Trading the stock market: get an overview from a trading coach.

     You will learn how to read candlestick charts, and know where the money is flowing into or out of the markets.   It's all there waiting for you to tap into, but since you don't know, you can fall prey to seminar companies telling you, you can learn in three days what took some traders years to learn.  Ain't gonna happen!  You're being ripped-off!   You need to know where to get the information and, more importantly, how to interpret the data and potentially profit from it.  That is where coaching becomes a necessity.  It's no secret, but if you don't know where to get the information and how to use it, it might as well be a secret.

     The beauty of trading is knowing you can make money during both up and down markets.  There is no holy grail to trading.  You can read until your vision weakens, you can paper trade until you wear out your keyboard, but until you put your hard-earned money in a trade, you have no experience.  You need a guide, a coach, to help you through the maze of what you've read, what you've practiced and what you see.  That's just the way it is. 

       I trade this market and if not in an active trade, I certainly monitor it daily.  I commute from my bedroom (side trip to the kitchen for obligatory coffee) to my office down the hall where I am not concerned about whether I can take time off or not.  I am not glued to the computer unless I choose to do so.  I could trade poolside, on a boat, anywhere.  I do have a boss though; it's the market itself.  I do what it tells me to do.

     Knowledge of the markets is power in the markets.  I will show you the ones you need.  Trading, as opposed to buy and hold investing, is about understanding dynamic relationships.  The relationships in the marketplace that matter most are interest rates, inflation, economic activity, energy costs, and most of all, earnings.  Learn how to use those relationships as investment money makes the rounds within sectors.  Following the money or sector rotation is vitally important.  This is Top Down trading and you need to make yourself aware of the potential.    

     Commit yourself to learning those things you need to know as a trader.  You can do this!  It isn't expensive software that makes you money.  Ultimately, it's what you "see" in the charts and how you interpret the environment.  We let the charts be our guide because they remove hype and show only true sentiment.

     Your biggest challenge as a trader is finding a stock to trade.  You need to start somewhere.  Analyze the stock, the environment, and you are actually ready to trade.  You will need to understand the environment within which you are trading.  How is the stock, its sector and the broad market performing- up/down/sideways?  What is the sector rotation of the broad markets as the economy chugs along?  What about the company's fundamentals, how do you decide what is important and how do you use that information?  

     Initially you will be sorting through a maze of new material, data, and resources.  Eventually you will establish a daily and weekly routine and a trading routine.  Within those routines comes the most important aspect of trading, discipline.  There is even a market clock to be aware of during the day.  Yes, learning how to trade and actually doing it is just like work (did you expect a magic wand?) but without the typical job related things that drive you crazy- co-workers, raises, bosses, etc., and with unlimited earning potential.  Yes, of course there are risks.  What can go wrong?  Everything.  Can you protect yourself?  Yes!  It's no secret, but if you don't know what you don't know, it might as well be a secret.

     Emotions, specifically fear and greed, rule the markets thereby producing trends and consolidation periods.  Trading is a discipline.  Too much fear or greed may make you act too soon, too late, or not at all.  You will learn to keep emotions under control at all times.

     Charts and their interpretation are what traders use to "see" where they can reasonably expect the market price to go.  Charting stocks that are in the rotation helps put the odds in your favor for a high probability trade.  You will learn about options and futures to broaden the ways you trade and what strategies to use.