Every informed investor is looking for that next get rich quick scheme. It is practically an American institution. But there’s a basis why they dub it a plot, which characteristically means a deceitful or covert arrangement of action. The simple fact is that most schemes that promise to make you millions with day trading, most likely have about as much success as spinning roulette wheel. Ya, it is correct that many day trading systems are few more that informed gambling, but they are gambling all the same. Day trading itself is a form of gambling, as you are betting you can time the stock to enter and exit in a few minutes or seconds with a profit.

What will it take to make a good day trade? To begin with, you need to understand that there is no such thing as easy money. You should not approach day trading with the expectation you will make millions. Day trading is all about making small profits several times a day which eventually add up. A day trader that know what their doing will proceed quite cautiously on any particular day trade. Instead, they buy small numbers of shares of companies that they’re familiar with.

How can you figure out which stocks you should trade? Most commonly, traders will choose stocks that they are familiar with. Having analyzed and monitored the numbers over a few a weeks a trader gets convinced to trade a stock.

Though there are a number of different strategies that day traders employ, most day trading strategies rely heavily on technical analysis. Technical stock analysis means that traders believe that he can detect patterns in the way a stock trades by looking at charts. For example, a trader may discover that a certain stock tends to move in a tight trading range most days. This might mean that a stock only moves a few points a day. For example, one day it can open at 33, move to 36, then fall to 34. A day trader closely watches these types of trades and looks for any day to day patterns in their activity.Watching the patterns of how stocks trade day in and day out will really pay off for anyone looking to get into day trading.The real key is to try to concentrate on just a few select stocks in the beginning so that you do not go down the path of information overload.

This strategy may seem a bit simplistic, but it is a proven winner. All a trader has to do is to concentrate on one particular stock and watch its movements each and every day. After a little while, the trader will have the confidence to make a day trade. While this approach probably will not help you to become rich overnight, you should be able to earn some profit numerous times throughout each day, which can add up to a significant income over time. In fact, some day traders trade the very same stock hundreds of times a day.  This is because they believe they have discovered the secret to the successful day trade and that the more they trade the more they will make.

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An interesting thing has happened in the last 6-8 weeks.There appears to be very little sellers present.  Literally.The market has made a massive directional push up and really just holds up and does not correct now.It seems almost funny now how difficult it is to short anything for more than maybe 20 minutes or more.   Obviously you cannot fight the market - its doing what it wants how it wants.This action sure makes trading hard, the guys that are really getting the most out of it are the buy and hold.

One thing I know is that no matter what these guys do that are chasing and then bidding the market so it does not sell - it will sell eventually.  The only way you actualy make money, whether day trading or longer term investing, is to  lock in profits.  Until then its just a fantasy.  At some point they will tip the tide to the point where a majority are actually fearful of losing gains and then the selling is real.

A key pattern lately has been to break below support and then out of nowhere a massive burst of buying jams the market back to the highs.This sort of thing happens so often now, its completely expected.  Often this can result in a new daily low (the break) , only to see a new daily high 30 minutes later as the buyers relentlessly chase the market (im sure shorts are in there too, trapped like dogs).

Even when the economy was plowing along at full steam, we would have 10-15% corrections all the time.   And this was when everything was just perfect (or everyone thought so).  So I am not sure what is going on now.  Several theories are in play that I think about:

1. Shorts are completely or mostly out of the market.  The SEC messing with the short rules before caused a panic, and now there are many proposals again in regard to uptick rule and shorting.  Rather than get caught, they are staying away from day trading and longer term positioning.
2. Manipulation factor on high.  There is a group of large banks or funds that are pushing the market higher at the Fed's and Treasuries request to try to turn the economy out of the recession by making it appear as if the stock market has it figured out.  The way the rescues happen like clockwork, the ramps into the close every friday, and other very odd trading behavior gives this some credence imo.  Would be easy for the government to just give these guys money to push the market up.
3. Traders all gone, algo's take over.  This one can happen as well - computers have taken over more of the futures trading which drives the market.Since no one tries to fight this trend, with all of them doing the same thing it just feeds on itself.  This one I like too because the actual variance of price during the rally pushes is actually uncharacteristically low most of the time.  I have seen the dow futures push up 100 pts in 20 minutes with maybe an 8-9 point max retrace the whole time.  Sure this happens - but not this often as it does now.

Whether any of these theories are true or not, I have no idea and may never find out.  All I know is the trading action is very odd and I expect at least half if not more of this gain to be gone when this is done.  Note - I am not predicting a top, I am saying that when this is done, these idiots will undo this much faster than it actually ran up as everyone heads for the exits.  We could hit 9k, 10k etc.  I really dont think 10k is possible, with GM dust, C is dust and a few others they just dont have the fuel for the DJIA to actually push up that high in the short term.

Maybe everyone just needs to learn to trade again – this is the new market to stay!

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