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Day trade part-time by Cook and Szwec

August 20th, 2007

Categories: Book Reviews · Business & Finance

Book Title: Day Trade part-time
Author:John cook and Jeanette Szwec
Year written/published: 2000
Book Source: Amazon. Library
Summary:Key concepts, tools, techniques and the psychology of day-trading.
My Comments: This is my first book on day trading - practise of buying and selling financial instruments on the same trading day! We all know about the unpredictability of the Stock market and day-trading is even more exciting in that way… imagine you are playing with the market ups and downs within minutes and seconds. It was a great insight on some of the techniques, tools and most importantly the mentality needed to be a day-trader. Yes, i didn’t understand eveyrthing… especially all the nitty gritty technicalities, but this is surely the start!
Contents page:

  1. day trading as a business
  2. part-time trading
  3. key concepts for the day trading
  4. preparing to trade
  5. sureStart trading strategies
  6. money management
  7. nuts and bolts
  8. launching your day trading business

Some extracts:

online trading rooms for discussions…

Considerations for selecting an online broker…

  • speed of execution
  • speed of page confirmations
  • site downtime
  • timing out on a website
  • number of screens needed to execute a trade
  • real time charts
  • can you palce stops on Nasdaq oeders?
  • up-charge in commission rate on Limit Orders vd. market Orders
  • After hours trading
  • are live quotes available on your execution screen?
  • live or delayed graphs
  • are options available?
  • free news ervices
  • how quickly can you reach a broker on the phone in emergency?
  • Are you protected from excuting orders beyond your margins?
  • Ease of understanding daily and monthly statements
  • Securities Investors Protection Corporation isured
  • Is live customer service by phone quickly available?

simulation trading…

What is the real value of simulation trading? let’s look at the asnwer to this from a broad perpective. While simulation trading you are trying to enter trades in the direction of the market movement. Even if you were filled on every order you entered., it is doubtful that you, as a beginning psrt-time trader, would have all trades continue in the direction you had expected…. …
In simulation trading, you will see if your trading strategies, rules, rhytm-recognition and disciline are tkaing you in the right derection. Simulation treasing is not about how much money you make…. In trading, you must first make good entries so that your trades flow in the diretion anticipated, be it long or short.

2 trading strategies…

  1. Short-term momentum trading
  2. consolidation-breakout trading – who prefer a less fingernail-biting trading style as compared to short-term momentum.

Short term momentum trading stategy…

Short-term momumtum trading is also known as scalping. A trade held for a short duration of time, usually 1 to 15 minutes, for a small profit or one-quater point to a half point. This strategy is based on trading a stock off the stochastics reversal and bounce on one-minute charts

 consoidation-breakout trading strategy…

The underlygin theory is that stock prices don’t go straight up or staright down. An up-trending stock will go up then level out for a while, then resume its move upwards. Similarly,  down trending stock will have prices that drop for a while, then level off,then resume their move downward. The period of time during which the price movement has leveled off or flattened is called a consolidation.

some words with trading strategies…

practise, practise, practise in simulation trading!
Do not be greedy, take your profits!
Exit a trade when you can, not when you have to!
Take you preset stop less without hesitation!
Do not stray too far form the root of your successful trading strategy