I have day and swing traded for 6 years and work for arguably the top Direct Access firm for the last 2 years. I have seen the best and worst traders, one day gains/losses that you can't even fathom and what characteristics and traits every one our profitable clients have maintained and follow. Number 1: Discipline. There is no emotion involved when an entry and exit point is established. You should have 3 reasons why you open and close a position. Number 2: In regards to DayTraders (DT) ACCEPT bad calls. No one is perfect and you WILL be wrong at times. Don't average up/down or talk yourself into turning your daytrade into an overnight ect; Number 3: Swing traders MUST have the staying power to weather a bad call. Market Makers (MM) thrive on traders who are over leveraged thinking they bought at the bottom or shorted at the top. MM's have an advantage: they see all the stop orders on they're books and WILL scare you into closing your position. If you like a stock and have your 3 reasons why, don't let them Whipsaw you. That's staying power. I have many more suggestions but I'm new on this board and not sure how heavily read this thread is so if anyone has any questions I have more info and answers than you probably want to know.
swingtrading.can you make a living?
- Thread starter optijose
- Start date
I day-trade. It took me a while, actually some eight years to develop my own automated trading system, and now I follow it blindly. And Thank God my balance is positive so far. Enough to say that I'm 31% up since early December 2001. I entirely agree that after setting up your trading system, discipline is the most important thing.
This might be a dumb question but I have always thought that
stop orders were held at the brokers. If so, then how can the
MM's see them? This is with Naz stocks. How can they see
stops held at IB, Datek, MB, Cyber, E*Trade, ect?
I know if you have an open order out at say, the Island they
can see these. But what about the others?
Haaa...if I could acquire 10M in cash I or anyone could become a "Market Maker" if you know how and when to soak the bid or ask. Acutally, to become an official MM you have to meet strict requirements set by the NASD and SEC that no one idividual is qualified for. If you have 10M in cash that gives you 40M in Buying Power which gives you the ability to compete with Goldman, Merrill, Morgan, Herzog ect; We have a few clients that have this ability and it's amazing to watch them trade.
I have been trading/investing for 4 years full-time. It took me the first 2 1/2 to figure out my style and derive a methodology. This may sound like a long time, but consider that you also have to live a few market cycles. Without making this a long story. I would answer in 95% of the cases, if you don't have another source of income, forget about it. That's the reality. I had another source and if not, I would have starved. So getting started is a balancing act for most. To make this a part-time job can also work in the beginning, so that would involve that your employment allows you a few days off.
This is in reference to version77's question. Datek, E-Trade, Waterhouse ect; all of those brokers have agreements for payment of order flow with specific MM's. Your stop orders to reside on a MMs book through just about every firm out there. The trick is to find a firm that offers alerts which serve the same function as a stop but the alert resides on a server at the firm then sends the order out once the criteria is met. Only a few Direct Acces firms offer this feature. Ameritrade, E-trade ect; do not have this capability.
Version77, I just wanted to point out that when placing stop orders via Terra Nova Online on Archipelago (ARCA - offers Stop Market, Stop Limit, and Trailing Stop Orders on Listed and Naz Stocks). The order is held on ARCA's order handlers, not on ARCA's book, and MM and other participants do not have access to this information. Many people ask about this and I just wanted to let you know how these orders function with us and many other direct access brokers. I'm not sure how everyone handler's there Stops, so always ask to make sure.
Michael Garvey
Client Services
Terra Nova Online
P.S. We also offer Stop Market and Stop Limit Orders via our Superdot link (ISI) and those order are held on the Specialist's book on the primary exchange.
Michael Garvey
Client Services
Terra Nova Online
P.S. We also offer Stop Market and Stop Limit Orders via our Superdot link (ISI) and those order are held on the Specialist's book on the primary exchange.