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CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page v THE DAY TRADER’S COURSE Low-Risk, High Profit Strategies for Trading Stocks and Futures Lewis Borsellino with Patricia Crisafulli JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC. New York. Chichester. Weinheim. Brisbane. Singapore. Toronto CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page viii CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page i THE DAY TRADER’S COURSE CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page ii WILEY TRADING ADVANTAGE Beyond Candlesticks / Steve Nison Beyond Technical Analysis, Second Edition / Tushar Chande Contrary Opinion / R.

Description An up-to-date look at point and figure charting from one of the foremost authorities in the field. If you're looking for an investment approach that has stood the test of time—during both bull and bear markets—and is easy enough to learn, whether you're an expert or aspiring investor, then Point and Figure Charting, Fourth Edition is the book for you. An up-to-date look at point and figure charting from one of the foremost authorities in the field. If you're looking for an investment approach that has stood the test of time—during both bull and bear markets—and is easy enough to learn, whether you're an expert or aspiring investor, then Point and Figure Charting, Fourth Edition is the book for you.

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Earl Hadady Cybernetic Trading Strategies / Murray A. Day Trader’s Manual / William F. Eng Dynamic Option Selection System / Howard L.

Simons Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns / Thomas Bulkowski Exchange Traded Funds and E-mini Stock Index Futures / David Lerman Expert Trading Systems / John R. Wolberg Fibonacci Applications / Robert Fischer Four Steps to Trading Success / John F. Clayburg Fundamental Analysis / Jack Schwager Genetic Algorithms and Investment Strategies / Richard J. Hedge Fund Edge / Mark Boucher Intermarket Technical Analysis / John J. Murphy Intuitive Trader / Robert Koppel Investor’s Quotient / Jake Bernstein Long-Term Secrets to Short-Term Trading / Larry Williams Managed Trading / Jack Schwager Mathematics of Money Management / Ralph Vince McMillan on Options / Lawrence G. McMillan Neural Network Time Series Forecasting of Financial Markets / E.

Michael Azoff New Market Timing Techniques / Thomas R. DeMark New Market Wizards / Jack Schwager New Money Management / Ralph Vince New Options Market, Fourth Edition / Max Ansbacher New Science of Technical Analysis / Thomas R. DeMark New Technical Trader / Tushar Chande and Stanley S.

Kroll New Trading Dimensions / Bill Williams Nonlinear Pricing / Christopher T. May Option Advisor / Bernie G. Schaeffer Option Market Making / Alan J. Baird Option Strategies, Second Edition / Courtney Smith Options Course / George A. Fontanills Options Course Workbook / George A. Fontanills CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page iii Outperform the Dow / Gunter Meissner and Randall Folsom Pattern, Price & Time / James A. Hyerczyk Point and Figure Charting, Second Edition / Thomas J.

Dorsey Schwager on Futures / Jack Schwager Seasonality / Jake Bernstein Stock Index Futures & Options / Susan Abbott Gidel Stock Market Course / George A. Fontanills and Tom Gentile Stock Market Course Workbook / George A. Fontanills and Tom Gentile Study Guide for Trading for a Living / Dr.

Alexander Elder Study Guide to Accompany Fundamental Analysis / Jack Schwager Study Guide to Accompany Technical Analysis / Jack Schwager Technical Analysis / Jack Schwager Technical Analysis of the Options Markets / Richard Hexton Technical Market Indicators / Richard J. Dahlquist Trader Vic II / Victor Sperandeo Trader’s Tax Solution / Ted Tesser Trading Applications of Japanese Candlesticks Charting / Gary Wagner and Brad Matheny Trading Chaos / Bill Williams Trading for a Living / Dr. Alexander Elder Trading Game / Ryan Jones Trading in the Zone / Ari Kiev, M.D. Trading Systems & Methods, Third Edition / Perry Kaufman Trading the Plan / Robert Deel Trading to Win / Ari Kiev, M.D. Trading with Crowd Psychology / Carl Gyllenram Trading with Oscillators / Mark Etzkorn Trading without Fear / Richard W. Ultimate Trading Guide / John Hill, George Pruitt, and Lundy Hill Value Investing in Commodity Futures / Hal Masover Visual Investor / John J.

