The Ultimate goal is Higher Profits

In order to determine what techniques will work the best for your particular situation, we have to first discover what you already know. Technique is defined as a procedure that is effective in achieving an aim or goal. Of course we know that your ultimate goal is to make money, and if you are already making money, to increase your profits. How we get there is dependent on what path you desire to take. Is this something that you are planning on devoting all your efforts to? Or perhaps you are planning on dabbling in it while keeping your present job, or enjoying your retirement. This decision will set the tone for your online trading future. Don’t confuse dabbling with having any commitment. Anytime you trade you must be totally committed, which includes be knowledgeable, properly trained, and possessing the right tools to get the job done successfully. Therefor if your plan is to tackle trading part time, you will be a swing trader.

Do you know the difference between day trading and swing trading? To me there is a major difference. Just as there are differences between an option and futures contract. Many so-called experts lump all online traders into the bag of day trading. For the sophisticated observer it is plain to see the obvious differences. A day trader rides the rush of the asset, while a swing trader diagnosis the trends and holds onto it as long as the momentum last. I don’t know if the term “day trading” ever existed before we had access to the internet. If it did, I some how would picture a broker becoming a bit frazzled, trying to keep up with this mad client who is buying and selling at the speed of light. (more…)

Your Computer Is Not a One Arm Bandit

Where would we be without computers, and the technological advancements the internet offers us? Just as there is a generation getting addicted to video games, there are an alarming percentage of internet junkies. Keep in mind that online trading is becoming more and more popular too. With anything that is extremely popular comes extremist. Whatever style or strategy you engage in, remember that you are gambling with real money. You can’t continually treat your computer like a slot machine, and expect to always hit the jackpot. Without a solid and proven plan, things like going by instincts or by the seat of your pants, you will eventually fail in major way. You can however, take some of the more frightening aspects of gambling out of the equation. Instead of just rolling the dice, putting your chips all on lucky 7, or hopelessly watching the little pea spin around, you can learn what is the equivalent of counting cards. Let’s turn a tempting passion into a money making habit.

I know that addiction for online trading can completely envelop a person 24 hours a day, if they allow it to. Any online trading system or plan, should have three very important elements of success. Knowledge…Training…Software… Without any one of these three basics, as tempting as it might be to trade online, you will ultimately lose your entire investment capital. Let us assume that you have some knowledge or you wouldn’t be researching the market. Any training you receive should be for technical analysis, or you are just wasting time and money. Technical analysis training must be centered around candlestick charting, which will become your equivalent of counting cards, which I just referenced. It matters not what market you trade in, stocks or options, currency, commodities and futures, the following advice will help you.

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Indicators are an alphabet soup of average, ranges and misunderstood indicators. None are more misunderstood the Average True Range and the criticisms of this indicator are legion. I hope I can clarify some of the problems people have with this indicator and give you a good methodology for using it properly in your emini trading.

When I am feeling particularly lazy (which is more often than I care to admit) I bracket trade the ES with 12 tick stops. This is a system that is fairly effective and will, by and large, keep you out of harms way, but is annoying to watch the price continue upward on days when there is a high degree of volatility. Let me ask you, don’t you think there must be some way to calculate just how high, at least theoretically, a trade might go?

Average True Range was developed by J. Welles Wilder and first published in 1978. His book “New Concepts in Technical Trading” is a veritable storehouse of information for emini traders interested in oscillators, moving averages and momentum indicators. It is fascinating in every respect, and enlightening. The book does not read like a novel, more like an academic paper and Wilder uses mathematical equations to explain most of what he is explaining to the reader. But don’t let that deter you, as the math is not overly complicated and following his train of thought in the equations in the book is truly a wonderful experience.

