One key advantage to a day trading robot is its ability to be unbiased and apply the same set of rules every time.  The real key is finding a day trading robot that is reliable in its stock picks and is easy to use.This is of course no easy feat, because there are a ton of impostors and stuff that used to work but now is of little use because the market changed but the robot was not able to adapt.

One key component of any day trading robot that should be essential is the ability to find stuff in real time, but give you enough time to actually act on the information it provides.  It does no good to use a day trading robot that scalps something so fast that you cannot even get an order in should you choose to follow what it is doing.You can always choose to let a day trading robot have control of your account, but a lot of traders are uncomfortable with this type of situation and like to keep control.In addition, there are always things each day that require human intervention because a day trading robot is not designed to handle that situation.

Any trader looking to make use of a day trading robot to find ideas should realize the limitiations and use it as a great tool to find additional ideas to trade.  It is unrealistic to expect a trading robot to be 95% right, or that you would turn it on, let it trade your account and miraculously you are earning 40% a month.  I can tell you 100% anyone who has such a tool would never sell it or lease it out – they would be living on a private island off the wealth it creates daily.  This does not mean day trading robots are not useful, you just need to have realistic expectations to get the maximum usefullness out of them.

Post from: Best Small Cap Stock

A Day Trading Robot Can Be A Valuable Asset

On starting my foray into trading Share markets, I always knew that fundamental analysis was out of the question, but reading share charts was what I preferred.

What helped my decision to take the Top Dog Trading course to learn Share trading?…. A number of things besides the absolute necessity to trade better and to halt my run of losing trades; was that I understood what Dr Barry Burns was saying on his website and a significant amount of the teaching is reinforced on the detailed videos which makes it much easier to understand and see what he is saying. A further qualifier was Barry’s CV; it is impressive, a business man who trades professionally, he is also a accomplished speaker and writer.

So I started with his free 5 video course on learning to trade to see if I would feel comfortable with his techniques.

Before this, I had studied several other courses on technical analysis covering Forex trading but still did not feel confident in my analysis that would minimise my trading losses, all that has change having met Dr Barry Burns, now I am comfortable with the share trading strategies I have learnt.

Having completed Barry’s courses I have not only fully comprehended how to trade his methods but also developed a far deeper comprehension of the Share market & the charts but more critically the money management and personal attitudes that are so intrinsic to becoming a successful Share trader.

As you progress you will discover that Barry details the principals simply and clearly, then gives actual chart examples with all their un-predictable moves showing how to apply the rules for positive trades. This is all achieved via a vast selection of videos.

Provided you follow the principals Barry explores, you will end up with a very profitable ratio of winning trades with tight control on the losses, so when one does a trade that goes against you (which even the best traders do) the hurt is not too great.

Barry’s tutorials are the best Share trading courses that I have found and I would highly recommend that you give his FREE course a go. This tutorial has 5 videos that introduce you to some of the most powerful trading material I’ve ever seen.

I personally took the course, loved it, and learned a lot from it and have moved to Barry’s more advanced courses. My wish to learn Share trading will never again produce the losses of the past.

Try Barry’s Free Course for yourself:

Post from: Best Small Cap Stock

Learn Share Trading: Top Dog Trading Review

These are all valid points, and all play an integral part in any trade or investment. The one thing almost no one takes into account is where and how do I exit a trade, and this question is valid for a day trade, swing trade (few days or weeks), or a long term investment (3 months to multi years). I would easily argue that the exit is way more important than the entry, since that is the only way anything is locked in. You can screw up and just really buy it at the wrong time (shorting as well), and you can be assured of a loss. However, more often than not, people are pretty good at entry of stocks, assuming they are not chasing hype and have been patient with their method. The place that usually gets messed up is the exit. There are no real rules. Once you have made some money on a stock, it is easy for greed to take over. “I don’t want to sell too early, it might keep going,” or “The last time I sold when I made xx amount, I could have made 10 times that much." Every stock entry, before you even place the order, should have an exit strategy worked out.

Exit strategies can include the following, and apply to everyone from an exper to those who want to learn to trade:

1. Trailing Stop - A price below the peak gain price where you will take profits if the stock reverses and starts to sell. The trail will follow the price up higher, but usually does not move down.You can also trail the price by either a percent below peak or close, or a point value below the low of a just completed bar on a chart.

2. Scale Out - Take the investment and scale out at fixed percent gain intervals. One example (especially for investing longer term), if you own a stock and get a gain of 25%, sell 1/4 of the position. Once the price rises to a 50% gain on the balance, sell half of what you have left. You have now locked in a 25% gain on your original purchase. The balance of the position should be locked in at breakeven - which means if it starts to go against you that means you will not let it go into a loss. On the balance of the shares, if it takes off strongly after a 50% gain, look to just exit the balance and move on to another trade. For intraday trading (day trading), you will want to scale out of half the position after a run of about 1/2%, and then move up your stop to breakeven on the balance.

