MrPaul

Lots of information and chart examples here: http://www.voodootrader.com/wolfewave.htm

In my opinion this is the key secret... "Darvas trained for the market just as methodically as he had studied his dancing, read some 200 books on the market and the great speculators, spent eight hours a day until saturated." Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become.

Random: Having no discernible structure or repetition. An uncertain or equally probable choice or outcome, without pattern and dictated by chaos or chance. Perhaps if anything can happen you mean unpredictable? Financial markets are not random. Chaotic systems maybe (I'm not qualified enough to give a definitive answer), unpredictable yes. Weather forecasting is a great example someone else mentioned earlier.

Fantastic Article Leroy! Thank you

Actions speak louder than words. Take your time, become a success in your trading/investing endeavors, and he will see that you can generate profits while he struggles to. The Teacher appears when the student is ready... Happy Holidays!

Yes I agree! And also when giving the impression that you are passionate about markets, talk that up with certain goals you have set and achieved. That will reinforce that fact that you are not only passionate, but determined.

I was 100% left brained on this test, Until I read what the text said, then I could see it both ways...cool post!

Johnny, First off welcome to the site! Secondly, emini's are typically used to hedge large stock positions or trade. Not very wise "investment" style vehicles due to the immense leverage and volatility. If you are looking to invest, Individual stocks and etf's are the way to go...

Ed, I'll be taking off those days. Not due to liquidity, but so I can spend some time with family and relax.

Trademonkey, How are you calculating this hypothetical profit? How are you so sure a stock price is going to drop? What kind of return are you looking for? Unfortunately in the world of finance reward is proportionate to risk. To reiterate what everyone else has said, options are your best course of action if you want leverage. Sorry if you were looking for some other answer. Also, what stock is it? Perhaps someone could offer more advice if we had more details to look over.

Thanks for your review Soul, I was looking for something new to read and will pick this one up!

Steenbarger's blog is the best on the net imo

More from the old Innerworth... Patient Traders Are Winning Traders Winning traders show patience. They wait for ideal market conditions before entering a trade. And when they enter a trade, they follow their trading plan, even if it means patiently waiting for the right time to exit. But many traders are impatient. They impulsively jump into trades that they shouldn't have made. And at the first sign of danger, they sell. Why can't they wait? Trading experts suggest that it may be a matter of focusing on immediate gratification rather than waiting for profits to come after a realistic amount of time. Dr. Van K. Tharp, for example, suggets that impatient traders are obsessed with profits. Rather than focus on what is required to trade profitably in the immediate future, they dream about how great it would be to spend future profits immediately. Similarly, Ruth Barrons Roosevelt observes, "Some traders are in a hurry. They want to make money, and they want to make it today." But profitable trading takes time and patience. How can you learn to become more patient? First, it's necessary to admit that you are impatient. This can be difficult to do. It's hard to admit our limitations, but the first step in solving any problem is admitting that you have one. Second, as you monitor trades, practice looking at events objectively. Pretend you are watching a television show about yourself. Pretend the character on television isn't you. Watch how impatient you are. See yourself as an objective observer would see you, and then, think about how you might act more patiently. Third, realize that your impatience may be a signal that you need protection from the potentially harmful consequences of a trade. When you are afraid of facing a potential loss, you may impatiently close a trade for fear of experiencing a bigger loss. Rather than allow these fears to lurk in the back of your mind, it's better to face consequences head on. Can you afford to lose capital on a series of trades? Or are you making up dire consequences that don't exist? It's necessary to consider the consequences of your actions and decide if you can deal with them. If you know you can handle the potential negative consequences easily, you will feel calmer, and be able to control your impulses. Fourth, examine the situations that preceded your impatient behavior and avoid them in the future. Identify the times when you were the most impatient. Were you tired? Were you hungry? Were you risking too much? Situations are powerful determinants of behavior. The best way to control your impatience is to avoid those specific situations where you are likely to act on impulse. Fifth, examine your self-talk, which is the dialog you use to talk to yourself as you trade. Scrutinize your underlying attitudes and beliefs. People who are impatient want rewards now, rather than later, and their thoughts reflect this obsession. They think, "It's either now or never" or "If I can't get what I want right now, I never will." It's essential to identify these beliefs and refute them. If you find yourself thinking, "I must make a profit," or "It will be unbearable unless I make a profit," you will act on impulse. Similar beliefs are, "My hard work must pay off now" or "I can't wait any longer." When you notice yourself thinking such statements, refute them. Remind yourself that you can wait. In "Overcoming 7 Deadly Sins of Trading," Ruth Barrons Roosevelt suggests supportive beliefs that can help you trade patiently: "Time is on my side. The market moves in its own rhythm, and I can move fast or slow depending on its pace. A person is able to create wealth slowly through trading." Don't give into the temptation to act on impulse. Trading takes time. Don't think that you absolutely must make profits immediately. Stay calm. You may not make profits immediately, and you don't need to, but if you build up your skills, and gain valuable trading experience, you'll eventually make the profits you want. It's just a matter of patience.

