Maybe you're trading the wrong stocks. Try FRX and GS on the NYSE and stay away from Nascrap. Good, solid moves!
I'm fairly new to this group. and will run if hazed. I've been doing this for 15 years, and I'm a day trader. Training new people is great fun for me..so..if you are going to haze me,.. have at it, But...If ya wanna learn. Oregon is the place. Jayford
How did you have to change your thinking to trade eminis from trading stocks? Most stocks traders I know who tried to make the switch did not do that well. I think they were so used to reading the specialist/market makers that they did not know what to do with the eminis where you can't do that.
hehehehe............. That's funny! Don't worry, this board is pretty tame when it comes to getting flamed.
I was a futures trader to begin with. I am just trying to help guys. I have a trading office goin, nuts, and I'm bored, so let me know. Jay
I was already a futures trader. I tried trading at the San Francisco office of Bright, (must say they were great guys and helped me out as much as possible. Only so much Dale could do, I lost money there (slowly bled)But Dale wanted e to succeed, and I would never say anything negative about Bright. For me, Its just easy to trade minis'. Please email me directly, Jay
TripleD, I think you got it right in your final paragraph. Here's my take on things: There is too much hope in the system, too many people holding on to big losses, still believing in buy and hold, still listening to their trusted advisers that the market always makes you a winner if you are patient. These people need to be washed out of the system and a new base of investors without the bad memories and the pre-bubble expectations has to replace them. P/E's way overshot to the high side at the top, and they historically are at undervalued levels coming out of a bear market. As so many people have mentioned, p/e's are still at relatively high levels. If you look at a weekly chart of the SP500 going back 6-8 years, a very clear head and shoulders pattern is in place. The rally off the July/October lows (on declining volume) has only brought us back to the area of the neckline. We're also still under the 200 day ma and the downtrend line from the bubble top still hangs overhead around 1000. At some point, I think this rally fizzles out and people realize that once again, a new bull market is nowhere in sight. When the downtrend resumes and the summer lows are taken out, then you will see panic selling hit again. Probably followed by another v-bottom which will bring out the calls that the worst is over and that the greatest capital markets in the world can go nowhere but up. False hope and confidence comes back into the system, we get a bear rally, followed by new lows and so on and so on. What will end this vicious bear market and spawn a real, sustainable bull? When no one cares anymore. When cnbc is no longer on the air, when equities are treated with disdain, when people don't want to talk about them. When people look at you like a kook for owning stock. When 5, 10, 15 years of a slow, sideways, choppy, low volume market has finally pummeled every last optimist out of the system. I am a fan of Todd Harrison at minyanville.com and he's pretty much espousing the same views. One of my favorite sayings from him: "the opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy". To the extent that the public loved the market at the top, they have to shun it at the bottom. If your career depends on stock market volatility and volume, I think there will be periods of trading nirvana for you ahead. But you are going to have to capitalize on them big time, because the game is going to be 10 times harded down the road.