Things I ponder: It's a bear mkt ( no shit sherlock)it's getting to that place where even experienced, capable traders are walking away with too little and leave the biz or become part time players. I think big players keep themselves sidelined and delta neutral with what they have at risk, therefore less volatility than past stratadgies needed to survive. Geo political backround noise exacerbates this even further, this will go on much longer than is generally anticipated imo. The other side of the coin: Due to the blossoming of the markets, within the last better portion of a decade ,as a tool to fast paced wealth accummulation in the general consciousness of the western world almost all of the money available to move the mkts. has become a sort of "hot" money, moving into and out of positions with ease and speed, witness the proliferation of hedge funds, futures and forex trading. The tension between these two forces keeps volatilty down with a few occasional breakout periods. It's a new paradigm to some. If you've been around long enough you'll recognize it as the same old rythm going through it's compression stage. There was a book written some years ago about the acceleration of the speed of change by Alvin Toffler I think, this will prove to be true. The cycles will play out faster than expected, a compression of sorts of events. The yen thought they could unseat the dollar as the world currency, they neglected their foundational weaknesses and are paying the price. The euro was designed to unseat the dollar with the French and Germans leading the way. The Chinese believe they are going to do it. There are two things they don't quite get. 1:We reward and encourage individual effort, the edges of the cocoon of possibilities to the average American are much more distant than in most countries. 2: We let failures, what doesn't work fail. We don't prop up old shit, we let what should die die, probably a function of our lack of thousands of years of tradition. We are the most effecient in that sense and the money will flow back into our mkts. In a very real sense the worlds economy rest on the American consumers shoulders. We are the worlds most rampant consumers, if we stop the world stops. The % of foriegn co's goods sold here is huge. I can just imagine Greenspan staring at the cieling trying to go to sleep. I should mention that I'm down a few glasses of a nice cabernet in the event this is making little or no sense to anyone but me.
are you serious? the guys i'm trading nasdaq with are bringing home serious profits every day. i guess if you look around the room and can't find the sucker.....well you know....
where are you trading nasdaq? one of the best nasdaq traders i know of just called it quits. i dont know of anyone TRADING nasdaq doing especially better than in 2002 except for rebate traders and that's just chump change.
Im really of the opinion that a trader should be a trader and trade. If the Emini's are offering opportunities trade those, if some stocks are looking nice then trade there (there are always stocks that are doing well, you just have to sort out things with some basic scans, Its not even anything I sell..just start looking at gaps). If the commodities markets are moving, then trade those, currencies, bonds, petro's etc. I don't think you can get yourself tied down to one thing and fall in love with the idea of that being what you trade. Rather, you should love the idea of being a trader period, and trade where there is opportunity for you to profit. Brandon
Brandonf Good post bud....could not agree with you more...remaining flexible...with the ability to adapt.
Let me guess, on occasion you can buy ES at say 860 just before it goes to 862. Very inefficient of that guy to sell you those contracts so cheaply.