How do famous swing traders like Dan Zanger size up so fast?

Read William O'Neil How to Make Money in Stocks, read Nicolas Darvas How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market, read Gerald Loeb The Battle for Investment Survival, read Jesse Livermore How I Trade in Stocks, read Richard Wyckoff Stock Market Technique 1 & 2 and Studies in Tape Reading.

Read almost any of the classic texts that use a more or less technical approach to timing one's buys and sells and you'll learn about consolidations (bases) and the what's, the why's, and wherefore's of such price behavior.

Hint: It isn't about the levels. It is all about what the institutions are doing.
How can you know if accumulation/distribution takes place in the range?
 
How can you know if accumulation/distribution takes place in the range?

If I were you and if I really wanted to learn a skill rather than receive some facile answer that will not help you at all, I'd get my hands on those books I mentioned and start studying those along with a study of the daily and weekly charts of high volume, active stocks showing relative strength to the S&P 500 and an average daily range greater than $3
 
If I were you and if I really wanted to learn a skill rather than receive some facile answer that will not help you at all, I'd get my hands on those books I mentioned and start studying those along with a study of the daily and weekly charts of high volume, active stocks showing relative strength to the S&P 500 and an average daily range greater than $3
Read the last 2 because it are nice classics. Used footprint charts for iceberg orders etc years ago, but was not my thing. Found other things more useful, eg logic
 
So basically this would be a breach of a certain pricelevel, whereas the 'pattern' and/or behaviour before this line in the sand has no other meaning than random. I actually agree this can be a good stance, in other words, if it goes up, it goes up. Then it that case, sideways movement preceding would be basically irrelevant. It doesn't go down, but also not up (yet) is casus. And 'sideways movement' can occur in every bar, by definition.
Yes, it is breach of a certain price level, but a certain price level in an uptrend. Breach of a price level in a random price context would itself be random, and there would be no justification for going long here rather than short.
 
My take on Kullamagi's entry criteria(for lack of a better word). He sees a stock that has been in a long period of apathy,no particular direction. Then the stock/company is hit with some great news...great earnings report,drug approval,whatever,spikes up for a day or two,then flags-out over the next several days(or weeks). He hasn't entered but the stock is on his radar. Then if the stock spikes again that's when he suspects a break-out is about to occur so he enters that day. If the break-out doesn't materialize he simply exits the trade.
 
My take on Kullamagi's entry criteria(for lack of a better word). He sees a stock that has been in a long period of apathy,no particular direction. Then the stock/company is hit with some great news...great earnings report,drug approval,whatever,spikes up for a day or two,then flags-out over the next several days(or weeks). He hasn't entered but the stock is on his radar. Then if the stock spikes again that's when he suspects a break-out is about to occur so he enters that day. If the break-out doesn't materialize he simply exits the trade.

You can get some solid insight into KK's trading watching the five minutes or so from where this video is cued up:


My take on people commenting on KK's method is most have done very little work to understand what he does and how he turned his $9K into $80MM in 10 years.

He has really laid it all out there for the world to see, and yet most will not spend the time to watch even 1% of what he has streamed.

Just look atr his charts and the annotations and what he has annotated: He does a lot of work on each ticker before it hits his watchlist.
 
Yesterday
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Today
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Kurt Stauffer starting to put together a little run.
 
Dan Zanger may be a one hit wonder though, after the dotcom boom where he made $42m you never really hear of his further exploits. Did he lose it all? Or is a billionaire now? No one knows...

That being said. I don't think they are risking 1% of their account (Maybe per trade but they have several traders). From my own backtesting risking up to 15% at one time of an account is close to kelly. (Drawdowns are insane, like its common to lose half or even 2/3 of your account). That being said you can choose to risk less than 15%, but 15% is the max I will risk at any time.
 
Just my two cents:

Because they got to the point mentally where they knew what they were doing and believed in it, based on all the data they have. At some point it just all clicks for you and when you see what you're looking for you jump on it.

That's why people can give others their exact strategy and they still lose money. A lot of them are just copying someone else and expecting when you put in the trade for it to work and now you're rich. When the people using it likely lack the over all market understanding of when to actually size up and use it, like others here stated. Plus for above mentioned reasons they either have an underlining fear when taking the setup or blissful ignorance when taking it. So in either scenario once you take that first loss or a few losses in a row your mental game is now shot and you've not only lost those individual battles, but also the war. Where as the creators of the strategy keep moving forward knowing that big winner is most likely to come over time due to probability.

I think some of the reasons is that they are some nuances in trading (which add up). Its hard to put into words but a season trader would be able to exploit it while others who just copy trade do not.
 
Dan Zanger may be a one hit wonder though, after the dotcom boom where he made $42m you never really hear of his further exploits. Did he lose it all? Or is a billionaire now? No one knows...
During the dot com bubble he turned 10k into 18 million in a couple years, it then took him nearly 20 years to turn that 18 million into 42 million. It's a lot of money but the compound annual growth rate is less that 5%.
 
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