What are we trading? "Price". What drives price, traders sentiment toward the value of that stock. Demand for the stock price goes up. Supply gets met and there are more sellers than buyers, price goes down. Trading stocks is a "Zero sum gain" just meaning for every buyer there is a seller and every for every seller there is a buyer. So trading stocks is a transfer of wealth, form one account to another. To the people who have the knowledge and can apply it, from the inexperienced and uninformed trader.

So as an astute trader we need to identify those areas on a chart where supply and demand are out of balance. Where we are at some extreme. These extremes can be called a lot of things pivots, breakouts. We also need to know who is on the other side of your trade. You don't want to trade against the professional, (the guy who gets it right most of the time, like Ken) You want the newbie on the other side of your trade. So ask yourself as you place your trade. Who will take the other side of the trade from me at this time and place on the chart?

Trading is a simple as identifying where supply and demand is most out of imbalance. And it is basic economics 101. Relating this information to a chart is key and this is where Ken can help you.

Thanks, cash - great points, well said. The key is figuring out when the balance is tipping strong enough to continue in our favor after we get in... that's one reason I like playing a wide field of a lot of stocks on small shares initially, to avoid missing on strong moves, then scaling up once the winners are in the money by a bit, gradually working into a position.

Good point about thinking a step ahead, re who's on the other side of the trade.

To profits,

-ken

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p.s. per sec/cftc/ftc regs, none of this is to be construed as trading recommendations, it's just for educational use only, so you can
"peek over my shoulder" to see what I'm doing with some of my trades. See www.daytradingu.com/disclaim.htm for full disclaimer.
These pages contain excerpts of actual trades I've made; it's not a complete record of every single trade I make. Some days I'll take trading wins or losses that I do not take the time to screencap and post online; it's a partial record of some of my trades. Note that I am not making income nor profitability claims of any kind. Most traders lose regardless of what they do. The majority of my personal income comes from my training business, and though I'm a net profitable (small-share, under 5k shares per trade) trader, I make more income from my business training traders than I do in trading profits. I try to capture the best highlights of successful days so you can see practical examples of what I'm trading. There are also days in which I incur losses which are not shown. This is simply a partial record showing highlights of some of my successful trading days. No representation is being made that other traders, including customers, will be able to trade like I do. Generally expected (average/typical) trader results are that all traders incur trading losses and most do not become profitable, regardless of the training they get. Trading is a speculative, high-risk activity.

I have a hard time scaling in , maybe w/ experience it will come easier. I see it as taking on more risk, which is probably just the opposite. Hard time w/ my stops (1st in 1st out) thinking. I've given up profits to many times scaling in. but that the difference btw a pro and a newbie. That's for your advice, it's help me.