…the bad news is that there really isn’t a robot to day trade stocks. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Butthe good news is that there is one that day trades currencies (you know, the great forex market that I love and have bored you over and over with throughout this website?).

No folks; this is not Forex Made Easy. This is Forex Made Easier- An automated day trading system that NOT ONLY comes with a highly sophisticated set of conditions to enter and exit the market, but one that also pulls the trigger (that is, executes the trades) for you, using proper money management without which day trading is doomed to failure. [If you have not read why I strongly believe that the forex (short for foreign exchange) market is the purest and best market to day trade in the world, go to the currency trading section of this website]. This automated system is also known as Forex Robot or FX Bot (for frequently asked questions about the trading robot, click here).

Yes day trading fans. This day trading robot (or bot) not only finds the trades, it takes advantage of them when it finds them.

When the forex trading robot was presented to me for the first time, it was difficult for me to accept the whole concept. I got to admit, I was pretty skeptical. If the explanation wouldn’t have come from the best two money managers and traders I know (and personal friends of mine), I wouldn’t have even listened. But after a while, I was sold. You, Dan? Mr. Day Trading Tutor? Telling us that you believe in a day trading robot after writing an endless amount of information about how people could learn how to day trade, how much you believe in day trading, how you have helped day traders in the past, etc., etc.?

Whoa, whoa!!! People, don’t get so exited. All of these things are still true. There are people that will learn how to day trade successfully and become successful traders. I am still involved on a very limited basis on the training of some day traders. But there are also many people out there that will never succeed as day traders and others that, after having tried it, will realize that it is not for them.

This is the truth; plain and simple. And even if the day trading robot wouldn’t have existed, this would have still been reality. The FX robot is just something extra that I feel can help not just unsuccessful traders, but also investors who can add something different (a new component) to their investment portfolios; and believe me, this is completely different than any investment I have ever seen before.

I created Day Trading Tutor to give you the reality of trading. Well, talking about the trading Bot is an extension of this goal. Since it exists and can help you, I must tell you about it period!

Ladies and gentlemen; I am sorry if I sound really exited about this trading Bot thing so exited it made me that I even became part of it in order to be able to offer it to my clients, friends, and family members (read How are you involved in the day trading Bot and are you doing it just for the money? below. I like to be very clear about the things I say. It makes me sleep peacefully at night. The thing is that I haven’t been part of a great project like this for a long, long time. The money managers and traders that designed and monitor the day trading robot on a daily basis have become personal friends of mine in the last few years. They are great guys and exceptional traders. They have been top-ranked in the past in the forex money management industry. I don’t like recommending traders or money managers to people, but this is an exception.

The robot program rocks!

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Corrections are part of the normal shock market menu, and can be brought about by either bad news or good news. (Yes, thats what I meant to say.) Investors always over-analyze when prices are weak and lose their common sense when prices are high, thus perpetuating the “buy high, sell low” Wall Street line dance. Waiting for the perfect moment to jump into a falling market is as foolish a strategy as taking losses on investment grade companies and holding cash.

Repetition is good for the brains CPU, so forgive me for reinforcing what Ive said in the face of every correction since 1979 if you dont love corrections (and deal with them like visiting relatives) you really dont understand the financial markets. Dont be insulted, it seems as though very few financial professionals want you to see it this way and, in fact, Institutional Wall Street loves it when individual investors panic in the face of uncertainty. Psstt uncertainty is the regulation playing field for investors, and hindsight isnt welcome in the stadium.

A closer examination of the news thats fit to print (but isnt printed often enough) should make you more confident about the years ahead, whatever your politics.

The good news is very, very good: 1. Employment, jobs, and unemployment numbers are as good or better than they have been in years. 2. Manufacturing numbers are stronger and trending upward. 3. The core inflation rate is historically low. 4. Interest rates are also historically low. 5. Durable goods orders are trending upward. 6. Corporate earnings reports have been strong. 7. Corporate dividend payouts have been increasing. 8. Equities, as an Asset Class, are considered the most fairly valued, when compared with Real Estate, Fixed Income, and Commodities. 9. Income Tax Rates are at low historical levels, particularly with regard to investment income. 10. Gross domestic product is growing.

