The Strategic Electronic Day Trader

Anyone with a computer can day trade, but day trading clearly isn't for every one. In fact, as Robert Deel makes clear in The Strategic Electronic Day Trader, only a very few who try it will survive and prosper. Deel, who has trained thousands of traders in the last decade, says 92 percent will lose money in the first two years, and only 2 percent will make money on a consistent basis. He compares the challenge to war: "Most battles are won or lost in the preparation stage, long before the first shot is fired. Trading is high-tech warfare. Never underestimate your opponents. Remember, if you are not the marksman, you are the target."

The first six chapters explain what every day trader needs to know: how to read the NASDAQ level-two screen; order routing, execution methods, and rules; and trading through the Electronic Communications Networks (ECNs). Included are sections on charting and technical indicators with specific advice for adapting these to very short-term trading strategies. Deel shows how to create screens and filters to identify high probability/profitability trades, and he discusses the best times of the day to trade and when and how to go short. Also included is a section on recommended hardware configurations and proper setup of the trading environment.

In final chapters, Deel describes "the biomechanical trader" who prepares for battle through an intense process of mental training and conditioning that includes biofeedback, meditation, visualization, and hypnosis. This is a practical, easily understood presentation of what it takes to be one of the few who will succeed as marksmen. --Scott Harrison