Murphy CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page iv CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page v THE DAY TRADER’S COURSE Low-Risk, High Profit Strategies for Trading Stocks and Futures Lewis Borsellino with Patricia Crisafulli JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC. New York. Chichester. Weinheim. Brisbane. Singapore. Toronto CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page vi Copyright © 2001 by Lewis Borsellino and Patricia Crisafulli.

All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4744. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY, (212) 850-6011, fax (212) 850-6008, E-Mail: This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed by trademarks. In all instances where the author or publisher is aware of a claim, the product names appear in Initial Capital letters. Readers, however, should contact the appropriate companies for more complete information regarding trademarks and registration.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data: Borsellino, Lewis J., 1957– The day trader’s course / Lewis Borsellino with Patricia Crisafulli. Cm.—(Wiley trading) Includes index. ISBN 0-471-06515-3 1. Day trading (Securities) 2. Electronic trading of securities.

Crisafulli, Patricia. HG4515.95.B673 2001 332.64' 2'0285—dc304 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page vii For my wife, Julie, and my children: Joey, Briana, Anthony, Lewis, Nick, Jamie, and Nicole CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page viii CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page ix Acknowledgments Trading is a solitary endeavor. Whether you trade at home, in a trading room, or on the floor of an exchange, it’s you versus the market. But as a profession, trading is really a community. In this book, I wish to salute all the traders, brokers, and clerks who ever put on a jacket at the Chicago Merc and at our sister exchanges across the country.

I welcome into our profession the new breed of screen traders, who will help to revolutionize this business. I also want to thank the entire team at TeachTrade.com, specifically: my partner, Brad Sullivan; our technician, Jim Sebanc; Vince Allegra; Pat Tabet; and my cousin and friend, Bob Borsellino, as well as Brenda Hilfiker of DTN and our graphic artist Mark Smith.

And finally, I acknowledge my coauthor and TeachTrade.com site editor, Tricia Crisafulli. Without her talent, experience, and dedication, this book could not have been written. Ix CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page x CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page xi Preface Trading is a profession unlike any other. It requires a unique set of skills and requires discipline all its own. No matter what your background, personal or professional, when you begin trading you must start at step one.

My goal in writing this book is to give you an introduction into the discipline and techniques of trading. The lessons include the topics I feel are the most important for any trader, in any market: mental preparation, technical analysis, devising a trading plan, trade execution, and, above all, discipline. When I started trading some 20 years ago, I learned by working with and watching some of the best traders in the business. It was a different world then at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a place I’m proud to have called my professional home for two decades. Trading was done in the pit exclusively. The term “electronic trading” was not part of our vocabulary.

Today, the computer screen has brought the market to traders like you, wherever you are. This has made for profound changes in how futures and stocks trade, and will trade in the future.

But there are timeless lessons that are as valid today as they were 20 years ago and undoubtedly will be 20 years hence. This book contains those lessons, especially of the psychological and emotional variety, as well as the techniques we use to trade in some of the most active and volatile markets in the world—namely the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 and Nasdaq futures. Xi CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page xii xii PREFACE Trading is best learned by doing, especially with a mentor or guide to help you. While I can’t sit at your side (obviously) as you trade, I wanted to replicate the kind of teaching and coaching that we give the traders we bring on board at our company, TeachTrade.com. Seeing what we see in a chart, understanding our interpretation of the market, and dissecting our trade executions, I believe, will give you the best insight into what trading is all about. As you trade, you will also learn lessons about yourself, particularly how well you master your emotions, your ego, and your ability to take losses and to keep profits in perspective. And good trading.

