically they are very hard to stomach, since you are getting wacked most of the time. But when your number comes and you don't blow it by not letting it ride, it makes up for all the "mistaken" trades and much more. nitro