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Friday, April 25, 2008

Day trading from the expert

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How Do 5% of Day Traders Earn Thousands of Dollars a Day, While
The Majority Keep On Losing?

The Ultimate Work-From-Home Job?
By Harvey Walsh

[Harvey Walsh is a full time Nasdaq day trader, and part time trading tutor. He trades from his home, or indeed wherever he happens to be when travelling]


Ever dreamt of giving up the daily grind? Want to strike out on your own and work from home, but don’t know what you could possibly do to make a living? Full time
Nasdaq trader Harvey Walsh wondered just that, and now he asks “Is day trading the ultimate work from home job”?
We’ve probably all had the same thought at some time or another, as we trudge off towards another day at work – the same work we’ve been doing day in day out for years – “surely there has to be a better way?” Slaving away to make somebody else rich just doesn’t seem right somehow, but what alternative? Setting up a new business, or buying an established one, are both expensive and risky prospects. So how can the disenchanted employee ever hope to make the switch from wage-slave to total independence?
Those are thoughts I had almost every day, before I quit the safety of full time employment and decided to strike out on my own. I asked myself the same question day in and day out; surely there has to be a better way. What about the internet, I wondered, isn’t that supposed to be bringing new and exciting opportunities to all? I researched a lot of so-called work-from-home opportunities that promised untold riches, apparently mine for the taking just by sitting in front of my PC. Needless to say, in reality those schemes turned out to be about as fulfilling as, well, filling envelopes for a living. No, I knew there had to be another way – something real – something where I could be in control of my own destiny.

And then one morning on the train to work, I read about a couple of Wall Street boys who had struck it rich thanks to some huge bonuses, and were now going it alone setting up their own day trading shop. That was when I discovered day trading, and I realized that this was exactly the opportunity I had been searching for. I decided there and then that I was going to make a full time living from the stock markets, whatever it took to succeed.

The advantages of day trading as a job are numerous to say the least;
there is no boss to answer to,
no customers to satisfy,
no suppliers to let you down,
no waiting for invoices to be paid, I could go on.
In fact, I will: trading is a location-independent activity – I can work from anywhere with an internet connection, which effectively means anywhere in the world with a telephone line. I regularly trade from my laptop while travelling. I can trade when I feel like it, and take time off when I like, which means I can spend quality time with my family.

Now let’s get this straight, trading can be a risky activity, there is no doubt about that. So is driving a car to work, but the risks of getting from A to B on four wheels are well understood and are managed accordingly, to the point where we don’t think twice about getting behind the wheel. And in the same way, provided a trader is disciplined in their approach to the job at hand, and understands the associated risks of the work, so those risks can be managed.

On the subject of risk, day trading is almost unique in that it can be learnt and practised with absolutely no financial risk at all, by means of paper-trading – that is - trading using freely available simulation software. Thus in the same way a trainee airline pilot won’t be let loose into the skies without having learnt and rehearsed their skills in a simulator, so a new trader can employ the same technique before they start trading real money. I “sim-traded” before I gave up the day-job; it made it easy to leave the safety-net of a monthly pay check knowing from my simulated trading sessions that I could already make money in the markets.

And that brings me to the most satisfying aspect of trading for a living; money. On an average day trading the Nasdaq, it is not unusual to make more money in a couple of hours than I used to make in a whole month working full time as a wage-slave. There are bad days of course, days where things just don’t work out, but they pale into insignificance over the course of a week or a month. It certainly took some intensive studying and a lot of practise before becoming a consistently profitable trader. But the end result of that hard work is an immensely valuable life skill that nobody can take away, and which allows for incredible freedom.

Since I first started trading, the learning curve has become even easier for the aspiring day trader, with a multitude of new websites, training courses, and books all covering the subject. I envy anyone starting out in this business today – they certainly have many more learning aids available to them than I had at the same point in my own career.

So is day trading the ultimate work-from-home job? No. I firmly believe it’s the ultimate work-from ANYWHERE job!

Go to day-trading-freedom.com to know more



Review

Day Trading Freedom Reviewed



By Smith Rudolph, day trader

Day Trading Freedom is a multimedia stock trading course by full time trader Harvey Walsh. It's been around for a few years now, and the fact that the strategies it teaches appear to work as well today as they did back when the course first came out in 2004 shows that this is a system that has stood the test of time.

Walsh has recently updated the course and it's now in its second edition. The biggest addition to this new updated version is the video training area. This members-only page contains a whole series of in-depth videos which show every aspect of the course material actually in use. For example, in one of the early videos, Walsh walks us through how he sets up his charts and trading screen.

Of course, there are also a number of videos showing live trading taking place. These are excellent; you may already have seen some of Walsh's free trading films on YouTube, but these member videos are in a different league. Not only are they much bigger and clearer to look at than the YouTube ones, but in them, Harvey talks through every aspect of his trading in a kind of "stream of consciousness". He explains his thought processes as the trade sets up, he enters, manages the trade, then exits. It's the closest thing you'll get to sitting down next to a trading mentor, without actually sitting down with a trading mentor!

So why would you buy the Day Trading Freedom course instead of getting a mentor? Well for most, the main reason will be the price. At under a hundred and fifty dollars, Walsh's course is much cheaper than paying for one-on-one tuition. But will you get the same level of education? I think the answer is yes. The main ebooks which contain the bulk of the material are well written and provide plenty of examples. The exercises included are also a useful teaching aid - they give the student the means to self-asses their progress.

To test the level of support that Walsh provides, I fired off a couple of questions by email not long after I purchased, and was pleased to receive personal replies within 24 hours.

As to the material itself, the obvious question is "Does it work? Is the system profitable?" Naturally the answer will depend largely on the trader themselves, and whether they actually use the strategy as taught. But I can confirm that my own use of Walsh's strategies has generated profits far in excess of the price of the manuals.

The first volume of the course is quite general - a good primer for people who have no previous knowledge or experience of trading. The real meat is in the second volume, and as Walsh promises on his website, it shows some new setups and strategies that I've not seen in every other book out there.

In fact although they're not the run-of-the-mill stuff, Harvey's strategies are amazingly simple to learn and trade. I'm not one to overcomplicate my trading, but even I found the method remarkably clean and concise. This is definitely a good thing - it leaves you free to concentrate on managing the trades correctly.

Lets wind up by summarizing the pros and cons of this course then.
Pros: The course has been around a few years and continues to work; trading strategies are simple and very effective; Walsh provides good customer support; the member-videos give mentor-style teaching for eBook style price; Walsh gave all existing course owners free copies of the updated version, which shows a great level of customer service.

Cons: The course manuals are download only, no printed versions available. No doubt this has helped keep the costs down, and I could print the manuals myself, but it would be nice to have the option to order printed and bound books.

Summary: I'd have no hesitation in recommending Day Trading Freedom to anyone who is interested in day trading. With so many ways of accessing the stock market, and the possibility to open accounts from just a few hundred dollars available to the man in the street, I have to agree with Walsh's premise that stocks are a great market to be trading. The trading methods taught work well, and the course caters for traders of all levels of experience (including no experience).
With a money back guarantee included, you can't really go wrong here.


Go to day-trading-freedom.com




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