Vehn, I will tell you exactly what I use to tell guys that I trained in NY and what my mentor told me. Pick one stock in the news between $25 and $50 (listed only). Trade it every day. At the end of the day, stay after work for about 4 hours and review all your trades. Pull up the time and sales and review every single print. Look at all your trades, why you did them, why they made or lost money. Then go back again and see where you should have bought and sold. Don't look at the chart, you don't need it. Just look at the tape. See if you can find the buyers and the sellers. Then the next day come in early. Read every single news headline. Pick your stock for the day, after awhile you will have 2, 6, 10, 15 stocks. Repeat the same process. Stay late, go over the time and sales. Every single print. You will not have any friends. You will not have a life. You will be very very bored. But you will learn to read the tape. And you will make money. Every guy in our group went through this. Most guys were not that commited and it showed on their P&L. Like I said, I feel this post is a wasted effort because no one will do this. Oh sure, you'll do it for a day, maybe a week. But for 6 months? I doubt it. You'll look for something easier. Some technical indicator or whatever and you'll give up. It's a lot of hard work and I can't emphasize the word boring enough. But you will learn to trade. Some hints. Focus on stocks that do 500k to a million shares a day. Don't trade expensive stocks. Don't trade the sexy stocks, the ones everyone trades. Be smart and find related stocks, rather then the stock that had the news. Watch the sp 500 futures all day every tick with your stocks. There you have it.
Hi Steve, Anyway, you got my attention on this board somehow. Probably you P/L reports. Yay! You must live in a totally different world then I do. In Belgium you'd have a real comfortable life having a 6 figure income before tax. (Even here, 55% direct tax). What books did you read on daytrading that made the difference? You can PM me if you'd like. Thank you for taking the time. That foreign newbie
In the end it all comes down to Patience, Discipline, and Control. Self Mastery is really the key. Know your weakness and losing tendencies and force yourself away fron them. I know this is vauge, but really it sums it up.
I trade futures but I couldn't agree more with the underlying message of reviewing your trades everyday, and seeing where you went wrong. You must learn from your mistakes. I also believe in specializing in one or two markets only.
Honestly, Mavericks post from last page sums it up perfectly. If you want, you can PM directly w/ questions.
Hi maverick, Thanks for your reply. Trading equals working, I know. My teaching suffers under it sometimes... I devote much time to programming systems and so on. Don't forget, the language is an extra boundary to me.. About that tape reading & L2: I'm an economist and always interested in the forces of the market. What drives a price. Real and fake supply and demand. Will I need L2 to see WHO's doing what? how can I record this information? How does one print the T&S? Other information you'd need for tape reading? Maybe, i better read a book on the subject, but what book?
Whereas your spirit dampening, motivation crushing purpose is abundantly clear. No doubt, you want someone to sit with you in the puddle you made.