More from the site formerly known as Innerworth... Losing May Hurt, But You Will Survive It's amazing how many traders have lost big before they became master traders. Trader David Kyte notes, "experts in losing are not life's losers." It's ironic, but to be a winner you have to learn how to lose. "Winners have far more experience losing, because they get up over and over again. A loser only loses once, that's why he is a loser" (p. 123; Patel, 1997). True losers in life are afraid to take chances. They live under the assumption that winners face win after win, but little do they know, a winner faces many more setbacks than successes. David Nassar (2006) observes, "Losses are inevitable. They are as common to active traders as strikeouts are to major league baseball players. Ballplayers who can't deal with striking out or traders who become depressed by repeated losses are doomed to the bush league." (p. 14). In our interviews with successful traders, many have reported experiencing significant setbacks before mastering the markets. Dan reported, "One time I lost virtually everything in one or two days...I think I lost four or five hundred thousand dollars or something like that." It was a severe setback, but Dan knew how to lose. At the time, he thought, "It's only cash. It's not my life that I lost. I can get it back. It's not the end of the world. I'm not losing my house, my car, my credit cards, or my friends." Similarly, Don described the setback he experienced when he first started trading full time: "I went from trading to provide supplemental income to trading to put bread on the table for a young family...The first month was a disaster. It was an absolute disaster. In about four trading days, I gave back about 70% of what I had made in the five months preceding my decision to trade full time. At that point, I went through my own personal abyss that I had to pull myself out of." Losses and setbacks are part of life. In all walks of life, people work extremely hard to pick themselves up after setbacks. Have you ever asked a salesperson how many calls he or she had to make before getting a sale? In some cases, less than 5% of the calls lead to a sale, but if just one of the cold calls pays off big, then it was worth all the effort, right? Cornell psychologist Dr. David Dunning notes that many people are unaware of the time and effort it takes to be successful. Many college students, for example, believe that reading a book just once is sufficient, and because they "studied," they feel they should get an A. But ask the valedictorian what he or she did and you will find out that he or she didn't merely read the book just once. Indeed, I once asked a valedictorian of a competitive university how she was able to get an A in every class. She said she read every reading assignment four times to make sure she got it right! If you ask traders how much time they put in, you'll find the same thing. Winning traders spend most of their time "insanely focused," as Bill Lipschutz describes it (Patel, 1997), in that they put in late hours studying the market action. They put in more time and preparation than you might imagine, but do they always win? Unfortunately, many times they lose. Losing isn't the problem, but getting extremely disappointed because you lost is. It's useful to think optimistically. If you put in enough hard work and effort, and repeatedly pick yourself up after setbacks, you can master the markets.

