Let me throw in a curve ball on this one because we clearly trade and think differently (and I find that interesting) – when you trade do you ever consider or think about the size of the market you trade in….or do you just trade the big players? When I talk about market corrolation the biggest scalps are made with the small fry. The only caveat with this is if your play is enough to distort the market – i’m talking $50000ish a day as being non-distortive. If so then I contend that providing you have thought out the correlations then you have very low risk trade with magnifide plus side reward because of the very factors you talk about on this blog. I’m intriuged and am not sure if I’m missing something or you are. The economy is a massive and there are always opportunites within in it and I believe that if you constrain yourself to the big players and the movements they make then you are missing out. Risk is often misjudged by the masses and the opportunity recognised by the individual.

Chris

Good to hear from you! I think you’re on to something good by combining psychology (personal), sociology (groups), and economics (throw cash & scarcity into the mix). Markets are a combination of so many things and the more we can incorporate, odds are the better we’ll be/invest/trade.

In a podcast, one has to answer the questions and the question on everyone’s mind – mine included – is “did we hit bottom on March 9th?” We make the assessment with the data we have at the time and do the best we can.

Regarding daytrading, I think for me, it’s a personality and preference thing. Dr. Steenbarger says the best traders find a perfect mix of talent/skills, trading style, and market opportunity/environment. For me, and it changes with the market as needed, I feel the market is opening the best opportunities for my talents/skills/strategy by trading ultra short term. Prior to 2007, I used a swing trading hedging strategy which – due to the wild up and down market of 2007 – fell apart. Virtually any hedge would have failed in 2008 (any long hedge that is). As volatility increased, we do best – in my opinion – to match the market and shorten our time horizons.

It’s about adapting to the market – perhaps we’ll soon be able to get back to swing trading and position trading with more accuracy, but my skills are best suited for intraday action at the moment while keeping an analytical eye on the big picture.

Thanks for stopping by! Thank you again for the podcast invitation – I really enjoyed it and wish we could have chatted longer!

I’m an engineering consultant from England and I am a bit of an intellecutual oddball (so friends say) who’s always been obsessed by economics, psychology and sociology and their respective interaction. To me, and I suppose this is the odd bit, the traders go on about bottoms with blogcasts and go into such short term detail that they render it meaningless: corey, I know we all think of returns but there are returns and returns – there are obvious returns if you rate stock values across linked markets. Maybe you know this….I however know this and know that greater returns can be realised through linking markets than day trading – its so much easier and predictable providing you have the brain for it!

All the best, Mr. Rosenbloom!