Marubozu

Wait for a 50% retracement and buy! It's one of the few things I do regularly with great success and seems to work on all instruments.

What you say about brokers is true thier business model is churn and burn. Also I hope you have a real broker account and not some form of spreadbetting account because scalping will be near impossible. I wasn't trying to be rude I was generally intrested to see if you will continue I agree with lots of what you said, I think for many people trading is an expensive hobby.

One Hundred and Ninety Seven Pounds per month! That is how much I will pay! :-)

So what I am interested to know now, is with your conclusions formed does this mean you have given up on the idea of trading...

I disagree... Everything in trading is meaningless unless you have a group of traders who give something meaning. Many traders believe that the close forms patterns, is higher or lower than previous closes and so on, and traders DO make decisions using closing price in their calculations. If your using any indicators you will probably be referencing the closing price of a candle. There for closing price does matter.... << Just playing Devils Advocate :-)

Perhaps you do need to have a robber mentality it may be more beneficial than the mentality of a saint... or a preacher of altruism. I see all profits as a form of exploitation of a person or resource, I don't see how any profit is formed with out something some where being exploited. We can pretend all day long that business is fair, but on the contrary. The key difference is a robber attacks some one who is unsuspecting, a trader is basically having a bet with another trader, its completely fair as both people have defined their risk or at least you would hope they have and then the game unfolds. But I do think you have to be ok with the idea that in each trade there is a looser and a winner and sometimes the guy who is loosing may not be able to cone back from his loss. He chooses to play the game. If I am right I take his money, if I am wrong he takes my money. Its as simple as that for me.

So apply this knowledge to the bigger picture and if your correct you will be a very wealthy man... :-)

i5 Processor 3.3 GHz 6GB RAM 1TB Hard Drive 2 HEAD 1GB ATI Radeon Graphics Card 2 x 24″ Full HD Monitors Windows 7 Professional

Hey, Welcome... Well it depends what you mean by day trade. So for instance if you need to support your self, pay rent, pay for food, etc etc, it will be impossible. If you dont have any expenses on a month to month basis, then yes you could day trade a bare minimum of $3k. But dont expect huge returns... Imagine you start with $3k, in my opinion if in one year you had $6k in your account I would say you have done really really really well because you have achieved a 100% ROI. If you research investors and fund managers often they offer returns of 10-30% per year if they are quite good at their job. Some people (the worlds best traders) manage to double their account every single year, but they are the worlds best. Others boast a 50% yearly return or even a 40% yearly return. To achieve a 40% ROI year on year means your pretty awesome at the game. I think if you have realistic expectations then yes you can day trade $3k as long as you don't expect to live of the returns. I would start with some goals that are not about money success, for instance having goals like: To always update my stop according to my trading plan. To achieve a 55% win ratio. To win 30 pips per trading day. To read a new trading education book each month. To Learn a new trading term each day. To spend sunday afternoons studying the market instead of watching football. Goals like these are achievable and will help you grow into who you want to be. Hope that helps.

I think this is a great post, well done for sharing. I agree with the content outlined and using moving average to gauge how a stock is doing and what phase it may be in, is good practice.

It could be reversed engineered. But like the comments said, picking a top or a bottom of a market is very difficult and its likely to be a marketing ploy any way. Why so harsh on the new guys, its a fair question. I would suggest lots of study and reading and start to develop your own ideas about the market, price action, etc, you never really trade the market.. you trade your ideas about the market.

pipsaholic is spot on in my opinion. I have spent several years developing indicators and its the old case of occam's razor that seems to deliver the best results.

"I haven't been putting stops in the market up until this trade" That could be one of the worst mistakes you make in your entire life... :-)

Hi Nakachalet, Your right to pick me up on those things. Ultimately trading is one mans opinion vs another and that is what I love about it. I also very much enjoy the banter and differences in opinion that come with it. I could agree that having another hobby or business may distract you. For me trading and running multiple businesses is about creating financial freedom as apposed to be the worlds best trader. My aim is to make money from home and I diversify by doing many different things. Over trading in my opinion is not the amount of trades you place. It's more to do with ones ability to successfully place and monitor any number of positions. If you are able to place 30 trades a day and produce 30 winners, 5 days in a row and your placing 150 successful trades a week then that is not over trading, that is EXCELLENT TRADING! :-) I think coming from swing trading to day trading you probably will find your self trying many different new strategies and jumping from chart to chart and your overall performance may decline, your stress levels may increase and your ability to critically think can become impaired, when this happens I consider that to be over trading. Let me give you an example, I guess this is the reason why I responded as I did. A friend of mine who is a successful swing trader decided he needed to spend two weeks day trading to make some quick money... He booked time off his busy schedule and then spent 2 weeks looking for opportunities to make money. As you probably already guessed this plan did not go well.. And this was genuinely a friend and not myself, altho I have witnessed similar behaviour in myself. So week one he seemed quieter than normal and week two he seemed a little devastated. I guessed it was his trading activities, so I mentioned it to him. Two things came out of our conversation. 1) He decided to buy the latest and greatest day trading strategy from some guru trader (I wont mention any names). Excited with what he had recently been taught he decided it was time to day trade it. So he was trying to put brand new methods to the test with no practice or back testing in an environment and time frame which he was not used too. 2) This is pretty much the end of conversation we had: ============== Me: "What was your daily goal in profit/pips/points etc?" Trader X: "I don't limit myself, I don't have a daily limit... I just trade." Me: "Basically you have been placing trade, after trade, after trade, until you have one or two bad trades that completely wipe your profits and then you stop." Trader X: "erm... well.... not exactly.." Me: "Not exactly?" Trader X: "Well yes, pretty much... I have had some good days though...." ============== I consider that to be over trading. Placing trades relentlessly with no real plan, method or goal. For me over trading is not about any number of trades but more about your comfort zone and about one's own ability to monitor, reflect and maintain a level of success across multiple trades and techniques in a smaller time frame where you have less time to action your methods and the chances of repeated wins or losses can drastically effect your mind set and cause you to act in ways which can actually be damaging to your account. If your system requires you to be placing 4-5 trades per day that can be several hours between trades and it is easy to become bored or desperate to place trades, seeing opportunities that are not really there and receiving losses for that. If your system requires you to scalp the market 30-60 times a day then so be it as long as you feel comfortable. You hobby can be trading related, you could read the entire Financial Times each day. I am sure it would take about 8 hours to read that thing from front to back and your knowledge about companies and markets would grow exponentially. I would also recommend a daily goal, whether its £500 or £5000 and once you hit your goal stop placing new trades and simply monitor your existing positions and then get outside for some fresh air and enjoy LIFE! In an ideal world you will be finished by 10am every day ;-) Life is not about Trading, Trading is about LIFE!

I don't believe that is possible. If in the UK you can spread bet but I dont know if there is a similar option open to people in the US. As far as I know most brokers require minimum $500 to $1000 deposit per contract. I may be wrong... as these guys reckon they can do it... Mini Futures Trading, Online Emini Futures Trade Broker I have never used them or heard of them before.

Congratulations! I would say that the biggest challenge you face could be as you pointed out... over trading and not being as patient. I would recommend a second business or even a hobby that you can do at your desk or very close to your desk. Get your self a second set of screens (if you have not already) and then you can be at your desk but not tempted to trade every opportunity that comes up. Good Luck!