In the late 90s early 2000s day trading became all the rage. In the newspaper all the time in Chicago they would run stories about people that took out 300,000 US and quit their jobs and set up a computer and desk and proceeded to lose everything. Sounds like they didn't know what they were doing, right? As if they read a few books and decided to go for it.
What it really sounds like is that they went to war with the market maker for whatever stocks they were trying to daytrade. First of all they were probably using a web based trading system, which right there shows me they weren't really educated as to what they were doing. They needed to use a different trading platform such as cybertrader so they could access new exchanges and deal with other traders directly, using trading systems like island. Instead they set up shop with something like ameritrade or webstreet (webstreet no longer exists, its been bought out) and tried to trade 8ths or 16nths on certain stocks or index composites. You might as well mail in a check and skip the drama.
Market Makers are like bookies. In a sense, they have a license to steal. They line up buyers and sellers and manipulate the price of the stock in order to encourage buying or selling. Then they take the difference for themselves. Lets say the stock is trading at 33 1/8. They are looking at their computer screen and seeing what if any orders are out there. They see a block of orders with a limit order instruction to buy at 33 but no higher, and some sellers that want to sell at 32. There is no other action, a few orders here and there. The market maker might decide to move the stock price down a bit in order to trigger the 33 buy order, then move the stock price up a bit in order to stimulate action from people at their computers on the trading floor or those people at home seeing that the stock is starting to move up, so they buy as well.
If there is a lot of buyers lined up, typically the stock will begin to rise in price. If there is a lot of sellers and not so many buyers, the stock will begin to drop in price. The market maker is trading for himself, matching up customers and taking the difference for himself.
Then the day traders came along in the late 90s early 2000s. Suddenly they were looking to take profit from buying and selling from the marketmakers. And it was WAR. And the market makers won and the day traders lost.
How did the day traders lose? Well, they were trying to play the same game the marketmakers were playing with one very big difference: the marketmakers could manipulate the price of the stock and which way it moved. Its like playing tennis against a partner that can control the ball in midair as well as the court underneath your feet. So the daytraders set up their accounts and went in both guns blazing. Lets look at it from the market makers prospective. Back in the early 90s they had it good. They could widen their bid and ask spread and they made some good money. Then in the late 90s everything came under scrutiny as everything suddenly was invaded by daytraders and everyone with a computer at home trying to trade. The bid and the ask spread narrowed considerably as everyone was trying to shave 16ths of a point. Instead of the market makers enjoying people parking sums of money for months at a time not particularly caring if they got in at 33 or 33 and a half, suddenly everyone is trying to move piles of money in and out over and over again trying to make a 16th or an 8th of a point. This drove the MMs (Market Makers) crazy. So they fought back.
Lets say its 2003 and I'm a MM and sitting looking at my orders screen. The orders are coming from all directions, island trading systems, brokerage houses, as well as web based brokerages, such as Ameritrade or Options Express. I see legit orders from say morgan stanley for big block buys, probably institutional investors, they will hold for a week or two then sell. Fine. Then there is this goof I see that Ive been dealing with yesterday all day from ameritrade. This guy is trying to shave 16ths of a point of off the QQQQ Nasdaq index. Then he tries buying again and selling it again. He is trying to make the profit that would be going into MY pocket, clogging up and interfering with my business. So seeing that I have the ability to decide which way the stock price is gonna go, I decide to let him purchase his block of stock. He buys his 200,000 dollars of QQQQ. While looking at my order screen I note that there is more buyers than sellers. What I should do is start moving the selling and letting the stock price go up. But screw that, I need to get rid of this guy. I start moving the stock price down after 200,000 dollar guy gets in. On purpose. To freak him out. I start dealing with sellers. I then move the stock down a point, down to say, 31 and a half and then start moving it around in a range down there just to freeze out Mr. 200,000 guy who is panicking that his 16th of a point shaving system isn't working. And I leave him up there to sweat it out while I deal with buyers and sellers down at the 31.5 range. Pretty sweet, huh? Unless there is news or the market as a whole is roaring, MMs can pretty much do what they want in the short term to get rid of daytraders.
Day trading as a whole is a bad idea unless you have an expensive system. Actually, strike that. Day trading is a bad idea as a whole. When you are trading tick by tick you really lose perspective of the market, sort of like going up to a forest (the stock market) and standing with your nose to a tree. You just really need to back up and take a look in a several day time frame.
Bad because
1. You will fight market maker
2. You will lose perspective of your time frame
3. You very well may have a gambling problem
Yeah. People who need to pull the trigger a couple of times a day might be as suited holding a pair of craps dice in their hands at a craps table. Do you crave the ACTION regardless of the consequences or are you really in the stock market to make money? If you can honestly say that its the action that gets you going, you and your money will be soon parted.
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Hey everyone...just writing to teach you about a very important indicator. The MACD. This is a lagging indicator that is a solid timer when to get in or out of the market. When I was trading before I used this I wasn't doing too good. I had a friend who always told me, always go with the MACD.