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Daily Market Commentary for April 15, 2009

President Barack Obama pledged to rewrite the “monstrous” U.S. tax code, which he said is “far too complicated” for most people to grasp. (read more at Millennium-Traders.Com)
http://www.millennium-traders.com/news/newscommentary.aspx

Economic data released today:

Consumer Price Index:
U.S. March Consumer Prices fell by 0.1% compared to consensus of a drop by 0.1%; U.S. March CPI Excluding-Food & Energy increased by 0.2% compared to consensus of an increase by 0.1%; U.S. March CPI Unrounded fell by 0.138%; U.S. March CPI Unrounded Core increased by 0.171%; U.S. March CPI Energy Prices fell by 3.0%; U.S. March CPI Food Prices fell by 0.1%; U.S. CPI fell by 0.4% on the year which is the first decline since August 1955; U.S. Real Average Weekly Earnings unchanged in March.

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More traders try Forex day trading and scalping than any other method of trading and here we will look at how to win at Forex day trading and make a regular income with the best day trading systems
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Vendors will tell you that they have day trading and scalping systems which can trade for profit in hours or minutes and give you a stream of small regular profits, so you can pile up big gains but do they work?

No - none of them do and the reason is obvious.

In days gone by some traders could trade ahead of the pack, as they had the prices first but today we have a level playing field, with everyone able to get prices and news in a split second. The day trader, no longer has an advantage and the simple fact below proves it:

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Daily Market Commentary for February 11, 2009 from Millennium-Traders.Com

CEO’s from several of the largest banks testified before House Financial Services Committee today, trying to explain what they have used their TARP funds for. (read more)
http://www.millennium-traders.com/news/newscommentary.aspx

Economic data released today:

International Trade:
U.S. December Trade Deficit $39.93B compared to consensus Deficit $35.0B; U.S. November Trade Balance Revised to Deficit of $41.58B from Deficit $40.44B; U.S. December Exports $133.80B, down 6.0%; U.S. December Imports $173.73B, down 5.5%.

EIA Energy Information Administration Petroleum Status Report as reported from the Department of Energy:
U.S. Crude Oil Stockpiles rose by 4.717 Million Barrels At 350.768 Million Barrels; U.S. Gasoline Stockpiles fell by 2.662 Million Barrels at 217.559 Million Barrels; U.S. Distillate Stockpiles fell by 1.026 Million Barrels at 141.565 Million Barrels; U.S. Refineries ran at capacity of 81.6% versus 83.5% a week Ago; U.S. Crude Oil Stockpiles rose by 4.7 Million Barrels in the week compared to expectations of an increase by 3 Million Barrels; U.S. Gasoline Stockpiles fell by 2.7 Million Barrels in the week compared to expectations of an increase by 400,000 Barrels; U.S. Distillate Stockpiles fell by 1 Million Barrels in the week compared to expectations of a drop by 1.5 Million Barrels; U.S. Refineries ran at capacity of 81.6% compared to expectations of a drop by 0.3 Points at 83.2%.

At the NYSE closing bell on the New York Stock Exchange, here is how the major world indices and major U.S. stock indices ended the trading session on the world markets as well as the emerging markets including the stock market closing bell price:
DOW (Dow Jones Industrial Average) gain of 50.65 points to end the trading session at 7,939.53
NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) gain of 37.97 points to end the trading session at 5,252.68
National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ) gain of 5.77 points to end the trading session at 1,530.50
S&P 500 (SPX) gain of 6.58 points to end the trading session at 833.74
BEL 20 (BEL20) loss of 0.24 points to end the trading session at 1,884.02
CAC 40 (CAC40) gain of 6.97 points to end the trading session at 3,027.72
FTSE100 (UKX100) gain of 21.18 points to end the trading session at 4,234.26
NIKKEI 225 (NIK/O) loss of 23.09 points at the end the trading session at 7,945.94

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Daily Market Commentary for November 24, 2008 from Millennium-Traders.Com

A very important question from taxpayers is, should Citigroup still take $400M to have a baseball field named after them when the government/taxpayers gave them a loan? (read more)
http://www.millennium-traders.com/news/newscommentary.aspx

Economic data released today:

Existing Home Sales:
U.S. October Median Existing Home Price fell 11.3% on the year to $183,300; U.S. Inventory of Unsold U.S. Homes at 10.2 Months Supply.

