Day Trading Tips Worth Reading

by Mike Reed

Are you tired of the same old day trading tips? Like, “cut your losses and let your profits run.” “Never let a gain turn into a loss.”, or the most repeated tip, “Buy low, sell high.”

So how about something new? Let me give you some specific day trading tips that will turn your trading around.

A good defense beats a good offense over the long haul. If you want to stay in the Trading "game", then developing a good defense is a MUST.

Rule Number One: Cut your losses immediately when the trade doesn’t go your way. There’s nothing harder to learn and nothing better. I’ll be even more specific. The average “run of the mill” day trading advisor will tell you to enter a trade, place a stop of 2 to 4 points, place a target that’s equal to your stop, or 2 to 3 times greater, and then wait for your stop to get hit. This is a big mistake that is going to end up costing *you*.

The time to wait is before you enter the trade, not after.

I’ve been trading for over 27 years, and I don’t trade like the crowd. The crowd waits for their stops to get hit. They sit there hoping their trade comes back from negative to positive territory, but it usually doesn’t and they lose money. They believe that the edge (probability of success) isn’t good enough on their entries. This is the crowd’s approach and it just doesn’t work.

My day trading advice for you is to use radical soft stops that go against human nature.

I write a market newsletter each day, giving my "game plan" for the next trading day. I'm as specific as possible including Support and Resistance levels that I will be buying and selling against, which provides *you* with great trade set ups nearly everyday.

In trading, your entries and your exits must NOT come naturally at first. Human nature is responsible for the fact that 90% of those day trading the eminis lose money. If you follow the herd, you’ll lose money too.

Some of my subscribers tell me it seems impossible to get out of a trade early, just because it doesn’t move immediately into a profit. They worry about commissions. They worry that the trade will turn around and go their way in a few more seconds and they’ll lose opportunity. In fact most of the people reading this right now will try it for a few minutes (hopefully on a trading simulator) and decide it can’t be done.

Like I said, my techniques and day trading tips fly in the face of the untrained “gut feeling.” And that’s precisely why they work. Exiting my way is not the whole picture when it comes to the method I use for day trading support and resistance.

Any complex process has to be broken down into small chunks at first, a person has to learn one thing at a time, especially when you want to learn day trading.

First I teach my traders a way to demand that the trade goes profitable immediately. When it doesn’t, I teach them to get out immediately.

Radical, but it works.

My day trading advice for them is don’t wait for the market to prove you wrong, instead, if the market doesn’t immediately prove you right, run for the exits.

Example: Let’s say you enter a day trade. In the first 5 seconds it goes 3 or 4 ticks against you.

What is your course of action?

a. Give it a chance, don’t waste the commission.

b. Sit and hope that it turns around before it hits your stop.

c. “Knowing” your entry was excellent, sit tight and / or move your hard stop away.

d. Add to the position (scale in) to bring your break-even point closer.

e. Get out of the position NOW!!! Don’t think about it, just get out.

Believe it or not, “e” is the right answer in my book. You have to be flexible with everything, but this is the foundation of my trading style. This is the default procedure.

Does it work?... YES it works! This is how I’ve been day trading for the past 27 + years. But it only works IF you know where and when to enter.


Mike Reed is author of TradeStalker's Support and Resistance Updates. Mike began trading the Market in 1982. When he got his start as a trader, Mike was plotting prices on paper tape as the internet had not yet been "born" as we know it today. Years of experience have really given him a feel for Market action. His support and resistance numbers have been published on the internet since 1996. He has a wide readership that includes day traders, floor traders, locals and hedge fund managers. His nightly trading plan, along with his support and resistance zones, are specific and accurate. He offers an unlimited free trial of his nightly TradeStalker Updates.- Copyright 2010 Mike Reed and www.TradeStalker.com