The bad news isn’t all that bad, pretty much the same ole stuff: 1. Hurricane Damage. Weve actually had fewer major storms than anticipated. The ones weve had were devastating, but the rebuilding/preparation task ahead will be good for the economy. 2. War in Iraq. Theres always been a war of some kind, somewhere. Its bad, but only the battlefield has changed and war has also always been good for the economy. 3. Politics. We have an unpopular President who cant seem to get out of his own way. Who were the last ones that were loved? Didnt they have wars? 4. Wall Street/Corporate scandals. Hardly new and never economy busters. 5. Energy prices. I still dont see gas lines, and maybe somebody will push for added refining capacity. 6. Trade deficits. News would be giving foreigners more money so that they could buy more of our products. 7. High consumer debt. New? Not. 8. The terrorism threat. A major serious problem for the past how many years? The federal regulatory agencies probably do more damage to the economy. 9. The Avian Flu pandemic? Maybe, but not yet, and well really need those bad boy drug companies then, wont we? 10. The Anniston/Pitt break up, and neither the Yankees nor the Bosox in the World Series. Now were talking!

Clearly, there are no new (economic) problems to be overly concerned about. And for now, we simply (and I mean simply) have to deal with the opportunities at hand. Low, but increasing, interest rates force fixed income prices down and yields up Opportunity One! Economic good news encourages higher rates to reduce inflationary pressures causing equity prices to trend downward Opportunity Two! These forces of good are intersecting with the dark side of calendar year mentality Wall Street, causing premature tax loss selling and portfolio Window Dressing Opportunities One and Two squared!

There is an Investment Mindset Solution for the problems that most people have dealing with corrections, and rallies too, for that matter. Ive never understood why yard sale prices here are so scary. What if you cut off a finger each time you get a splinter? Wounds heal, and so do the prices of high quality securities.

In recent years, Wall Street and the media have turned the process of investing into a competitive event of Olympic proportions and stature. What was once a long term (a year is not long term), goal directed activity, has become a series of monthly and quarterly sprints. The direction of the market isnt nearly as important as the actions we take in anticipation of the next change in direction. Performance evaluation needs to be rethunk (sic) in terms of cycles!

The problems, and the solutions, boil down to focus, understanding, and retraining. It would be impossible to cover each of these issues here, but here are a few teasers. You need to focus on the purposes of the securities in the portfolio. You need to understand and accept the normal behavior of your securities in the face of different environmental conditions. You need to overcome your obsession with calendar period Market Value analysis, and switch to a more manageable asset allocation approach that centers on your portfolios Working Capital.

But for now, relax and enjoy this correction. Its your invitation to the fun and games of the next rally.

Steve Selengut
sanserve@aol.com
800-245-0494
http://www.sancoservices.com
Professional Portfolio Management since 1979
Author of: “The Brainwashing of the American Investor: The Book that Wall Street Does Not Want YOU to Read”, and “A Millionaire’s Secret Investment Strategy”

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That was the good news. The bad news is that those companies are selling you the tools and service only. They do not sell you any guarantees of success. It does not matter if you profit or lose money, the trading company will get its fee for each trade anyway.

Since you are considering going into the stock market, most likely you are planning to get a significant return on your investment which should also be better than what you would get buy investing your money into mutual funds (less risky than single stocks) or even no-risk certificate of deposits (CDs) where returns are guaranteed.

Well, how can you get such returns? The answer of course is simple and well known: buy low, sell high. If you do it most of the time youll be a successful stock trader. Now the first problem comes: how do you know when to buy? There are probably several ways to do that, we do not discuss this here, lets assume that you know somehow or think you do know. Lets say you got lucky and the stock after you bought it is going up, just as you planned.

Now another problem comes: when to sell? After the stock is up 20%, what do you do? Sell now, or wait until it is up 50%, 100% or 200%? Do you listen to investor news and do what everybody else does: selling, buying more, or continue holding the stock? If you choose one of the first two options, how much of the stock you should buy or sell? Or if you hold the stock, are you sure it will continue to go up, or you may end up waiting until the stock price is back to the original and than lose its value resulting in your losses.

The truth is some people actually do know the answers to those questions most of the time and actually make profit. The question is, are you as good as those people? Most people are losing money guessing and trying to time the market. If youre new in this game and not planning to spend much time on research, chances are you will lose. You will be competing with professional traders, big players and insiders who profit mostly because many others keep losing. Plus what are the chances that you can predict the market? The chances are very slim.

Some may argue: I had that stock, I sold it when it was up 20%, but if I did not sell it at that time, now it would be up 300%. How stupid I was when I sold it, if I did not Id made a lot of money. I have to do this again. It really proves that I can make a lot of money there and its easy! That is right you can make a lot of money, but it is not that easy as it looks. Lets assume you did not sell the stock at the time it was up 20%. Then what makes you think you would wait until it is up 300%? You may have sold it when it was up only 25%. Or it may go down several times below 20% increase, you could have thought it was going down forever and sold it even with a lower than 20% profit.

