Swing and day trader for 5 years with many lessons learned and much cash burned. began trading in the beginning of 2007 and didn't appreciate the bearish view being espoused from the doom and gloom crowd concerning the impending financial crisis (ie real estate bubble). After loosing a large portion of my stock holdings to the crash I began a re-evaluation of my ability to gauge the market. In 20-20 hindsight the market was in a slow free-fall from the middle of 2007 right up to the big event.
Day trading and small swing trades became my ammunition of choice to stay highly mobile and fluid in positions that I could take off the risk before overnight changes in the market and especially over weekends where ...More futures markets could destroy gains before pre-market trading started.
The market is as volatile as ever and is driven by and amplified by the many variables of the human world and psychology. Fear, greed, and various socio-political and market manipulations all blend together to create a very random pattern of ups and downs in an already unpredictable world of natural and man-made disasters. So playing the short term trends is the only friend you have and a very fair weather friend if that. Probability theory, risk management and charting are useful tools and can help to determine the less safe bets but still there is no perfect investment unless you justify a scheme of investing by averaging out the success rates over the course of a very long time. Or the "Scaling-in-Method"
If nothing else this decade of bubbles has taught us that timing is everything in an investment and getting in at certain times and out are the hallmark of success for any investment. So what else can I say about myself except I am the market and the market is me. So don't think I am avoiding talking about myself when I speak of my philosophies concerning the market. I am a market chameleon and very much a contrarian when it comes to following the market (Herd) into the next popular belief of what the market is going to do next.
Day trading and small swing trades became my ammunition of choice to stay highly mobile and fluid in positions that I could take off the risk before overnight changes in the market and especially over weekends where ...More