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CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page xiii Contents 1 The Mental Game 1 2 Getting Started 21 3 Technical Analysis 101 53 4 Technical Analysis 102 75 5 The Myths, the Risks, and the Rewards 93 6 Intraday Dynamics 119 7 Stepping through the Trades 145 8 Trading the Nasdaq 161 9 After the Bell 179 RESOURCES Economic Calendar 197 Glossary 203 Useful Web Sites 217 Index 221 xiii CCC-Day Trade FM (i-xiv) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page xiv CCC-Day Trade 1 (1-74) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page 1 1 The Mental Game At first you thought it was going to be easy. You read the hype and hoopla that day trading would bring you the sun, moon, and stars. You opened an online account and jumped into trading with both feet. You scored on the first few trades. It seemed too easy to be true: You bought a stock.

You sold at a profit. What you didn’t realize, however, was that in 1999 the market as a whole was up.

As the old saying goes, “A rising tide raises all boats.” In this case, the market’s upward surge brought the majority of stocks with it. Then came the downturn. The Nasdaq Composite, the highflier that had posted nearly an 86 percent gain in 1999, ended 2000 with a loss of more than 39 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock cash index (S&Ps), the benchmark for individual stock and fund performance, declined 10 percent from the close of 1999 to the close of 2000. Even on the last trading day of the year—December 29, 2000—the Nasdaq Composite index dropped 63 points or 2.5 percent to 2493.

Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) and Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) led the way downward, with Cisco trading off 13/8 at 383/16 and Microsoft down 15/16 at 431/4. Tech Stocks Fall on Final Trading Day of Year 2000,” Reuters, December 29, 2000.) Blame the “tech wreck,” or recession fears, or overzealous activity 1 CCC-Day Trade 1 (1-74) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page 2 2 THE MENTAL GAME efforts by the Federal Reserve in 1999 to curb a runaway economy. Whatever the reason, the market was down. As all traders know, you can’t ignore the facts.

The price on the screen is as immutable as the fingerprints on your own hands. You can’t change the price by an act of will any more than you can make time stand still. And the fact was (and is) the much-touted new millennium raised far more questions about the new economy than Wall Street had answers.

The suffix “.com” no longer was a license to print money (or raise it from eager venture capitalists). “Flight to quality” meant out of Nasdaq and its dominant tech sector and into household names. Even a surprise rate cut early in 2001 by the Federal Reserve wasn’t enough to jump-start the markets and keep them running positively. As we write in first quarter 2001, the talk is of economic slowdown and the possibility of recession, with all eyes on Mr. Greenspan & Co. To bail us out.

Markets and leading stocks continue to struggle. Traders who had ridden on the bulls’ coattails are now nose-to-nose with the bear. In the trading arena, a bear market is what separates the amateurs from the pros. Put another way, welcome to the trader’s law of physics: What goes up must come down—often in gyrations and sometimes with ever-increasing volatility and for reasons that may confound you.

The result can be panic and confusion. Fearful of losing money, the uninitiated cling to positions that move increasingly into the red—until they face a margin call on a deflated stock or the brokerage house yanks them out of a futures position. Clearly, they have neglected the cardinal rule of trading: Always protect against losses. Profits take care of themselves. In this book I will address not only the how-to’s of technical analysis and trade execution, but, more important, the mental discipline that must be a part of every trade.

You can never underestimate the mental side of trading, whether you’re placing your first order through a broker or you’ve been trading successfully for years. Discipline is as much a part of my trading plan today as it was when I first walked onto the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange 20 years ago. It was a different world then.

In 1981, stock index futures had not CCC-Day Trade 1 (1-74) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page 3 THE MENTAL GAME 3 been launched as yet at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where I still trade today. I started out as a 22-year-old runner and clerk at the “Merc,” an apprentice to Maury Kravitz, a major trader in those days at the exchange. After a few months, I became a broker, filling customer orders in the gold futures pit, a contract that is no longer traded in Chicago. Later, I traded for my own account and filled orders, since dual-trading was allowed at the Merc in those days. It was a tough learning curve for me just as it was—and is—for every beginning trader.

Your expectation is that you’ll make money at this, because you want to make money. But don’t be discouraged if you don’t see any profit the first year.

In fact, if you can just cover your cost of trading the first year, you should consider yourself a success. The most important lesson for you, particularly in the first year, is to learn how to take losses—quickly, with a clear head, and without panic. In my first year of trading, I was barely able to cover my costs.

