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Thursday 26 August, 2010

What a successful daytrader does daily!

Before diving into Day Trading, please ask yourself if you have the following personality traits!

Confidence
This is perhaps the most important personality trait of good day traders. You won't succeed at day trading unless you have a high measure of confidence in yourself. Lack of self-confidence will result in doubt, indecision and second-guessing which, in turn, will lead to missed trading opportunities and frequent losses. You must believe in yourself when day trading. If not, you will be better off pursuing some other endeavour.

Discipline
In order to day trade successfully, you must develop a trading plan and consistently stick to it. You must avoid a "shooting from the hip" or a "seat of the pants approach" to day trading.

Get out of the market when you have reached your objective and do not let emotions like fear and greed influence your trading decisions.

Decisiveness
Good day traders do not hesitate to "pull the trigger" when entering and exiting trades. Traders who are in the habit of being tentative or indecisive will never become successful.

Passion
Most successful day traders have a true love or passion about their trading activities. If you do not enjoy reading charts, dealing with numbers, reading market news, interpreting quote screens, learning new trading strategies and working independently in a fast-paced environment, then day trading is probably not your cup of tea.

Ability to Accept Failure (and blame yourself for all failures)
Good day traders know that many of their trades will fail to meet the original objective. They do not, however seek to blame someone else for their loss, and they don't dwell on it. They attempt to learn from their mistakes and move on to the next trade.

Ability to Accept Risk (lose money)
Another personality trait of good traders is that they are comfortable with risk and are prepared to lose money from time to time. If you are afraid that you will, on occasion, lose money, then day trading is not for you.

Patience
Good traders do not rush into trades. They take the time to select good trading opportunities and do not place orders simply for the sake of holding a position in the markets at all times. On some market days, where few good trading opportunities exist, they are content to simply stand aside and wait.

Concentration
In day trading, a great deal of real-time information has to be absorbed, analyzed and acted upon in intense bursts throughout the trading day. This requires a great deal of concentration and stamina on the part of the trader, and the ability to avoid distractions. Day trading can be very hard work and a lack of concentration can doom a trader to failure.

These are the key personality traits that successful day traders tend to have in common! Do you??

Sunday 22 August, 2010

Multicollinearity

Multicollinearity is a statistical term for a problem that is common in technical analysis. That is, when one unknowingly uses the same type of information more than once. Analysts need to be careful and not utilize technical indicators that reveal the same type of information.

Here is how John Bollinger states it: "A cardinal rule for the successful use of technical analysis requires avoiding multicollinearity amid indicators. Multicollinearity is simply the multiple counting of the same information. The use of four different indicators all derived from the same series of closing prices to confirm each other is a perfect example."

The issue of multicollinearity is a serious issue in technical analysis when your money is at stake. It is a problem because collinear variables contribute redundant information and can cause other variables to appear to be less important than they really are. One of the real problems is that sometimes multicollinearity is difficult to spot.

Technical indicators should be arranged in categories to keep from using too many from the same category. Here is a table that categorizes the indicators available at StockCharts.com:

CategoryIndicators
MomentumRate of Change (ROC)
Stochastics (%K, %D)
Relative Strength Index (RSI)
Commodity Channel Index (CCI)
Williams %R (Wm%R)
StochRSI
TRIX
Ultimate Oscillator (ULT)
Aroon
TrendMoving Averages
Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD)
Average True Range (ATR)
Wilder's DMI (ADX)
Price Oscillator (PPO)
VolumeAccumulation Distribution
Chaikin Money Flow (CMF)
Volume Rate of Change
Volume Oscillator (PVO)
Demand Index
On Balance Volume (OBV)
Money Flow Index

The best way to quickly determine if an indicator is collinear with another one is to chart it. Make sure you have enough data on the chart to get a good indication. If they basically rise and fall in about the same areas, the odds are that they are collinear and you should just use one of them.

The first chart below shows some examples of indicators that are collinear. Notice that all three indicators are basically saying the same thing. If your analysis was that this was supportive information, you would be falling into the multicollinearity trap. Pick one of the indicators for your analysis and do not use the others.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) Multicollinearity example chart from StockCharts.com

Below are some examples of indicators that are not collinear. These three are not similar at all and, when interpreted correctly, each will give different information. It may be supportive or it may not.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) Multicollinearity example chart from StockCharts.com

Bottom Line: If you are randomly selecting indicators to support your analysis, you will more than likely fall into the multicollinearity trap of using multiple indicators that are all saying the same thing. They are not giving you any additional information; in fact, they are restricting your overall view of the market. Don't search for supporting information among collinear indicators, it is just misleading


via - http://stockcharts.com/help/doku.php?id=chart_school:trading_strategies:multicollinearity

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