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I focus first on finding profitable strategies that are easy for me to trade. I have a small diversified buy and hold portfolio, a long term (months) momentum portfolio (401K with 30 day trading restrictions), factor based stock models (long and short) with hold time of a couple weeks, and mean...

http://www.sec.gov/answers/shortrestrict.htm

Well drawdowns are a fact of life for traders, but a hedge fund that has a drawdown 3.5 worse than the market is going to have trouble attracting money. But what do I know, Victor Niederhoffer lost 100% and was able to attract money for another fund (which did well for a few years before it...

I am in the process of moving some accounts - I hate it but controlling costs is important. I accept it as part of doing business. I am not happy to share the wealth, I do it grudgingly. I moved from Scottrade to Zecco back when they used to have free trades - no commissions at all, and still...

As a swing trader over the past year I've paid 9.5% of my starting account value in commissions and almost 25% of my profits. That is higher than the prior couple years due to lower profits.

Sounds more like profit.ly, except on that site I believe trades can be excluded which makes it suspect. The security is an issue but transparency is a good thing. There are so many hucksters selling info about trading but who can't trade themselves. At least with something like this the ones...

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/etfs/trading-lessons/larry-connors-daily-battle-plan-101-how-to-find-the-best-etfs-to-trade-every-day-1577043.html I don't agree with his strategy of scaling in and he sells a lot of classes and tools that I think are overpriced, but his research is good.

Thanks all for the explanations.

Here is a good article with links to more about the move to backwardation. But still it doesn't explain the difference today. http://vixandmore.blogspot.com/2011/08/vix-backwardation-commentary.html And yet the difference today was 7.81% (I didn't have the closing number in my prior...

Can anyone explain why VXX is up 1% while $VIX is down 5.6%? I know it doesn't track exactly but this is a big difference.

In the run from Nov 99 thru March, the VXN (Nasdaq volatility index rose about the same as QQQ did. At the same time the VIX was mostly flat. VXN showed fear and the market was right to be fearful. So the question is whether the market is right to be fearful now. Only time will tell...

I've seen it argued that the VIX could rise with a rising market, I've just never seen it happen to any extent. Do you have any examples where it did? My guess is the difference has to do with the differences between greed and fear, but then I focus more on what the markets do rather then...

From Wikipedia: That it hasn't fallen more says that the options players are still fearful.

Thanks for the tip. With stocks up I'm surprised it hadn't dropped more.

I am aware that there may be manipulation, but I am not a day trader so it is not something I have been concerned with. I would like to know more, can you provide a reference?

Good question. A key part of my best strategy came from an idea from a forum post, and I have been helped greatly by a collaboration with a couple others, but most of what I do is based on my own research, extensive testing, experience, monitoring and evaluating actual trades. Read a lot of...

It depends on the strategy. I don't generally use profit targets because to improve the expected return on my strategies the profit target generally has to be so far out that it is rarely hit, and then the difference is too small to be meaningful, so it is easier not to use it. I have a new...

FYI, The forum that I linked to has a comprehensive Wiki that covers among other things, bond basics: http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Bond_Basics

As a beginner and one that seems to be looking into investing/trading reluctantly, I suggest you start here: http://assetbuilder.com/blogs/capital_gains/archive/2008/04/21/couch-potato-cook-book.aspx or here: http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php Most active traders, investors, advisors...

Well in the beginning I think there was some trading advise and comments about what appeared to be a long bias. Your performance has shown you don't need advise re. trading and that you are better hedged than at least I realized early on. Like most, I don't know much about converting to a...