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I had to take a job at night to support myself. I nearly gave up, I was so discouraged. What I couldn’t see then was that I was gaining a valuable education in the University of the Market that would serve me well over the years. Then, when a lucky out-trade (see Glossary) netted me a windfall of $57,000, I had ample capital for the first time. I headed to the hot new pit at the Merc—the S&P futures pit—and I never left. But I went to that market a wiser trader. I had withstood the test of the market.

I had endured losses and kept my head when I made profit. Today, I trade in the S&P pit on the floor of the Merc for an hour or two a day. Then, I trade or monitor my position at the screen at my Chicago-based trading firm, where I also run an educational and market commentary web site for traders, TeachTrade.com. I’ve gone through a lot of change as a trader. But one thing that remains constant is the psychological side of trading.

Trading is a mental game. The emotional and psychological aspects of trading can never be overlooked or underestimated. For one thing, there is the motivation of trading. (Yeah, you say to yourself, it’s money, right?) Well, if it were only the money, then most of us would have found something else to do. If you doubt that, consider the failure rate of traders. In equities, those who try day trading last about six months.

In futures, CCC-Day Trade 1 (1-74) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page 4 4 THE MENTAL GAME the average life span is about three months, although trading activity dwindles significantly in the latter two months. The one thing I know about trading is that it’s infectious.

Once you’ve made a couple of trades and turned a profit, it gets into your blood. The most successful traders I’ve known live and breathe trading and the markets. The money is part of it, to be sure. But a bigger part is the adrenaline rush you get from the market. You can also tell this from the retail side of the trading business with average investors and speculators who trade through a broker. Many times beginning traders who try their hand at this will lose their capital, but they don’t close their accounts. They leave a small amount to keep them open, and as soon as they get some more capital to trade, they try again.

Now, before you tell yourself that this won’t happen to you, that you’ll somehow beat the odds, remember that the success rate among traders is slim. The only way to improve your chances of survival— and there is no guarantee—is with education. That is the purpose of The Day Trader’s Course. Whether you trade stocks, futures, or even options, you must have a carefully executed plan. You shouldn’t buy because you heard a tip at the health club or on television.

Your trades ought to be the result of the execution of your plan. And if your trade goes against you, the next step is a reexamination of that plan to learn what went wrong and what you’ll do differently next time. The foundation of this plan is technical analysis, which will be addressed at length in later chapters. But the quality that must be developed and maintained—first, last, and always—is discipline. More than an analytical mind and the ability to make quick decisions, discipline is an attribute that will keep you in the trading game.

Discipline allows you to make the best decisions based on the market conditions (not your ego, your need to make money, or your fear of loss). And discipline will allow you to execute your trades according to plan, including getting stopped out of a trade. There are highs and lows in trading equivalent to those experienced in a competitive sporting event. When you’re trading, it’s the ultimate David versus Goliath situation, for it is truly you versus the market. Whether you’re a one-lot trader or an institution swinging around CCC-Day Trade 1 (1-74) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page 5 THE MENTAL GAME 5 1,000-contract positions, you are still in competition with the marketplace at large. When you place that trade, you are putting everything on the line—not only the money involved in that trade, but your research and analysis, your decision-making process, and your execution. You will face the ego challenge of knowing that, at least some of the time, you will be wrong.

Each time you trade, you are weighing the success and/or failure of your plan. And if you do have a profitable trade, the challenge then becomes even harder: You must not allow your ego to be clouded by your financial success so that you can’t keep a clear sight on your plan. What you savor is not the money that you’ve made, but rather the fact that you’ve successfully executed your plan. If you don’t think this kind of successful challenge is the primary motivating factor, ask anyone who has launched or built a business. Entrepreneurs will tell you that the payoff was not the money they made, but the fact that they were successful in conceiving, developing, and merchandising an idea. And, as in trading, it all started with a plan. The first step in drafting that plan begins long before the market opens and you sit down to trade.

