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Stock Market

Those "investors" who believe a trade can become an investment are not investors. I sleep very well at night. How well does even a day trader sleep at night if he lost money or because of high transaction costs underperforms a buy and hold strategy by a mile? Bottom line, traders spend majority of the time trading while investors spend most of the time researching and very little trading. There are successful people in both, and both sleep very well at night. :D
 
Hope everyone had a great week. Lot of range on the ES this week. All you had to do was buy double-bottoms and sell double-tops to make some $$$! But I'm in the middle of switching brokers so couldn't play it.

-awais
 
A buy and hold strategy is just that: "buy and hold". It implies that you do not use market timing to keep the transactions costs low. Are there traders out beating the S&P index annual returns(buy and hold strategy)? Maybe there are, but there are also many who do not beat the buy and hold strategy because trading is associated with high transaction costs. What kind of annual return does your trading (futures I'm assuming) portfolio have after you account for transaction costs? Is it outperforming the benchmark (S&P)?
BTW, someone who hears a recommendation from a broker or anyone else is not an investor. There is no research analysis done, the investment is done based on someone else's opinion. And about "bottom fishing", well, a lot of companies are sitting at low prices for a reason.
 
That's impressive! Is that the norm or does that performance happens only every once in a while? What did you make a year when you first started out future trading (were you using your own capital or the firm you were working for)?
Are the S&P contracts $500 each? So for every point move, you could be 10K up or down...sort of risky
 
dgp said:
That's impressive! Is that the norm or does that performance happens only every once in a while? What did you make a year when you first started out future trading (were you using your own capital or the firm you were working for)?
Are the S&P contracts $500 each? So for every point move, you could be 10K up or down...sort of risky
Click to expand...
The S&P E-mini is $50 per point, so on a 20-lot, that's $1K movement for every point. Even the Big S&P contract is $250 per point; not $500. But I know people who trade 100-200 contracts on the E-Mini so every point is a $10K movement in their account. If you're good and can handle that much size, this can be a VERY good thing :D
 
Your technical strategy has to be superior to other traders looking for the same thing. Congratulations! That is quite an achievement! The way I see it, if there is something that works in trading, that technical analysis must be used by very few people or else those few would not be able to make those superior returns. On avg, what kind of return do the scalpers (i believe that's what they call them) make a year?
 
dgp, I don't think technical analysis is the KEY to profitable trading. A lot of people can read charts very well, but don't have the guts to put on a trade as they see it. I think the key to successful trading is over-coming the psychological pitfalls (fear/greed) associated with trading and money in general.

-awais
 
O-Ace said:
dgp, I don't think technical analysis is the KEY to profitable trading. A lot of people can read charts very well, but don't have the guts to put on a trade as they see it. I think the key to successful trading is over-coming the psychological pitfalls (fear/greed) associated with trading and money in general.

-awais
Click to expand...

Most people will say "if I can only make X dollars a day I will trade in an out". The part they are not getting is what is the max loss before they sell?
I did ok this week, how about you ace?
 
How did you guys get started in this? I'm in the market around the edges, but I want to get into something a little more exciting. Any websites or books that you would recommend? Also, is there a website where I can setup a "model account" to "play around' a bit?

Thanks for any help.
 
steveny said:
Most people will say "if I can only make X dollars a day I will trade in an out". The part they are not getting is what is the max loss before they sell?
I did ok this week, how about you ace?
Click to expand...
Steve, I'm up a little but didn't really trade much this week. In between switching brokers, and have a vacation coming up so won't be trading much till middle of January.

-awais
 
Talked with Derek Lenard in NSX99 and he was on his way to making 10 million, I watched him make millions and it was so easy. Made 8 million, lost it all, forged stocks, Now he is in club fed for many years for fraud. I though I was done because "The pro" was a dirtbag. I had some good help on the internet and ended up chatting with some very good people, someone here who worked at a broker, I think it was Pain webber, showed me what he knew, then after working 18 hours a day for a year I made it better and showed him some stuff. The ONLY real way to make it now is just to bust your ass and find something that works for you. I get people that want my help and I just guide them and let them find out what works for them. Okay books and I have read over 30, I would get John Murphy the TA book to start with, then get the 2 Bill Willams books. Once you know what you are looking at it help to pick up a book. Again Bill williams is good because he makes millions and shows how and why he trades. Murphy just rehashes all the TA of the past 100 years and put's it in a big ass book. lol If you need anything just ask. I am glad to help anyone.


Justin664 said:
How did you guys get started in this? I'm in the market around the edges, but I want to get into something a little more exciting. Any websites or books that you would recommend? Also, is there a website where I can setup a "model account" to "play around' a bit?

Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
 
If someone was to trade, trading futures has an advantage over trading stocks. There is no borrowing of stock when you short futures (mini SP500 -ES), no dividends to worry about and the margin costs are a lot lower. Psycnosis- on a 20 contract, how much is your initial margin and the maintenance with your broker?
Also aren't the futures (mini S&P500) traded pretty much 24 hrs a day?
 
Intraday margin is up to the broker. My margin is set at $1,000 per contract. For overnight, all retail brokers follow the margin set by the CME, which is around $4,000 per contract.

-awais
 
COCO

You guys read about the COCO situation on Nasdaq? Basically, they halted trade because some guy at a big brokerage accidentally put in a Sell order for 1 Million shares. This caused the price to drop by over 10 points. A lot of traders picked it up at $42. Nasdaq halted trading in COCO at 10:58 AM to 11:55 AM. Here's the problem: they didn't notify that they were going to break the trades at the $42 price until after the halt. So, the people who went long at $42 and exited at over $50 were left Net short and lost thousands! That is total BS! I would personally never touch a stock that was halted but this is total BS on Nasdaq's part.

Some links:

http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/031205/1845000826_1.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/031205/1836000820_1.html

-awais
 
Re: COCO

I never have that problem with futures. Like I said a few posts back about this kind of shit.



O-Ace said:
You guys read about the COCO situation on Nasdaq? Basically, they halted trade because some guy at a big brokerage accidentally put in a Sell order for 1 Million shares. This caused the price to drop by over 10 points. A lot of traders picked it up at $42. Nasdaq halted trading in COCO at 10:58 AM to 11:55 AM. Here's the problem: they didn't notify that they were going to break the trades at the $42 price until after the halt. So, the people who went long at $42 and exited at over $50 were left Net short and lost thousands! That is total BS! I would personally never touch a stock that was halted but this is total BS on Nasdaq's part.

Some links:

http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/031205/1845000826_1.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/031205/1836000820_1.html

-awais
Click to expand...
 

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