I used to get these nuggets of wisdom and insight in my email everyday before the website was taken down (Innerworth). I have around 75 days or so archived so I wanted to start sharing them with TL... All In Perspective As a novice trader, Jack has just put on his tenth trade. He's still new to trading, but he is optimistic that he will be successful. He wants to succeed. He thinks, "I want to prove that I'm a good trader. I hope I do well on this trade. The outcome is critical to the rest of my trading career." Jack's thoughts and feelings are understandable. Whenever we start a major endeavor - starting college, a new job, or whatever - we want to succeed. And it's nice to have early success. The first few moments of a major life turning point seem especially significant. When we aren't successful immediately, the initial letdown often haunts us for a long time, interrupting our train of thought, and shaking our self-confidence. Despite the reasonable hope of an early triumph, however, it's vital to keep the proper perspective when approaching trading: one must always think of the big picture, the long run. Any single trade is of little importance. Experienced traders know this fact, and live by it as if it were doctrine. Even though they may focus all their energy on the current trade, they know it is of little real significance in the long run. It is wise to put each trade in proper perspective. It is essential that you consider, at least in the back of your mind, that a single trade is just one among a series of trades, and that the bottom line is the overall outcome across the series, not any single outcome. There are psychological advantages to taking this perspective. When you downplay the outcome of any single trade, it is less critical to your ego. When viewed as just one in a long line of trades, it's easier to tell yourself, "It doesn't matter. There will be many more trades and opportunities to come." If there isn't much riding on the outcome of a trade, it will free up precious psychological energy. You won't waste your limited psychological resources needlessly worrying about the outcome. You will feel free and creative, ready for whatever happens next. All your attention will be focused on trading your plan, objectively analyzing how market moves fit into your plan, and taking decisive action for a clean exit. Putting a trade in proper perspective is not only psychological, however; it also involves proper risk management. To survive the learning curve, or a severe drawdown, you must limit your risk on any single trade. By limiting your stake to a small percentage of your trading capital, the trade will have minimal financial significance. In reality, it will be of little consequence compared to your overall account balance. Merely believing that a trade is insignificant doesn't work very well unless in reality it is not significant. For example, it's hard to fool yourself into thinking that a trade is insignificant if you have a month's salary on the line on a single trade, and you can't afford to lose it. The stress will be unbearable. It's important for your psychological and financial security that you limit the risk on any single trade. Again, think in terms of the big picture. You don't need to make money on a single trade; the overall results across a series of trades are all that really matter. When starting a new endeavor, it's natural to want to do well on every single attempt. All of one's hopes and dreams may be placed on a few key trades, for example. But trading is much too difficult to think you can quickly make a few trades and be set for life, with all your aspirations met. The successful trader is in the game for the long haul. The trading lore is replete with stories of traders who made huge profits only to lose it all later. You may see some big trades in your career, which will provide numerous war stories that you can use to entertain your friends for hours, but when going into a trade, it's vital to keep the trade in proper perspective. It's still just one trade of the many you will make in your career.

Welcome to the site! Go Ron! lol

Sparrow, Thanks for the article, it was refreshing! I can certainly relate to this passage... "If you have been day trading more than a few weeks, I am sure you have experienced that one, terrible day where you look back and ask yourself, “Why didn’t I stop trading after I was down X amount of dollars?†or “I cannot believe I made $500 each day the last three days only to lose $2,500 today because I could not walk away.†I can remember one week I was up about $4,600 by Friday afternoon on the week. By the time the closing bell rang I closed the week out down nearly $5,000 (total losses near 10,000)! That was the single worst day I have ever had trading. I was really undisciplined and arrogant back then :crap: It's all a trial by fire though. Some people just get burned more than others on the way to the top!

Thanks for the heads up ED

3 minutes only? thats great! Look forward to your insights!

Hello Welcome to the boards.... What time frame do you trade the ER2 intraday?

I have never held an overnight position in an index future. Stocks are just fine, grains are just fine, perhaps even Gold. But for me, holding my normal day trading size overnight is just too much for my risk appetite. I do know traders who will hold overnight expecting a gap continuation in their favor but they are miles more capitalized than I am.

Order by tonight and it's 20% off Cash only please. :p

Just hit the bid or the offer and close your eyes real tight. Thats all we do and we make tons of ca$h :o

But of course!... and let us not forget we always have the private jet and the yacht to take out when the help is busy. :o

Post away! Your input is much appreciated