theory of The 1st 5 days

[tulog]

I think it is because I feel that, for a good trader, the stock market is a much safer place to put your money, and you have far more control on the odds and the outcome.

Provided your analysis on proper times and price levels to buy and to sell is correct.

[gambler2075]

Provided your analysis on proper times and price levels to buy and to sell is correct.

Agreed. I think that the way to think about it is that trading individual stocks in the stock market, say, before you have made 500 trades or somewhat know what you are doing, is like handing the keys to a McLaren to someone who doesn't have a driver's license. Yeah, you are going to go fast for a bit, but you're almost certainly going to crash.

g

[tulog]

nicely done! and they say that trading is impossible... lol

g

A lot of books say that most new traders lose most of their account value within the first few years. Presumably this causes them to cut their losses and go invest elsewhere in a different fashion, either through buy and hold, or some other strategy. I had early losses as well, which were discouraging. One possibility is to paper trade before doing actual trades.

[tulog]

...If the trend-line is down...we're all in trouble!

Just want to point out, that if you believed this theory, only those with long positions would be negatively affected. If you knew the market was going down, the proper thing to do would be to take short positions to profit from a decrease in prices by buying the same stocks back later after they declined in price. Or you can could sell existing positions, and back the same stocks back later for less money.

[gambler2075]

A lot of books say that most new traders lose most of their account value within the first few years. Presumably this causes them to cut their losses and go invest elsewhere in a different fashion, either through buy and hold, or some other strategy. I had early losses as well, which were discouraging. One possibility is to paper trade before doing actual trades.

The problem is that paper trading is unrealistic. Certainly it is necessary, but not sufficient to become a successful trader. I do know people that were paper trading heroes but etrading zeroes... when you don't have actual money on the line it changes everything. That doesn't mean that one should not practice paper trading... they should. But just because they were successful doesn't mean that it will automatically transfer over.

With you 600%+ returns this year what was your style? momo? intraday? contrarian? options?
I basically stick to biotech swing trading, because I believe that that sector has the biggest swings of emotion...

g

[tulog]

momo? intraday? contrarian? options?
I basically stick to biotech swing trading, because I believe that that sector has the biggest swings of emotion...

g

Primarily swing trading with support and resistance levels as guidelines. I sometimes look for bounces on stocks whose prices decline when they miss their earnings numbers by a small amount (for example, a 15% decline in the price of a stock the day after the company reports earnings one cent lower than estimates).

I have some long term plays.

[gambler2075]

Primarily swing trading with support and resistance levels as guidelines. I sometimes look for bounces on stocks whose prices decline when they miss their earnings numbers by a small amount (for example, a 15% decline in the price of a stock the day after the company reports earnings one cent lower than estimates).

I have some long term plays.

I tend to trade in a similar manner, but to sum things up I would say I am a contrarian. I have learned my lesson that while fundamental analysis can help, if employed in a non-contrarian manner you are going to just be hurting yourself. I am much more attuned to trading off of emotions and sentiment, and that was what worked for me... Of course then I got off my plan and tried to do some fundamental analysis on a stock and managed to lose 300,000$ worth of profits in 2 months. oops. But still up 180K this year, and I learned my lesson to go back to what was working.

g