At the NYSE closing bell on the New York Stock Exchange, here is how the major world indices and major U.S. stock indices ended the trading session on the world markets as well as the emerging markets including the stock market closing bell price:
DOW (Dow Jones Industrial Average) triple digit gain of 387.57 points to end the trading session at 8,433.99
NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) triple digit gain of 351.22 points to end the trading session at 5,311.01
National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ) gain of 87.67 points to end the trading session at 1,472.02
S&P 500 (SPX) gain of 51.28 points to end the trading session at 851.32
FTSE All-World Index data excluding U.S. (AW01UK) gain of 9.01 points to end the trading session at 137.32
FTSE RAFI 1000 triple digit gain of 220.90 points to end the trading session at 3,219.26
BEL 20 (BEL20) gain of 44.48 points to end the trading session at 1,828.18
CAC 40 (CAC40) triple digit gain of 290.85 points to end the trading session at 3,172.11
FTSE100 (UKX100) triple digit gain of 372 points to end the trading session at 4,152.96
NIKKEI 225 (NIK/O) - closed November 24

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Daily Market Commentary for November 10, 2008 from Millennium-Traders.Com

Its amazing how many billions, and billions of dollars were given to AIG, courtesy of the U.S. Treasury Department and the citizens of the United States. (read more)
http://www.millennium-traders.com/news/newscommentary.aspx

U.S. Conference Board: October Employment Trends Index fell by 1.8 percent to 105.3; and U.S. Conference Board September Employment Trends Index revised to 107.2 from 108.4.

Economic data released today: n/a

At the NYSE closing bell on the New York Stock Exchange, here is how the major world indices and major U.S. stock indices ended the session on the world market as well as the emerging markets including the stock market closing bell price:
DOW (Dow Jones Industrial Average) loss of 73.27 points on the day to end the trading session at 8,870.54
NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) loss of 69.93 points to end the trading session at 5,802.05
National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ) loss of 30.66 points to end the trading session at 1,616.74
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Daily Market Commentary for November 6, 2008 from Millennium-Traders.Com

Buyers remain on the sidelines and even still, they are definitely not looking to take any chance in getting in on these heavy market losses taken by stocks as of yet. (read more)
http://www.millennium-traders.com/news/newscommentary.aspx

Economic data released today:

Jobless Claims:
U.S. Jobless Claims in week of November 1 fell 4K to 481K compared to survey of unchanged; U.S. Continuing Claims for week of October 25 rose by 122K to 3,843,000; U.S. Jobless Claims for week of October 25 Week revised to 485K from 479K; U.S. Insured Unemployment for week of November 1 highest since 1983.

Productivity and Costs:
U.S. Third Quarter Non-Farm Productivity increased by 1.1 percent compared to consensus of an increase by 0.4 percent; U.S. Third Quarter Unit Labor Costs increased by 3.6 percent compared to consensus of an increase by 3.0 percent.

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Daily Market Commentary for November 14, 2008 from Millennium-Traders.Com

During the upcoming weekend, world leaders from the Group of 20 consisting of the United States, members of the European Union, China, Saudi Arabia and Brazil, will be meeting in Washington for a summit on the current global economic crisis, in an effort to help right the economy. (read more)
http://www.millennium-traders.com/news/newscommentary.aspx

Economic data released today:

Import and Export Prices: U.S. October Import Prices fell 4.7 percent compared to consensus of a drop by 4.0 percent; U.S. October Non-Petroleum Import Prices fell 0.9 percent; U.S. October Petroleum Import Prices fell 16.7 percent.

Retail Sales: U.S. October Retail & Food Sales fell 2.8 percent as compared to consensus of a drop by 2.4 percent; U.S. October Retail & Food Sales Excluding-Autos fell 2.2 percent; U.S. September Retail & Food Sales Revised to a drop by 1.3 percent from a drop by 1.2 percent.

Business Inventories: U.S. September Business Inventories fell 0.2 percent compared to expected drop by 0.1 percent.

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