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Above all else, this stock is in a major downtrend. The professionals are going to be shorting the rallies until the trend is no longer their friend. Short the rallies, don't fight the trend! Short that delectable double top that set up just after 9:45! If you want to counter trend this...

I agree. RIMM seems to trade a lot like X, with backwash that can easily take you out of a good trade unless you know what you're doing. X churned quite a bit of my money until I learned to take my ritalin before trading it :p I think I've only sim traded SPY, but it's very well behaved!

This realization was the full circle closure of my journey as a beginning trader, and it was a game-changing moment. You have to find a statistical edge to succeed. Once you find that edge, losses mean nothing because they're small and the frequent winners erase them quickly. There is no better...

I would recommend using whatever time frame you're using for your setups and signals. Use a lower time frame to guide entries and exits once your trading time frame sets up. In other words if I want to join a trend to the long side on a 3-min or 5-min chart, I'll watch the the 1-min chart when...

Stevegee! I thought I converted you to a whole foods pure vegetarian a long time ago! What happened?? :p I hit the gym @ 5 a.m. and get back before 6:30 in time to check out the early economic news and have an energizing smoothie. I hit the park with the dog after the close. I started...

Screen time is everything, just keep watching price action until you start to recognize solid setups the way you recognize it's very likely to rain when the stratus clouds and the barometric pressure hang low. I highly recommend Al Brooks' "Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar" as well. Xpurt...

ET is littered with the casualties of "averaging down" battles, most recently: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2731995#post2731995 I challenge everyone to direct me to a post on ET where a trend-following day trader wiped out days, weeks, months of gains or maybe blew...

And I'll add: The urge to average down comes from poor timing. Poor timing results in whipsaws when you use stops, tempting you to use wider stops, then eventually tempting you to average down because price always "comes back". The temptation to average down is simply another result of...

You're overtrading instead of waiting patiently for high probability setups and/or you have no idea how to place stops that are likely to survive. Whenever I enter a trade based on what I think will happen, but the confirmation has not yet occurred, I get stopped out. It doesn't matter if I use...

This one was a recent game changer for me. I always looked at the daily chart for overall big picture, but rarely at time frames 5-10x my trading time frame and never at the next smaller one. Once I started doing this, it removed most of the "why the heck is price doing THAT?" moments.

Prop, I don't think Neke ever holds overnight. Also, I think he started with around $5000 a few years ago and had grown it to over $500K by the end of 2009. Neke always starts the year down 40% or 50% to get everyone all riled up. :D

When I figure these out, I'll let you know :eek: If the trade doesn't stop you out and moves in your favor, it's a winner, at least for a while. I've left unbelievable profit on the table by moving my stop to break even too soon. Because I tend to trade at price extremes where the bulls and...

This is very true. I've seen trades called live in a trading room, and several traders put on the trade. They all have different results, even if their size is similar. One makes a tidy profit, another makes a small profit, another exits break even, or maybe takes a loss. This pretty much...

If I was standing in front of a crowd of brand new traders and was allowed to tell them only one thing to guide their profitable careers it would be this: "Place a hard stop with every trade and move it only in your favor. If you choose to use a mental stop and a trade runs against you and...

Maybe not a recipe for disaster but certainly a recipe for cutting winners short. It's been taking me a while to get over that bad habit.

bigpapi, that's a great idea. I stopped journal-style trade documentation as of this week, because writing up my reasons for entering, my trade management, my exits, my mistakes, etc. was causing me to lose focus on other good setups forming. Even just an audio recording to review with the...

Neke, what percentage of your trades become profitable in the first few minutes?

I started daytrading AAPL & POT very recently. I look for confirmed entries at the extremes, so I always use hard stops and pretty tight ones, too. I'm never surprised to get stopped out when price sometimes tests the extreme. If that happens and the test or breakout fails, I'm right back in the...

I am a Socially Responsible Trader. "You tend to be quick at seeing the possibilities, meaning that you can easily find opportunities in the market. You are driven by your values and are committed to them. You also tend to be adaptable and flexible and accepting of what happens unless it...

It's all about time frame. The trend line from March 09 lows broke down late last month, but the trend did not yet break down through the rising 200-day MA. It found support there on 2/5. So this break down could indeed be nothing more than a deeper pullback in the longer term uptrend...