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    The Day Trading Illusion
    The Day Trading Illusion
    The Day Trading Illusion
    Ebook96 pages1 hour

    The Day Trading Illusion

    By Ken Bednar

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The author explains why day trading is a losing proposition for 90% of the traders who try it. Surprised? The author gives a detailed explanation along with facts and testimony to verify that most day traders will lose a significant amount or all of their trading account within six months to a year. The author delves briefly into some of the emotional aspects a trader may experience that may affect them and all around them. He explains that there is a "trading establishment" promoting the illusion that day trading or stock trading in general, is an easy way that anyone can make money by trading the stock market at home on their computer. He questions why there are thousands of books on how to trade the stock market written by authors who can not guarantee anything but make a royalty fee on every book they sell. The author wrote this book to give a true perspective on what to expect when day trading or short term trading the stock market. He does not try to discourage anyone from trading, merely to know what to expect if they do decide to lose their money this way. The book explores what moves the market and why most of the books, indicators and trading systems are designed to purposefully keep you confused. He explores briefly how the Federal Reserve is responsible for every boom and bust cycle since its inception. The author writes with a little humor, and a lot of facts and analogies to make the book interesting from front cover to back cover.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKen Bednar
    Release dateMar 24, 2013
    ISBN9781301573028
    The Day Trading Illusion
    Author

    Ken Bednar

    Ken holds Degrees in Business Management and Electrical Engineering. He has traded in the stock market for over 25 years After Ken retired he day traded professionally for 5 years. During his trading career he has witnessed the internet revolution and dangerous day trading frenzy. Ken continues to trade in the stock market but on a much longer time frame than day trading.

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    Reviews for The Day Trading Illusion

    3.5/5

    23 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 5/5
      Naked truth about day trading which "eyes wide shut" traders refuse to see.
    • 1/5
      Rule of 80:20 works in everything,80% losers are necessary for 20% to thrive,,Even a top trader/investor has 80 wrong trades/investment picks,but his 20 picks gains makes him forget his 80 losers out of 100.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      The book explains in a merciless truth about day trading. I have 5 years of life in daytrading and I fully agree with the claims made by the author by having lived (alas) directly. A must read for those interested in day trading

      3 people found this helpful

    Book preview

    The Day Trading Illusion - Ken Bednar

    THE DAY TRADING ILLUSION

    A DREAMERS NIGHTMARE

    Ken Bednar

    Smashwords Edition

    Copyright © 2013 Ken Bednar

    License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    Cover Design by Laura Shinn

    Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

    Table of Contents

    FOREWORD

    CHAPTER 1: DAY TRADING EXPLORED

    CHAPTER 2: STUDIES AND REPORTS

    CHAPTER 3: THE LURE OF DAY-TRADING

    CHAPTER 4: MARKET MOVERS

    CHAPTER 5: THE INDICATOR FALLACY

    CHAPTER 6: TRADING SYSTEMS DEBUNKED

    Elliott Wave

    Trend Day Trading Systems

    Breakout Trading Systems

    Countertrend Day trading Systems

    Scalping Day Trading Systems

    Options and Spreads

    CHAPTER 7: ONLINE SEMINARS & VIDEOS

    CHAPTER 8: SUMMARY

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    FOREWORD

    All prospective day traders fantasize about leading an exciting life day trading from home (or anywhere for that matter), being their own boss and making a lot of money. This is the dream.

    As they research day trading, they are bombarded with ads, videos, books and hundreds of websites offering to make them successful and wealthy by day trading. This is the illusion.

    About 85% to 90% of these dreamers end up losing all their money. This is the nightmare.

    I wrote this book to inform you that you only have about a 10 % chance of making any money if you day trade the stock market. Chances are that you bought a book or some Internet course on day trading to make your dream come true. I am not here to talk you out of your dream. I am here to share information and common experiences that you most likely will not see anywhere else on day trading. In order to make an intelligent informed decision regarding day trading, you should have as much information on the subject as you can.

    There are about four to five million day traders in the United States at any given time. They come and they go as they lose all their money. Most come into the game with high expectations and leave frustrated, depressed and with a drained trading account.

    As I researched this topic I looked at hundreds of books on day trading. I could not find a single book that explained the ugly truth about the risks and results that most day traders will experience.

    Day trading is an abyss. Most day traders get lost and never find their way out as they go from one trading system to another trying to win. If after reading this book you still want to day trade, you do so knowing the possible consequences.

    There is nothing wrong with being a dreamer. In fact, dreamers are who made America great. It is great to dream of a better life, but when that dream turns into a nightmare, you better wake up. Please bear in mind that this book was written for anyone day trading or thinking about day trading. There will be experienced traders reading this book as well as people who are just starting to learn about trading. Terminology has to be acceptable to both. Many times it will seem that points are redundant but that is only to emphasize the importance.

    CHAPTER 1

    DAY TRADING EXPLORED

    It is ironic that in order to write a book about Not Trading, we have to talk about trading. When it comes to day trading, it is all about the time frames, indicators, and the multitude of different trading systems you will use in your quest to be successful. Although the book deals generally with day trading, the fact is that trading in itself and in all time durations is a losing proposition for most traders.

    A day trader is usually defined as someone who initiates a trade or several trades in a single day. They usually base their trading decisions off of a smaller time frame chart. The smaller the time frame chart, the more trading opportunities a trader will have. The more trades a trader initiates the more commissions they will pay. Stockbrokers and trading platforms love day traders for this very reason.

    The fast pace of the really small time frames like the 333 tick for example has price printing on a chart extremely fast and trading decisions have to be made in a split second. A trader can be in and out of a trade within minutes. By contrast the 5-minute time frame has price printing on a chart much slower and trading decisions can be thought out to a greater degree. The longer the time frame that is traded, the longer it takes for most setups to materialize. Trading a longer term chart like the 5 or10 minute for example, it is possible to hold a trade most of the day, providing you do not hold the trade overnight. If you do hold overnight this is short term swing trading but can still be classified as pattern day trading.

    Time frames are tricky and confusing. You can be in a downtrend on the 1-minute chart and in an up trend on the 5-minute chart. If you use two or more time frames in your trading, one can give a buy signal at the same time the other is giving a sell signal.

    Most day traders use somewhere between the tick chart and the 10-minute chart for their trading decisions. The shorter the time frame the more trades a trader can make because there are simply more of whatever setups you are looking for to initiate a trade. Some day traders look at two or more time frames. Usually it will be a smaller time frame and a longer time frame. The idea being that you would want to trade the smaller time frame chart in the direction of the longer time frame chart. So now we have a basic idea of what a day trader is. Let's look at why people decide to try this risky business of day trading. Remember that they are falling for an illusion.

    Starting a traditional business the right way takes a lot of capital and a lot of work. You will have all kinds of regulations, overhead, taxes, employee concerns, book keeping, and so on. What your looking for is a way to make money with very little start up capital and very little red tape. You have heard many success stories of people making money in the stock market, so you think day trading is a viable avenue to achieve your dream. All you need is a small amount of money to open a trading account and you are ready to conquer the world of day trading. Seems simple enough.

    You are absolutely positive that everyone is making boatloads of money day trading, or else there would not be so many people doing it. There would not be so many books promoting it, and there would not be so many trading

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