It begins with your psychological preparedness. You couldn’t launch yourself into trading without this kind of conditioning any more than you’d set out for a cross-country run without stretching exercises. When I discuss trading, I use a lot of sports analogies because of the parallels of intensity, physical and mental demands, ego control, risks, and rewards. For traders, this preparation is a daily routine that will be a personal ritual.

For me, that means an hour workout in my home gym or, when the weather is fair, an hour at the golf course chipping balls onto the green. Your choice of preparation may be jogging, meditation, yoga, tai-chi, or whatever. But there must be an activity—I prefer a physical one—that tells your mind, “Okay, it’s time to get ready for trading. The rest of my life has to be put aside for now.” You can’t trade effectively during times of personal problems, disruptions, or distractions. If something is weighing on your mind— whether it’s an illness in the family or even a positive event such as buying a new house or the birth of a child—it can and will affect your trading.

If you can’t sufficiently clear your mind, you won’t be able to CCC-Day Trade 1 (1-74) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page 6 6 THE MENTAL GAME apply unwavering concentration to your trading. Better just to do your homework for that day, watching the market, studying the charts and indicators, than to put your money on the line. If you decide to trade, reduce your trade size so that you have less at risk. Don’t bemoan the big money you could have made; be glad you had the discipline to limit your exposure. The backbone of mental discipline is to focus on the trade, not the money.

This isn’t easy for the novice or even the professional trader. In fact, professional traders face a special breed of mental demon, born of their own successes.

I’ve wrestled with these demons on more than one occasion. The problem comes when you know you can make money, and a good deal of it, by trading. You’ve had five-figure and six-figure days. So when the money pressure is on, you think you can work your magic in the market.

Your focus shifts from making a good trade to making good money. The result is almost always disaster. As we’ll discuss in Chapter 5, you have to trade what the market gives you, which will play a large role in your profit potential on any given day.

What occurs is usually something like this: You go into the market saying, “I’m going to make a lot of money today.” Or maybe you say, “I need to make a lot of money today,” either to make up for previous losses, to put a down payment on a bigger house, or to buy that boat/car/vacation property/whatever that you’ve always wanted. Complicating this factor is that you know you’ve had big days in the past. But, if you examine them, those big days were the result of market opportunities that you reaped for large profits. Put another way, you successfully executed a plan that, coupled with market conditions that you analyzed properly, yielded a profit.

But if those market conditions do not exist—if the market is thin in terms of volume or participation, rangebound, or quiet—then you may be forcing trades that won’t materialize. You’ll trade too big or too frequently and risk too much. Instead of big profits, you may end up with the exact opposite. Your goal is to develop a positive mental attitude and to have confidence in your ability to make good trades and to move quickly beyond the losing trades. CCC-Day Trade 1 (1-74) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page 7 THE MENTAL GAME 7 Legends, Language, and Lore of Traders As you trade, you will face your own personal demons. There is greed and its best friend, fear. And of course there is ego.

Now, to trade you have to have a sense of confidence and the ability to make a decision, which may be the by-product of a good, healthy ego. But beware of letting your ego become so big that it clouds your judgment and skews your decision making. Here’s a case in point: In the early part of 1987, at the age of 30, I made $4.5 million trading my own money. I was trading with such size that all the order fillers came to me. I was used to trading big, and everybody in the pit knew it—and my ego liked that. The problem was, after the crash of October 1987, liquidity dried up considerably. As a result, I was trading too big for the market.

In the end, I made about $100,000—before expenses—trading, and I had huge swings in profitability that year. That’s when I learned a valuable lesson about trading what the market gives you. I couldn’t fling around hundreds of contracts just to satisfy my ego or because people in the pit expected that of me. I had to trade what suited both my own plan and the market conditions. After that, my trading was noticeably back on track. In my career, I’ve seen so many talented young traders blow it because they lacked the discipline or the ability to take on risk. Either they took on too much risk and lost all their capital in one or a few trades, or they became the proverbial deer in the headlights when it came to risk.

