What's your style?

What's your style?

So you want to become a trader? Do you know what type of trader you want to be? Scalp trader, day trader, swing trader or position trader? Once you stop the momentum and trading style, this is only the experiments that will really find what fits your personality and level of comfort that will make you the most efficient trader you can be. Let's start with the floor trader.

Floor Trader

Now, if you are really serious, you can pursue a career as a floor trader. For the most part, floor traders a "tick" to earn trading buying and selling of tender offer and making hundreds of thousands, or even of trades per day to earn their salary. Their style of trading is called scalping. Just because someone is a floor trader does not mean they should trade the whole day with all these trades as a chainsaw. There are some floor traders who decide to replace the first half hour after the opening bell and come back half an hour before the closing bell, that is where you will find the most liquidity in the market you are trading. Some floor traders actually buy or sell and hold a position through the trading day, I know how intra-day trading swing, and some will even hold a position overnight in search of more than one-day swing trade.

A key factor is the floor traders find they are happy and what works for them, an idea that concerns us all. If the trading floor is an option to think about, must live in a city that has exchange. Bring your checkbook, some of these places cost more than $ 1 million to give you the privilege to become a floor trader. You can also rent a place, but depending on the exchange, lease can run up to $ 4,000 a month or more, so to say you should be active is an understatement.

Trading from the floor

Trading of the floor is the most logical option for most merchants because of the cost needed or rent or buy an exchange office and a large capital needed to begin. Trading off the floor requires only a small part of the capital needed to start as a floor trader. If you want to trade electronically, has a number of brokerage houses to choose from that offer low commissions and low margin requirements. The biggest factor is you can live in most anywhere in the world and trade from any computer with internet connection realiable.

Day Trading

Day traders go home at the end of trading day with a flat no open jobs, but day trading styles vary. The efficiency of electronic trading platforms, you can actually scalp the computer as a floor trader scalps in boxing. Other styles of day trading involves trading intra-day trends, the trade gap areas and choice of floor trading support and resistance levels. All day trading styles end of day trading without positions. If you like the idea of ​​a longer term trade, we can swing trade holds a position overnight, looking for a step will take several days or weeks.

Finding your style

Once you are ready to trade, the big question is what kind of trader do you intend to be. What time frame will look at charts to help you decide when to trade? I'll just look at the charts for five minutes or more time frame charts to help you in making trading descion. Are you thinking of using folding models, incorporating different time frames or scalping outside one minute chart? These are questions we must answer. But these answers come from real-time live trading experience, and must begin the process of finding what works for you and more importantly, what will be very comfortable.

Some traders find that too much activity causes stress and creates a loss of focus, for others the feeling of being right or wrong in a few seconds or minutes, match their personality. However, other traders like to trade lower activity and less while risking more for less trades. Finding what works for you is key, and what you think works for you might not work for others. So do not try to copy someone else's success story.

Whether you are just starting out as a new trader or an experienced trader looking to improve their results, there are indications of his own past that may help determine how active a trader you may want to be and what suits the style of best. A key exercise I suggest you go through to make a list of all your successes and failures. Go through each exercise and the failure individually and see if you notice personality traits that helped achieve success and if you were missing features could help them achieve success you're looking for in the list of failures.

Examples of what you are looking for are:

1st Do you have a burning desire?
2nd Did you create objectives?
3rd Do you have a well thought out plan?
4th Have you had a positive attitude?
5th Have you had great confidence?
6th Were you decisive?
7th Do you have patience?
8th Do you discipline?
9th Did you take the risk?
10th Were you persistent?

For those who have read my past articles, the September 2003 article titled "Are you trading in the zone?" consists of most of these components. The key is to know. Knowing your limits and your abilities. Knowing when to push yourself harder and know when to lighten the pedal to relieve the pressure itself. Raising the level of their independence.

You may ask yourself: "What does this have to do with trying to figure out what time frame and what trading style suits me?" Clearly, the more you know about yourself, the less time it will take you to find your comfort level and most efficient way of trading to help you meet your sales targets. By getting more in tune with yourself, you will have a better idea what time frame should be trading and what trading style suits you best. If you lack patience, as an example, a smaller period of time might work best for you.

Regardless of the time frame that trade should begin in a larger time frame and work your way up to the lower time frames. Every day after the market closes, take a look at monthly charts and work down to a week day, so the 60 -, 15 - and finally, five minutes charts. For most day traders, the five minute chart is usually placed. However, even if the five minutes it becomes your primary chart time frame to trade from, it's a good idea to see what happens at a higher time frame charts.

What are the key level of monthly pass? What are the next major retracement levels that you will never see, if all you were seeing was only 60-minute chart or table for five minutes. Dropping it down to a weekly chart, you will get a closer look at recent key levels. The process continues until the five minute chart. By looking at all the key time frames, will have a better understanding and awareness of multiple time frame patterns. Even if you think your best combination of time frames to trade a 60-minute to five minutes, it's still best to look at the broader framework lists. Becoming aware of time frames and all their models is a key factor in understanding the whole picture. Understanding the whole picture will help you make better trading decisions.

Now you are ready for experimentation process to see what is the best time frame to trade. Now is the time to see if there are several trend trader or a trader who gets in and out quickly. This is a very important stage, and it is important to keep a detailed diary of your personal emotions when trading. You may find that you thought you wanted to trade more frequently than what is best for you in the long run. You may find it best to trade a few times a day versus 10 times a day. There is no right or wrong answers to find what fits your comfort zone and zone for trading the best. Take your time through this process, because this is one of the most important exercises you will do your best to put in order to achieve their sales targets. Find out what fits your comfort level, learn what time frame is best for you and pay close attention to the components of trading in the zone to achieve your success as a trader. Remember, this is a process and will take time to find what timeframe and trading style fits best. Take your time and listen to myself through this process.




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