3. Forever Investment - If you have a stock that you really think will be a winner for the long haul, once you get a 100% gain on it you should immediately sell 1/2. Why? Because once you sell 1/2, you have done a superb thing. You have retrieved your original investment out of it, all the money, and still have 50% working. Best of all, even if the company goes bankrupt, you cannot really lose. Ever. Take the 50% you gained out, and then try to find two different ideas that may do the same. The one thing to keep in mind here is there are only very very few Walmart, Home Depot's, McDonalds etc. Even if you have locked in this part, be aware that tons of companies do superb for years, then the market changes and they bite the dust. It is super rare to find a new Proctor&Gamble or Microsoft. Most of the time you are better off to also have a "have to lock it in" price on the balance you hold, such as 200% gain etc.

4. Price Target - A fixed price from your entry price where you will exit if it gets hit. For example you might purchase a stock at 12, but be very happy if it went to 15 in a month or 2. So that is your exit. Price targets are entirely dependent on expected hold time and should grow the longer you plan to hold the stock (within reason). The thing to remember is you have to take what the stock will give you, not what your opinion of what you want the stock to do.Price targets can be made by looking at support and resistance as well.  In general, if the stock has to push a decent amount to your target, and your target you want is just beyond a resistance point, you should move the target down to underneath the resistance for a better chance of hitting it.

Post from: Best Small Cap Stock

4 Ways To Exit A Stock

The first 30 minutes is usually the craziest time. Stocks can have bigger swings up and down as there are not a lot of established orders from bigger funds in the market yet. It is a great time for daytrading and short term trading of stocks because of the increased volatility, but with that also comes increased risk of a stopout. Also there really is not much in terms of support and resistance created yet, but you can look at the last hour of the prior day for clues. Sometimes using a stock trading system can be of assistance when the market has increased volatility, assuming you have thoroughly researched and tracked the trading ideas it might send out.

From 10am EST until about 11:30-45 EST is prime time for trends to develop. Of course the times are not exact, but a time range where a decent, continuing trend will try to develop. Also the volatility calms down alot, making it easier to put in a stop that is closer to the actual price when day trading. For longer term investing, usually this is not the time to make a decision on entrance, its too early in the day. The exception would be an entrance based off of daily breakout of resistance or support, or some key fundimental data that is just starting to push the stock. Entry when that happens is ok during this time.

From about 11:45 until 1:15pm EST stuff usually slows down alot, and fake moves can happen. Fake moves refer to price action where something is acting weak then moves up out of nowhere and vice versa - making it easy to get stopped out. Most of this is just due to decreased volume and liquidity. Program trading bots and algorithm day trading bots love this period of time in the market. Basically they try to fade every move, or create appearance of X happening, suck some traders in, then do Y instead. This also makes it very difficult for most traders, as it will seem just when a move gets started, it abruptly ends, especially hard for those learning to trade. Of course there are enough names that do really move and keep going, but these are impossible for the most part to sort out from the ones that stop and reverse until the move is too late.

Stuff will generally pick up after 1:15 for about 45 min or so, then slow down again near 2pm EST. 2:30PM EST (for whatever reason) is a key time to watch. Countless times the market will put in a top or bottom near this time and then reverse into the close. Does it happen all the time? no. This does happen often enough that its well worth paying attention to. Volume should pick up after about 3-315 EST into the close, whether there is a 2:30 reversal or not. This is again a good time for day trading, AND its good for watching for longer term additions as you can see if the stock is holding gains, pushed above key resistance, has made a major reversal on daily chart etc.

One thing to note here, is in recent times they have shifted the 2:30pm stuff to the last 45 minutes of the day (meaning instead of 2:30pm est, they do this at 3-3:15 est).  Most of it is noticing the pattern of behavior so you can anticipate what might happen.  A big part of trading is not just knowing what trade setups happen in real time, its anticipating patterns of behavior.

Post from: Best Small Cap Stock

Things to Think About When Entering A Position

The first thing to realize, there are 4 reasons losses that can happen when you are in a day trading or swing trading.

1. Timing is off on the entry
2. You are dead wrong on the direction
3. News items come out and move stock or index against you
4. Your price target to exit is too far away

We will address these one by one.

1. Timing is off on the entry

If your timing is off on the entry (the most common), usually that means the stock will go a little for you, then move against you within the first 5-10 minutes. The amount it moves for you will be far less than against, but the stock does not really go down to your stop area. The key to identifying this is the stock will hesitate up and down, just below your entry for long or above entry for short. It should not go immediately against you, nor go right to near your stop in the first few minutes.

