Re: Day Trading aspects

[Editor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

NOTE : This response should be considered as constructively serious and not
trite.

A semi-retired (real) brain surgeron friend of mine recently commented.
Geeeee, I thought brain surgery was difficult, (pause)
until I tried (intraday) trading the S&P.

Please consider that when you day trade,
you are competing against the best traders in the world.

As Jimmy Dugan said
" It (baseball) is supposed to be hard.
  It's the hard that makes it great "

Thanks

Peyton Morgan
Editor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://TradersDigest.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Peter G <ktata@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: RealTraders Discussion Group <realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Monday, November 23, 1998 12:58 AM
Subject: Re: Day Trading aspects


RTs:

I had an ill-fated one month trial with daytrading the E-Mini. After a
month, I wasn't getting where I wanted, so I quit. However, I learned a
couple good things.

One was that if I was trading breakouts (buying new highs, selling new
lows) it was the risk control that made the strategy work. Frequently, the
market broke out, made a spike reversal and then turned around. If it
didn't and kept going (I don't know what the % of this is) I was in.. if it
turned, my stop saved me and I waited for the next trade. When the
volatility stepped up, and I started giving it more room I started losing
money big time.. I should've just called it quits.

Another thing was that breakouts were good from tight consolidations.

For trend trading I would use about 4 higher highs or lower lows to define
the trend. When I started second-guesssing and opinionating, it would mess
it up. If I stuck to the 4 h/l rule I would usually capture the first leg
of the trend until it started to retrace, where I would exit.

The other notable thing was that I did better watching the ticker (i.e.,
straight time and sales) for managing the trade than by watching the chart.
When I started watching the chart, I would let it retrace too much.

Well, anyway that's my two cents... I'll probably give it another shot when
I've developed a more disciplined approach. By the way, my big mistakes
(and fatal ones) were overtrading (looking for trades where there weren't
any) and poor risk control. If the market's all choppy and crazy, or way
too volatile I'll just sit it out next time.

Thanks for your patience.

PG