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What is trade-ideas? It is “Powerful Software that Finds the Best Opportunities in Today’s Market In Real-Time.” All of the cool traders use it.
All you have to do is offer me something in return - anything. I am trading it away.
I started with one blue paperclip and will continue to trade things until someone trades me one share of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-A).

Since day trading is a lot about recognizing the patterns in charts, I have decided to post a chart every day that would have resulted in a profitable dummy trade. I will post these in the dummy-a-day category which you can simply click to review for practice. The chart will be displayed as it looked when the trade should have been executed, and when you move your mouse over the image, it will show how the trade would have resulted.
Here is one that I missed today, TGIC:

If you shorted TGIC when it broke below its 10:00 candle at $54.19 with a stop above it at $54.64, you would only risk 45 cents. Waiting to cover until the end of the day would have given you about 351 cents for every share you were short, or 7.8 times your risk.

Let’s say your goal is to make $500 a day with day trading. And let’s say you made $1500 one week - so you were disappointed that you didn’t meet your goal. Maybe you made $300 each day of the week and so you can at least be content to have had no down days.
Now let’s say that the next week on Monday you lost $10,000. The rest of the week you fought hard and ended the week up $1000. You would probably be more happy with the $1000 than with the previous $1500, because you had lost so much to start. It would be a reilef - it could have been a lot worse.
Now let’s say that you started the third week strong and by Friday you were up $10,000. It feels great because you are practically achieving your monthly goals in one week. But Friday was a bad day and you lost $8000 and you feel horrible. So you end the week up $2000, but you are very disappointed. It would have been so much better if you had taken the day off and headed out of town for the weekend.
In summary, you can see that you would be most happy with $1000, somewhat disappointed with $1500, and most disappointed of all with $2000.
(Unless you are an ATS, then you will feel nothing.)
The same is true with many things in life. Take your yearly salary as an example.
If you make $50,000 and all your friends and relatives make $75,000 - you will feel bad because you compare yourself to them and you may think you are worth less. If the neighbors and everyone on the block make $25,000 and you make $40,000 - you might feel better and make $10,000 less a year.
This reminds me of the talk about how to trade precisely the right stocks at all possible times. We often judge value based on comparisons. A common mistake in trading is to buy a stock simply because it is cheaper than it was last month.
Even romantic “love” can follow along these lines. For example, maybe one of the reasons a woman loves a man is because he is very handsome in comparison to other men she has dated. Perhaps he has qualities that make him more valuable in comparison to other men who may return interest in her. If her status or qualities suddenly changed (e.g. she became famous, successful and rich), he then may be much less attractive in comparison to other men she could be with.
It all comes down to making sure that you value the things that you value for the right reasons. The way to figure that out is to first ask yourself what you value and then ask yourself why.

Tradermike pointed me to this article back in October, which says that “the NASD and Securities and Exchange Commission recently declared some smaller proprietary day-trading firms to be in violation of Regulation T margin rules, which determine the borrowing power a trader has at a given moment.” And that “regulators appear to be selectively forcing targeted firms… to immediately comply.”
This is one of the reasons I pulled my money out of the prop firm, but mostly I am just paranoid.
Now I am putting a little money back into the prop firm in order to trade with 20 times buying power with an automated trading system. So I’m still interested in what is going on.
I found this thread on elitetrader that discusses it.
After spending an hour reading through all 35 pages of messages, it seems like it could be an issue at some point, but it isn’t now.
Supposedly prop firms are violating Reg T if their traders do not have an S7 and S55 license, or if the traders deposit any capital with the firm, or if the trader receives 100% of the profits. So basically, my arrangement would fail on all three points.

What the government is trying to do here is separate the retail world from the professional world. The reason for this is that in the retail or customer world, firms are held to different standards and levels of protection. They don’t want retail firms acting like professional firms.

I spoke with my prop firm about this back in October and it was the first they heard about it. I haven’t heard anything about this since then.