The bottom line is that it is easy to look at the past and see all the mistakes youve made. However it is very difficult to do right things for the future. Unless you know market trends well, understand related industries and stock company financials, most likely you will not be able to make profitable trades. Even professional traders do mistakes and lose money. If you are not one of them or not planning to become one, your best bet would be investing into CDs, mutual funds or your own business.

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I knew others who had already amassed several hundred thousand by the time the stock boom came along. They were millionaires by the time the 1990s ended.

Ah yes, those were the days. Today most people will tell you it’s a lot harder. Stocks don’t seem to do much any more. You have to invest in risky emerging countries to see much return. And that chance can evaporate overnight taking your money with it.

When the stock market won’t bring you any return, most people turn to real estate. But housing prices have peaked in most cities, meaning you can’t just buy a house and sit on it for several years to earn a fat nest egg.

So does that mean we have to give up on ever getting ahead and just learn to be satisfied living the “average” life our jobs can provide?

Not necessarily. These days you have to think differently to get ahead. For example, you’ve noticed how manufacturing and jobs are heading out of North America to foreign countries. That’s bad news for many workers, but it’s GREAT news for some segments of the Foreign Exchange Market.

You see, when we buy products from China, or Japan ships products to England, all kinds of currency has to change hands and be converted. There is BIG money in that process.

FOREX, the foreign exchange market, handles 2 TRILLION in transactions EVERY DAY. That’s far more money than what Wall Street handles. Just about anybody can jump in and pull out quite a profit for themselves by participating in the FOREX process.

Does all this sound a bit new to you? Most North Americans have heard very little about FOREX. They’ve got BILLIONS of dollars sitting in savings accounts and low yield investments that could make them a LOT more money in the Foreign Exchange Industry.

If you’re thinking helping all those millions get their money transferred to FOREX is a HUGE opportunity ripe for the picking, you’re RIGHT!

I hope my article has opened your eyes to some of the terrific opportunities that are being created now. Rather than looking back to the good old days of the booming American stock market and waiting for those times to return, refocus your attention on what is really happening right now. Your fortune lies in seeing more clearly the awesome opportunities at hand.

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Step 1. Decide on the time frame and the general strategy of the investment. This step is very important because it will dictate the type of stocks you buy.

Suppose you decide to be a long term investor, you would want to find stocks that have sustainable competitive advantages along with stable growth. The key for finding these stocks is by looking at the historical performance of each stock over the past decades and do a simple business S.W.O.T. (Strength-weakness-opportunity-threat) analysis on the company.

If you decide to be a short term investor, you would like to adhere to one of the following strategies:

a. Momentum Trading. This strategy is to look for stocks that increase in both price and volume over the recent past. Most technical analyses support this trading strategy. My advice on this strategy is to look for stocks that have demonstrated stable and smooth rises in their prices. The idea is that when the stocks are not volatile, you can simply ride the up-trend until the trend breaks.

b. Contrarian Strategy. This strategy is to look for over-reactions in the stock market. Researches show that stock market is not always efficient, which means prices do not always accurately represent the values of the stocks. When a company announces a bad news, people panic and price often drops below the stock’s fair value. To decide whether a stock over-reacted to a news, you should look at the possibility of recovery from the impact of the bad news. For example, if the stock drops 20% after the company loses a legal case that has no permanent damage to the business’s brand and product, you can be confident that the market over-reacted. My advice on this strategy is to find a list of stocks that have recent drops in prices, analyze the potential for a reversal (through candlestick analysis). If the stocks demonstrate candlestick reversal patterns, I will go through the recent news to analyze the causes of the recent price drops to determine the existence of over-sold opportunities.

Step 2. Conduct researches that give you a selection of stocks that is consistent to your investment time frame and strategy. There are numerous stock screeners on the web that can help you find stocks according to your needs.

Step 3. Once you have a list of stocks to buy, you would need to diversify them in a way that gives the greatest reward/risk ratio. One way to do this is conduct a Markowitz analysis for your portfolio. The analysis will give you the proportions of money you should allocate to each stock. This step is crucial because diversification is one of the free-lunches in the investment world.

These three steps should get you started in your quest to consistently make money in the stock market. They will deepen your knowledge about the financial markets, and would provide a sense of confidence that helps you to make better trading decisions.

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