The interesting thing about how to beat the stock market is that its almost like the tail wagging the dog. This is what I mean. The market will have a series of bad days, with news on all those days, so the market drops and the MACD also drops, showing weakness in the market. That's the dog wagging the tail. But when the MACD is in negative territory, I can almost tell you with 100% accuracy that there will be further bad news in order to keep the MACD where it is, as it is already in bad territory. That's the tail wagging the dog. What I'm saying is, once the MACD crosses into good or bad territory, it usually stays there with corresponding news further verifying where the indicator is at and the direction it is going.
The way this indicator is arranged is when the dark thick line crosses over the red line that trails horizontally with it, the markets are going up, and this is a strong bullish signal. When the red line goes above the thick black line, this is bearish. There is also a histogram that gives signals if it is climbing or if it is dropping giving cues to what is coming up by following the trend.
One great system that I read about with options is this: Look at the qqqq. When it is at the bottom of the curve and the black line crosses over the red line, buy a call a strike price or two above the money 3 months out and hold it. Before the line crosses the other way, i.e. before the indicator switches up and the red line goes above the black line for the way down, sell it. You probably doubled your money with the option at this time. Or if you like puts you can do the reverse, when the red line is above the black line, buy a put and hold it, buy it 2 strike prices above the money and hold it until the black line goes above the red line. The MACD is a very powerful indicator and if used correctly can make lots of money.
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Thank you for visiting. You are probably here because you have been taking losses for the last several months or years and wondering how to beat the stockmarket. Lets look at a few things you have probably been doing wrong.
1. You have been trying to 'play the news'. You sit there watching the headlines on cbsmarketwatch.com or bloomberg or MSNBC. When a piece of news comes out on a stock, you race to the computer and attempt to get in on it. The problem with this is the professionals on the stockmarket floor and the big boys that have big blocks of stock they are trading are privy to this information 15-20 minutes before the public. Sometimes they know even before that. That means that the stock already moved 20 minutes or so before you even heard the news, based on that news. Even the professionals that have special news services called 'First Call' get their information in other ways, and earlier. Advance knowledge is power, and that's why there are big boys and pros, and then there is everyone else.
2. You invested in penny stocks. Penny stocks are worth a couple of pennies for a reason. Sure one might pop up to $12.00. I think everyone knows someone who knew this guy who that happened to. It was like they hit lotto, they bought a house and a nice car. What usually happens is you buy a stock for .25 cents and it goes down to .07 cents an stays there amidst severe fundamental problems with the company, i.e. their books are off, or there is a skimming problem or the officers took money and built a house in Florida with it and you are left with promissory notes. Then the stock goes to .04 cents and hangs there for another year. The fact of the matter is good solid stocks are usually traded with something that has Washington on the paper, not Lincoln on the copper.
3. You saw some stocks that were really taking off, they showed up on the 'most up' list for that day. You figured that it would be a good momentum play to pile on. The problem with this is by the time you see the stock hit the radar, that stock has already climbed high enough by that point to MAKE it on the 'most up list' and by the time you are moving in at 1pm or 2pm the professionals are all starting to unload and sell. The next day or two or three the stock then starts to tank. This is a classic error most new traders make.
4. You try to find rolling penny stocks. You noted that several penny stocks are rolling for the last few weeks/months. Well, you know the range, so you get in on the bottom. But so does everyone else. Everyone gets in on the bottom and no one wants to buy on the top of the roll. So the market maker widens the spread in order to get some takers. No one. Your order just sits there. No go.
5. You learn about the bid and the ask. You try day trading and try to beat the market makers spread of his bid and ask. You are suddenly the scourge of the market maker for that stock. He is trying to make a living as the market maker for that stock lining up buyers and sellers, matching them up and taking a profit for himself, sort of like a bookie. Then people like you came along in the late 90s on web based trading platforms like ameritrade and scottrade trying to do the same thing, effectively taking money out of his pocket. So the market maker fought back. He would know your order and where it was coming from and what action you were throwing down and he would leave your order sitting there. Or you tried placing limit orders and then the market maker would swing the bid and ask one way just to tag your order and then swing it back throwing you out of the game. Daytrading for 8ths and 16ths is very tough and most people, over 90 percent lose at doing this from home. This is more like gambling and trading up close at inter minute intervals is kind of like going up to a forest (stock market) and standing real close with your nose up to a tree. No big picture.
6. You learn some technical analysis. But that takes about 8 years of learning, what works, what doesn't. You place your orders and suddenly the market goes the wrong way. You are starting to lose your money. You check the market the next day. Again down. The next day yet, its down some more. You freak out that you are losing your money, and you sell for a loss.
7. You try fundamental analysis. Pretty confusing...wait. Do I need to order a quarterly report analysis from a stock analyst or can I figure it out using Yahoo finance and looking at the analyst page for that particular stock?