The best way to deal with this type of trade is to assume most of the time you trade you are going to be off. Buy or short only 1/2 to 2/3 the size you want where you think the entry should be. To help with this issue, never use market orders. Place a limit slightly below the current market quote, most of the time you will have no trouble getting filled. Obviously you need to be aware of the trade type – if it’s a breakout and you don’t think you will get filled if you don’t use market, then for sure just go in. Most trades will not just run immediate, including breakouts. Once filled, put an initial stop in for that position. Wait a few minutes and see what the stock price does. If it runs in your favor immediately, well then your timing was perfect – trade what you have OR look for the remainder on a small dip.

Most of the time the best deal is to just day trade what you have. If the stock moves against you more than for you in the first 5 minutes, but is not a beeline against you (meaning it looks like the trade will stop out etc), then put in an order to add at the low of this 5 minutes (for long) or the high (for shorts). If you are an aggressive trader, you can put in some additional orders and press bets above the high for longs or below the low for shorts. IF you don’t get your better price add, usually this press bets add when its going for you will work out. If you get your better price add, cancel the press bets add. If you get filled on your additional shares, you can move your stop down slightly but increase to include all shares OR just place a separate stop on teh add. If you get the press bets add, move your initial stop up to just below that low of the 5 minutes, and make sure you increase the shares.

2. You are dead wrong on the direction

This does happen, even to the best traders. You try a breakout that fails, you try to catch a turn at the bottom of a downtrend, you think a stock will follow another stock with bad news down … the common element is you are dead wrong. This type of trade is easily identifiable from the start, within a few minutes it has already moved further against you than you expected to make if you were right from the start. By this I mean the upside is severely limited (for longs) or downside limited (for shorts). This means it can move easily one direction, but really, really struggles in the direction you bet.

Usually if you see this happening, the only chance you have is to try to double down near your stop. You are looking to risk another 15c to 20c on double size, betting it will turn in your favor before you stop out. If you try this you really have to be disciplined. Do not expect to make money on the trade. The thinking is to try to minimize the loss by catching a turn near the stop area, with minimal risk on the add. If you can cut the loss in half or even get to even, get out. Just move on to the next trade.

Advanced method when this happens would be to move the stop up on all to just below the turn IF you doubled down and actually caught the turn. When it goes halfway back from your second entry to your first entry, sell the add position. Keep your stop on the other position just below the entry for the add position. The thinking here is you possibly washed out the side that was causing it to go so far against you, so give the rest a shot. Because you made a bunch back with the added shares, if you get stopped you will lose less than if you did not do that. It really is a judgment call whether that is the appropriate play or just to exit all with a minor loss and move on.

3. News items come out and move stock or index against you

This is a tough one. You have to be able to analyze the news very quickly AND decide the impact. The call is would this type of news cause the stock price to go far enough to hit the stop level? If the answer is probably yes, exiting at market before the stop will save you money. If you think there is a chance the news would not stop you out, the plan is to exit the position on a counter move the other way. Most of the time there is no good way to add shares to trade out of a news play where you get caught. Occasionally the market will react in way A, but a few minutes later they realize they are wrong (or someone made a bad assessment, and the market is changing its mind) and react in way B. If you can uncover and notice that this will probably happen, the add point is the high of the bar where the news came out. Usually that will run stops and trap whoever was playing the news as a quick trade and force them out.

4. Your price target to exit is too far away

This is common to. You have to kind of guess based on how the stock has been trading, localized volatility, and support resistance points where a price move might go to. I can be commong for a trader to think a stock will move to point A, but it cannot even push to half of A. Usually these types if you don’t monitor them real close will turn into losing trades. The main reason is a scale up seller (for long bets) or scale down buyer (for short bets) is betting the other direction and absorbing a lot of the volume.

Most trade setups attract attention, so the more obvious a trade looks, long or short, and it does not really do that or struggles, the bigger the indication is to get the heck out. Some of these can result in a huge move the other way because they trap lots of short term money in the stock trying to trade whatever setup happened. There is no real method to add to work your way out of it, you really just need to pay attention. A general rule is if you think its acting weak and think you should exit - just do it. Your gut is telling you something, the stock is not trading just right for the trade setup. Getting out is the best solution because you are looking to avoid your stop getting hit and saving a bigger loss. Also realize if you exit early, and then see it was a mistake, you can always get back in with a click of the button.

One last word - do not fall into the trap of trying to make money on every trade. If it appears something is off or wrong with the way the stock is moving, take any loss and just move on. Sticking around and trying to always make money will actually result in bigger losses eventually. You can think of the God rule (just a catchphrase) – When a trade goes wrong, (God) gives you one chance to get out – it’s up to you to realize the chance and take it.

Post from: Best Small Cap Stock

Ways To Turn A Loss Into A Profit