I don't think it's worth taking this very seriously (I am a full-time trader at a hedge fund).<p>Most of it is technical analysis type stuff, with very little to nothing backing it up. The decent bits of advice that I can filter out are<p>> <i>Concentrate on current investments, not past or future ones.</i><p>Good advice in general. A similar motto applies in poker - once your money is in the pot, it's no different from anyone else's money. Don't get hung up on sunk costs. However, you might occasionally give a thought to your future investments, especially if your current ones are somewhat illiquid (free cash is optionality).<p>> <i>Always keep some cash for short term opportunities.</i><p>Decent advice, though it's questionable how many short-term opportunities you're going to spot if trading isn't your full-time occuptation.<p>> <i>You don’t need to trade every day! You don’t need to trade every day!</i><p>In fact, if you're not a professional, the less you trade, the better.<p>> <i>If a company publishes earnings and the stock doesn’t move much it might be that most people already own the stock. It could go down.</i><p>Or, more likely, the earnings figure was already priced in and it is as likely to go up as down.<p>> <i>Stay away from penny stocks.</i><p>Very good advice. Stay the hell away unless you have some privileged information on the the company (and even then, stay away 90% of the time).
I think there's way too much emphasis on volume here. Sure, if price swings wildly, there will be a large volume associated with it, but if there's a large spike in volume it doesn't necessarily mean a big change in price.<p>So ultimately volume is a measure of interest, but for every bought share there was a sold share, so it's not a measure of performance. I would bet that higher volumes might mean lower bid/ask spreads, meaning you're paying a smaller penalty to get in/out of a position, but for most retail traders that spread isn't going to make or break you anyway.
A problem in his analysis is that 'smart money' has to look a step or two ahead of his indicators at hyper-technical data that includes the velocity of price movement, volatility and the probabilities that price trends will continue, revert or propagate. It is all mostly inaccessible to the lay investor. I don't think Warren Buffet has an ulterior motive an advocating the average inventor focus on broad, low-cost index funds, like the S&P500, where you dollar-cost average in over time. Not that I take that advice, or my own for that matter.
I always wonder where it is best to start getting into trading stock. Like a place where you can play with a few shares but are not overwhelmed with lots of fees for simple transactions. Any suggestions? Possibly in Europe?
I'm a novice trader, and agree with everything said. However, about penny stocks..... I've dabbled in marijuana stocks for 2014 and its the only type of penny stock I have or will ever touch.<p>The only thing I am risking at this point are my profits because that's how little faith one should have in penny stocks.
learning from only the last couple of years risks ingraining habits that might be dangerous going forward, as the last couple of years have been a bull market. Once you've been through an entire market cycle, there will be even more perspective.