“It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.” - William O’Neil

– Click here for today’s full list –

“It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.” - William O’Neil

– Click here for today’s full list –

Since day trading is a lot about recognizing the patterns in charts, I have decided to post a chart every day that would have resulted in a profitable dummy trade. I will post these in the dummy-a-day category which you can simply click to review for practice. The chart will be displayed as it looked when the trade should have been executed, and when you move your mouse over the image, it will show how the trade would have resulted.
Here is one I missed today, ATI:

If you bought ATI when it broke above the 12:00 candle at $94.95 with a stop below it at $94.47, you would only risk 48 cents. Holding until the end of the day would have given you about 473 cents for every share you owned, or nearly 10 times your risk.

“It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.” - William O’Neil

– Click here for today’s full list –

“It is one of the great paradoxes of the stock market that what seems too high usually goes higher and what seems too low usually goes lower.” - William O’Neil

– Click here for today’s full list –

13-15. The Samurai trilogy: Miyamoto Musashi (1954), Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955), Duel on Ganryu Island (1956) This is a 3-film series about the life of Miyamoto Musashi, a famous Japanese swordsman (played by Toshiro Mifune) who is considered the greatest samurai and most skilled swordsmen in history. What I loved about this movie is how it clearly shows the distinction between the non-samurai and the samurai - not only in skill, but in courage, strength and honor. Mifune portrays this perfectly as the restless orphan grows into a man.
12. Samurai Assassin (1965) This is an inspiring move about Tsuruchiyo Niiro (played by Mifune), an ambitious samurai who recognizes an opportunity and lets nothing get in the way of achieving his goal.
11. Love and Honor (2006) I have yet to see this movie, but I am guessing it will be worthy of the list since it is directed by Yoji Yamada and it recently tied a record at the Japan Academy Awards with nominations in 12 out of 15 categories. It would have had 13, but Takuya Kimura rejected his nomination for best actor because he didn’t want to put himself “in a position of competing with other actors for the prize.”
10. Chushingura (1962) Referred to as the “Gone with the Wind of Japanese cinema,” this is a great movie based on the famous Japanese historic tale of the loyal 47 samurai. If you want to truly understand the samurai spirit, especially its emphasis on loyalty - watch this movie.
9. Ran (1985) Kurosawa’s loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear, and his last epic samurai movie (and most expensive), is beautifully filmed with great battle scenes. The film used approximately 1400 extras (each in a suit of armor) and 200 horses.
8. The Hidden Blade (2004) Yoji Yamada’s second samurai movie was nominated for 11 Japanese Academy Awards. There is little swordplay, but it is a thoughtful, well directed drama about several samurai during a time of change in the ruling and class structures of Japan.
7. Yojimbo (1961) Remade as the spaghetti western A Fistful of Dollars with Clint Eastwood, this is one of the Kurosawa-Mifune classics. Toshiro Mifune plays a crafty ronin who comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other.
6. Samurai Rebellion (1967) Directed by the less well known Masaki Kobayashi, this samurai movie does a great job at depicting the struggle between the individual and society. The mother of a feudal lord’s only heir is kidnapped away from her husband by the lord. The husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to get her back.
5. Sanjuro (1962) This sequel to Yojimbo is one of the lesser-known films of Kurosawa and Mifune, but just as good. As always, Mifune is perfect and Kurosawa directs my very favorite fight scene ever.
4. Throne of Blood (1957) Regarded as one of Kurosawa’s best films, this one uses the plot of Shakespeare’s play Macbeth in a samurai setting. The famous arrow scene at the end was in fact done with real arrows - the arrows hitting the wall were not done with special effects, but choreographed with archers.
3. Twilight Samurai (2002) Like Yamada’s The Hidden Blade, this film has few fight scenes and is different from many other samurai-themed films in that it concentrates on showing the main character’s everyday struggles instead of focusing on battles. It is still great and won an unprecedented 12 Japanese Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress.
2. The Seven Samurai (1954) This well known Kurosawa film is not only a great samurai movie, but is usually regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. It was remade as the western The Magnificent Seven.
1. Harakiri (1962) This movie won the Special Jury Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1963 and is my favorite samurai film. Actor Nakadai and director Kobayashi are perfect together and their long-term collaboration is often compared to the working relationship between Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune.