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Putting It All Together

Now that you've had an opportunity to review and study the many sysВэtems, methods, and indicators I've presented in this book, the ultimate issue must be addressed, and that is, How do you put all of it together into a profitable trading strategy? The question appears simple and straightforВэward, but the answer is, unfortunately, not so simple. Because traders differ so markedly in their expectations, abilities, and available time, it is not possible to state categorically that any one particular strategy or methodology is more favorable or desirable than another. This is someВэthing that the individual trader will need to address on his or her own. I will, nevertheless, give you some suggestions based on my experiences, hoping that they will be meaningful to you and that, perhaps you will find them useful in day-trading futures profitably. Unfortunately, I can make no guarantees, and even if I could, I would be prohibited from doing so by the existing regulatory agencies. I will, however, guarantee you the following:

If you learn and apply consistent trading rules and indicators to the markets on a day-trading basis, you will achieve profitable results so long as you remain consistent, well capitalized, and willing to accept losses when they should be accepted.

With this caveat in mind, I will now review some valuable suggesВэtions based on my considerable experiences as a trader. Please note that this list is not necessarily in chronological order, nor is it in order of importance.

Before You Begin Day Trading. Perhaps you are already day trading or trading for the short term. If this is the case, and if you are not pleased with your results, then I suggest you stop what you are doing and consider some of the suggestions and methods proposed in this book. I think it is important for you to find trading techniques not only which appeal to you from the standpoint of logic, but which also are consistent with your abilities as a trader. If, for example, you have a full-time job which does not allow you to follow the markets tick by tick or every 5 or 10 minutes within the day, then clearly many of the techВэniques in this book are not suitable for you. You would want to restrict your trading possibly to such techniques as the two gap methods I have discussed. However, if you are able to sit and watch the market on an intraday basis, then you must find those techniques which appeal to you and which are also consistent with your abilities as a trader. You may not, for example, wish to watch the markets tick by tick in order to trade on the support and resistance methods presented in this book; rather you may wish to trade such techniques as the intraday pop. If this is the case, then it is entirely possible using certain trading software to set indicator alerts which will inform you when such signals have occurred. Certainly this is also possible in terms of identifying when certain support or resistance levels have been touched. A number of online trading software programs will allow you to achieve this goal.

If You Are Already an Active Trader. If you are already day tradВэing, then examine the techniques presented in this book for ideas and methods or indicators and suggestions which may help you improve upon what you are doing. If, however, you are already totally satisfied with your techniques, then I would be the first to suggest that you not alter them substantially. If you feel that there is potential for you to profВэit using my suggestions, indicators, and methods, then I strongly recomВэmend opening a separate day-trading account in order to implement these ideas in a fashion which does not interfere or confound what you are already doing.