Trading (training) videos ... - page 33

 
A lesson on how the Existing Home Sales Index gives us insight into the Us housing market and how this affects the stock, futures, and foreign exchange markets.
 
A lesson on the Consumer Confidence Index and what it means to traders and investors in the stock, futures, and foreign exchange markets.
 
A lesson on the Conference Board's Index of leading economic indicators for active traders and investors in the stock, futures, and forex markets.
 
A lesson on the advantages and disadvantages of day trading the stock, futures, and forex markets for active traders and investors.
 

Intra Day Trading by Chris Capre

 
In our last lesson we gave an introduction to the three main styles of trading and looked specifically at the advantages and disadvantages of the most popular style of trading, day trading. In today's lesson we are going to look at the advantages and disadvantages of the second most popular style of trading, swing trading. Swing trading is generally defined as a style of trading where positions are held for larger gains over multiple days and up to several weeks. Traders who promote this style of trading normally feel that it combines the best of both day trading and position trading. What this means is that these traders feel swing trading gives you a similar ability to amplify gains as day trading does, with the slow pace and lower transaction costs of position trading. A second advantage that many traders would site about swing trading, is that good swing traders plan their entries and exits in advance and since positions are held for longer than one day this method of trading does not have the same intensity that day trading does. While some traders prefer the intensity of day trading, traders who want a less stressful trading career often opt for swing trading as a result. I think most traders would agree that the biggest disadvantage to swing trading is the increased risk per trade. Because swing traders hold positions for longer periods of time, their average risk per trade is generally higher than day traders in order to give the position enough breathing room to work. As swing traders hold positions overnight they are also exposed to the overnight risk which we learned about in our lesson on day trading. Secondly, although swing trading does not require as much work as day trading, it still generally requires more work and resources than position trading, as good swing traders normally follow the markets very closely even when not entering or exiting a trade. That's our lesson for today, in our next lesson we are going to look at the third style of trading, position trading so we hope to see you in that
 

some might find this useful (as i did a few yrs ago)

But do not give any money to see any more of his information

as it can be found online (or at least it used to be)

but is worth a watch to see how the market makers are controlling the market (everyday)

 
In our last lesson we looked at the advantages and disadvantages of the second most popular style of trading, swing trading. In today's lesson we are going to look at the third and final category of trading, position trading. Position Trading, which is also referred to as trend trading, generally involves holding a position for three to six months to capture a fundamental change in the value of the financial instrument that is being traded. As this is the case position traders will generally be more prone to integrating at least some fundamental analysis into their trading, than will day and swing traders. Probably the biggest advantage to position trading is it generally involves the least amount of time of the three trading styles. After they have spent the significant time necessary to learn about trading in general, many good position traders will spend just several hours a week analyzing the market and making their trades. As they are holding positions for long periods of time good position traders have their stop loss and profit targets in place before making the trade, requiring that the trader only monitor the position to make sure nothing significant has changed since his original trading decision. The second major advantage that I think many traders would site about position trading is that because you are in positions for long periods of time with wide stop loss orders, your positions have room to breath and are much less likely to get stopped out because of random market noise than with the other two styles. As we learned in our lesson on Swing Trading, holding positions over longer time frames generally requires wider stop loss orders. While as we have just stated this is an advantage from a market noise standpoint it is also a disadvantage from a larger average risk per trade standpoint. The second main disadvantage that I think most traders would site is that position traders miss out on many of the shorter term opportunities that day traders and swing traders can use to amplify their profits. This is not only true from a length of trade standpoint but also from a capital standpoint. Because position traders hold positions for long periods of time their trading capital is also tied up in those trades for longer periods of time, restricting them from taking advantage of as many opportunities. We are going to go into a bit more detail on how to choose the style of trading which is best for each trader in our lesson on the trader's business plan, but you should now have a good understanding of what each style entails. The last thing that I would like to point out here is that often times different styles work better in different types of market conditions. With this in mind many traders will learn a bit about each of these styles so they can place longer or shorter term trades depending on the market conditions at the time. That's our lesson for today, in our next lesson we are going to begin to take a look at the different markets that are available to traders so we hope to see you in that lesson.
 
In our last lesson we finished up our discussion the different styles of trading with a look at the longer term style of position trading. In today's lesson we are going to start a new discussion on one of the trader's most powerful tools, the trading journal.
 
In our last lesson we began our discussion on how successful traders leverage trading journals in order to learn from their past mistakes and successes. In today's lesson we are going to wrap up our discussion on trading journals with a look at what to look for when reviewing your trades. Simply writing the days activity down in your trading journal is the first step. The next and equally important step is to review your journal on a regular basis to see what is working and what is not. This way you can leverage your journal to help you improve in areas where you are weak and make sure you continue to leverage your strengths where you are strong. There is a great article from Brett Steenbarger at Traderfeed.com which addresses some of the major things that traders should analyze when reviewing their trading journal. In this article Dr. Steenbarger says:

Number of long and short trades -- I correlate this to the trend condition of the market to see if I'm trading with the current or against it; if I'm trading in a one-sided way in a range-bound market. The number of trades also tells me if I'm overtrading.

Number of winning and losing trades -- When I'm trading well, I have more winning trades than losers by a reasonably healthy margin. When the ratio dips for more than a short time period, I need to re-evaluate my trading and my trading strategies.

Time holding trades -- I'm a short-term trader, and I tend to have a relatively narrow time band in which I hold trades. Moving beyond that band tells me I'm either cutting trades short or going for home runs—and neither of those have worked for me in the past.

Time holding losing trades versus winners -- It is very hard to make money over time by holding losers. Eventually, the size of the losers becomes greater than the winners so that even a trader who has more winning trades than losers can end up in the red.

Profit/Loss broken down by long and short trades and broken down by market condition. This tells me if I'm trading ranges better than breakout movements; whether I'm doing better on the long side or the short side. If my performance is significantly worse in one mode than another, I start to examine my trading for needed improvements.

I would add to this list average profit on profitable trades vs. average loss on unprofitable trades and largest drawdown or loss the account suffered before returning to profitably. That completes our lesson for today and also wraps up our course on the basics of trading. In our next lesson we are going to begin a new course which covers the basics of Forex Trading so we hope to see you in that lesson.