The underlying factor was they failed at the mental game of trading. The singular problem was a focus on the money and not on the trade. But admittedly, it’s a tough lesson to become unemotional about money. In my own experience there have been times when I’ve been up $17,000 and I’d like to make $3,000 more—just to have a nice round profit number of $20,000. So, I keep trading for the extra $3,000— even though the market may have quieted down and there are no longer that many opportunities to trade. When I’m on the floor, that CCC-Day Trade 1 (1-74) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page 8 8 THE MENTAL GAME absence of volume is palpable. When the market is busy, the S&P pit is packed with people—about 500 of them—all shouting, screaming, waving their arms, and gesturing wildly with their hands.

When it’s quiet, the noise level and activity are far less. And when it’s dead. Well, I’ve seen times when traders have tossed a nerf football around the pit they’re so bored.

When the market conditions don’t warrant—on their own—an objective reason to trade, it’s better to quit for the day. Sticking around just to make some more money is not a good motivation.

There have been times when, trying to make another $3,000, I lose the $17,000 I had in the first place. Then there are the days when I’m down, say, $15,000. I’ll stay in the pit to make it back, even though I know I should cut my losses, take a break, and regroup. The temptation, even after all these years, is to stay in the pit and keep trading to make it back—even though the market conditions aren’t there. The problem is that by focusing on the money and losing sight of the trading conditions I am at a higher risk for further loss.

What I’m trying to tell you candidly is that even after 20 years and much success, I still fight these demons. In fact, it’s a bigger mistake for an experienced trader to think that he or she won’t face them. The best days happen when a trader is prepared and the market presents opportunities that can be capitalized upon. The more volatility, the more opportunity to make money. Day traders and short-term traders live on volatility. But when ranges are tight, volume is light, and the market is slow, it’s not worth the time—or the risk—to trade. The opportunity just isn’t there.

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One of the signs of experience for a trader is to know when to trade. And when to wait.

Overtrading, chasing the market, risk and reward out of balance—all of which we’ll discuss in later chapters— are pitfalls that await every trader, no matter how experienced. There are simply days—and times—when it’s best to sit on the sidelines. You study the market on days like that, keeping your mind in—but your money out. For example, you may find it’s better to be on the sidelines the day before a Federal Reserve meeting—and the market CCC-Day Trade 1 (1-74) 9/11/01 12:55 PM Page 9 THE MENTAL GAME 9 is anticipating some kind of interest-rate action—and the morning of the day the Fed will make its announcement. It may not be easy to make yourself sit on the sidelines.

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If you have a regular day job—with a salary, benefits, and the security that you’ll be paid on Friday—it’s not so difficult to take a day off. If you’re sick or you take a personal day, you may be a little busier when you go back, going through the voice mail and sifting through the e-mail, or maybe putting in another hour or so to make a deadline. But you’ll still get paid. When you don’t trade, however, you don’t have the chance to make money. For beginning traders, the temptation is to be in the market all the time. The more they trade, they tell themselves, the more money they’ll make.

But, as I outlined earlier, you must be in the market at the most opportune times. Because if the timing is wrong or your mental discipline isn’t there, then you’re faced with the possibility that the more you trade, the more you’ll lose. That’s a harder lesson to grasp than you might think. For one thing, the lure of making money—big money—is very strong in trading.

And those who are new to the game usually have the fever; they want to trade. I remember when I was starting out, and over the years I’ve trained many young traders in the pit. More recently, we’ve brought some aspiring young screen-traders into B&S Trading (for Borsellino and Sullivan), the day-to-day operation of which is overseen by my partner, Brad Sullivan, one of the most talented traders I’ve ever had the privilege to work with.

Over the years, I’ve met countless wanna-be traders. Too many of them end up being a casualty statistic because they underestimate what they’re up against. It doesn’t matter what your professional background is—you could be a doctor, a lawyer, a nuclear scientist— trading is an entirely different endeavor that requires a unique set of disciplines, techniques, and strategies that must be learned and employed to trade. Here’s an analogy that may prove to be helpful. When I learned to play golf, I was told that this was a “game of misses.” No one—not even a pro—hits a perfect shot every time.

But the difference between pros and the rest of us is that the pros’ misses are slight compared with Comments.