8. You tried giving your money to a pro. That worked in the late 90's, your mutual fund was growing at a rate of 30-40% a year. Suddenly the stock market crashed in 2001 and those same mutual fund managers lost most of your money. Now you don't like mutual funds.
9. You found a good company in Wall Street Journal or Investors Business Daily. In IBD the company was listed as 99 98 99 A A A. You bought that stock for that company with a few grand, maybe more, and then the company suddenly revealed something disturbing regarding its core business. The stock price plunges. It becomes delisted 2 months later. Money gone.
10. You try to catch 'the falling knife'. You hear in the news that a particular sector or big company just got slammed for some reason or other, missed earnings big, their core product was a failure, something big with the CEO just went down, etc. You figured that since the stock just got cut 60% it was now a bargain to get in in comparison to the price this stock has been at for the last 2 years. You move in and the stock just continues to float down further and further over the next several days as investors further punish it and sell it off, and then to add insult to injury, several big finance firms then 'downgrade' it, which sends it down yet further.
11. You try options. It was like having a fistful of money clenched in your hand, then you slowly opened your fingers and all the money blew away. You either a) watched the stock move the wrong way and your option devalued considerably so you sold b) the stock didn't move too much and your options price eroded and suddenly it expired worthless and c) you bought the option and the underlying stock suddenly shot up. Great!!! Your options just tripled and there is 2 months left till expiration!! Sell now and take the profit? No way. They could go up more, I'm gonna hold on to these! The stock then drops and your options are down to 1 and a half times what yo bought them at. Still have a profit, but you are upset you lost some of the profit, so you hold some more. Everyday time eroded the option price. But you hold, hopeful. They expire worthless.
12) Instead of moving your money around in piles that you can average down with, you move your money in one big pile. Win or lose. C'mon lucky number 7!!! That's like going to the track or going to Vegas and pushing your entire pile out on red or black. Nobody is right all the time. Move your pile around in one big pile and one of those times you are going to have a losing number. Poof. Back to working in the cubicle.
13) You do what the public does.....you buy high and sell low. Sounds stupid doesn't it? Why would anyone do that? Lets look at what most of the public does and why. The market has a few good up days, including a stock. Wow, this stock looks good, its making money, look at all that money I could have made and the money I could make if it goes up more. So you buy it. Then while you are holding it the stock starts to drop. Woah..waitaminute here. I'm in this to make money not lose my money. So you sell it while its low. You have Classic greed vs fear herd mentality. This is why 90 percent of people lose in the stock market.
I went through all of this and I found 2 things that work.
1) Contrarian bounce trading.
2) Index covered call writing/ option hedge
Using these two I make 100-120% a year each year in the market, no matter if the market is crashing or roaring. People are running around bloody in the streets, institutions failing, Lehman bros, AIG, talking heads on TV screaming about how the end is near for the financial markets, I keep making money. Best time to buy is when everyone is selling in panic for a flatted price, and I employ this tactic. Sorta like the trading room scene near the end of 'Trading Places' with Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy.
Wonder what 100% a year returns is? That's geometrical and adds up real fast. Do the math. Its methodical, it makes about 10% a month, and things start to compound. The thing for me is, money equals freedom, freedom to do what I want to do. Yes, at one time I was in a cubicle. Wanted to go here or there on vacations. Now I do it. Cant beat that. We are all here for a limited time and I think that you should go out and get yours. You know what sucks? Working 8 hours a day. Its not just the working 8 hours, its the support system of working those 8 hours. Up an hour to an hour and a half before you gotta leave the house, then the travel time to and from work. That leaves you with a couple of hours left in the evening for yourself that you usually try stretching out a bit, because, hey, I'm not a robot right? I don't just exist to get up go to work and come home, so you stay up a bit late. That punches you out the next day. And the sleep deficit adds up. I was concerned about bills, how we were gonna make this or that, or if times were kind of flush, what we could afford as extras. I didn't like the rat on a treadmill thing. I read that Einstein once said if you study something for 15 minutes a day for a year or two you become an expert in that subject . So I decided that my thing was going to be something that could really help me out, i.e. the stock market. I got into it in the mid 90s and did OK here and there, but hey, the market was roaring. My friend invested in broadcom and moved around 15 grand, 30 on margin, and made some cash enough to buy a used BMW. That really lit a fire under my ass. In my mind, he just pulled 20 grand magically out of thin air and bought a car with it. Then the early 2000s happened and I took a huge hammering along with everyone else, as I went though all the things that you can do wrong on the above mentioned list.
It took me quite a few years learning how to make money instead of losing it. There is two parts to it...the first part getting about 2 thousand dollars on up to about 30 grand in fairly quick order (about 2-3 months time) doing higher risk contrarian bounce plays and then once you have the 30 grand, you can relax a bit and use covered calls on the QQQQ NASDAQ composite, employing technical analysis as well as major news. The technical analysis uses 3 good indicators that I have found to be of enormous value and I also use candlesticks to help ID tops and bottoms.