I agree that its futile to predict the market. Hell I don't even know what Im going to have for breakfast in the morning and that is only 6 or 7 hours away. That said, I don't think you need to know what the market is going to do in order to make money in it, and in fact the misguided notion that you do causes most people to fail and fail miserably. Brandon
If you want to put yourself in the position to make bigger gains, you are going to have to put money on the line in equities that are more active than conservative blue chips. Im not saying to play 5k shares of GOOG all day long, but I know plenty of traders that I work with that make great money year in and year out by trading whats in play. My friend alone has made over 200k this year so far in steel stocks and also I have done pretty well trading oils and oil services. They key mostly, at least for daytraders, is not to predict, but to react to price action. Reading the tape is essential to getting an idea of where the stock may be headed. Stochastics and alot of TA indicators are ok if you dont rely heavily upon them. At least I have found this to be true.
it's not hard to achieve at all if you're only putting on conservative condors and doing nothing else.
Steve, can you comment a bit more about reading the tape, please. what are some things you are looking at/for? Thanks, Vic.
Not impossible. It can be done with the proper experience and knowledge. There are many ways money can be made trading. IMO there are some very big hitters which a lot of us do not know about who do not trade conservatively. If you want to make the big time you need to push it. If you want to make it to the next level or maybe even go pro then being talented is usually not enough. Success begins at a young age and carries over to adulthood. You either have it or you don't. ozzy
I basically look to see how certain orders are filled (I am speaking only of NYSE here). Why would the specialist fill this 8k order at X price as opposed to Y price which was the limit price ect. Could it be thats there is a seller in here? How fast are the offers being scooped up or bids being smacked? It takes a long time to train your eye to look for and comprehend a lot of the necessary details of tape reading. But, I have to say, since I have gotten decent at tape reading, my profits have gone up dramatically. PS There is a ton more to tape reading, I only mentioned a couple examples. If anyone else wants to go into more detail, please do as I would like to learn more as well.