18 Questions To Help You Define Your Day Trading Edge

Many people in corporations have spent countless days and countless dollars working to define their Unique Selling Propositions (USP's) so that the public gets a clear, concise, benefit-driven message. The USP is also the "edge" which make these businesses stand out among their peers.

In day trading, you need to define YOUR edge to help you become clear on what it is that makes you money on a CONSISTENT basis, both now and well into the future. If you think about it long enough, chances are that you will have at least one good edge which you can use to define your trading edge; and most likely it will be a personality trait that separates you from the rest.

You may not know your edge at this time, however, so spend a few hours with and ponder these areas when determining what sets you apart from all of the other traders in the marketplace:

Start with your personality traits and what makes you a better trader than someone else:
- Are you faster on the keyboard than most other people?
- Do you have a background in one of the riskier professions (pilot, firefighter, etc.) so that you are comfortable with risk?
- Do you have more tenacity than other people you know?
- Are you able to blend humility along with decisiveness better than most people you know?
- Can you accept losses emotionally and still perform with precision?
- Are you extremely analytical?
- Are you faster at mathematical calculations?
- Do you think in probabilities?
- Are you more disciplined?
- Do you have a deep understanding of trading psychology?

For the more "functional" ways to determine your edge, ask yourself:
- Do you have new ways to use a specific technical indicator?
- Do you have better technology (faster, more robust, etc.)?
- Do you have specific trading education which most people do not have?
- Do you have any background with previous traders such as having been on the trading floor or trading pits?
- Do you have programming language experience to help you write programs to trade the markets?
- Do you trade around and/or associate with consistently profitable traders?
- Do you have better money management techniques?
- Do you have better risk management systems in place?

The are just some topics to get you started thinking about your edge. Once you have defined your it, develop day trading strategies around your edge(s) so that you play to your strengths. While the market offers no guarantees of success, a trading style based on your strengths will increase your confidence when trading in the markets.

If you ever decide to raise money in the form of an investment advisory firm or hedge fund, you will want to have your edge(s) well-defined. Doing so will help you with marketing efforts and attracting the necessary capital to conduct your business.

Forex Professional System Trading

Forex market has a turnover of more than three trillions dollars a day, which is undoubtedly the greatest of all the financial markets. Forex professional system trading allows you to trade through a global network of banks, corporations and individuals.

For forex professional system trading, you need to register for some trading platforms either by paying a subscription or for free. You may be offered the facility of auto-trading, leverage in a base currency, reversal of positions without closing, no margin calls, competitive spreads for all your trades, round the clock support during trading hours, trading over the phone, etc.

Forex professional system trading may provide you online tutorials and study materials like e-books, audio and video tutorials, 2D and 3D charts, for developing your trading strategies. Ideally the system should support execution with electronic communications network (ECN) mode with almost instantaneous execution.

You should be able to trade instantly on live, multibank prices without any requotes. This ensures that you enjoy the spread that has been offered by the forex professional trading system. You may also find a system that offers zero spread for some major currency pairs.

In forex professional system trading the system can never trade against your orders, as it is purely mechanical and software driven. You should have the ability to act as a market maker and earn the spread. The trading system should offer the option to trade inside the spread by entering your own bids and offers. The system must display real-time quotes and bids.

As a forex professional engaged in system trading, you should be equipped with free charts and news feed from the market. The forex system should provide signals that you can use for your trading.

Online or offline experts may help you in customizing your trading needs and in fine-tuning your strategies. It may offer integration with data feeds, order routings, customized visual style with default settings and layouts, additional reports, margin calculations, etc.

Forex professional system trading should be backed with support activities including migration from existing trading platform, trading server hosting and administration when you can act as a professional trader and service provider.

The trading system should be simple, easy-to-understand, and easy-to-use. You must remember that it is important to identify the trend and to join the trend with precise timing. Forex professional system trading should exactly do this and must help you to enter in the trend just when the time is right. This way you will maximize your wins, minimize your losses, and increase your profit.

Trading Opening Range Breakouts

One of the most common and popular intraday trading concepts is the Opening Range Breakout (ORB) trade. Since its conception, ORB has evolved into a number of different varieties which are often reviewed in the Trading EveryDay Live Trading Room with entries, set ups, and stops.

Ever since the market decline of 2000-2003, the trading environment has become one of low volatility resulting in the propensity for short-term price movements to reverse. In turn, this environment has created chaos with Opening Range Breakout trading. Let’s take a look at what this means.

Say that a trader looking at the opening prices from the stock market open interprets a decline at mid-morning as an OBR. If the trader is astute and experienced, three (3) things would come to mind before taking the trade.

1. The trader should look at the entire pre-opening market as the opening range because it is an indication of how U.S. stocks have responded to pre-opening economic reports and Asia and European market developments. The only way you can tell if the new buying and selling information is impacting traders’ value assessments is if you break out of that range.
2. A true breakout move should impact all the major market averages and sectors (including, but not limited to, Dow Jones, Standard & Poor’s, Russell 2000, etc.) the same way.
3. A valid breakout should also provide us with increased participation as there are lower or higher prices. When this happens, you can be fairly certain that that the “big boys” are “playing” in the move, which allows you to follow in their footsteps.

So did the trader take the trade? Not if the downside move turns out to be a failed test of the overnight lows. The moral of the story is to do what you have to do to figure out how to separate valid ORB trades from false breakouts. That means to continue educating yourself because just as you evolve as a trader, the trading world is evolving as well.