Acknowledgments xi
Introduction You Are Already a Commodity Trader 1
My Most Important Market Belief 4
The Beginning of My Career as a Speculator 5
The Ride of a Lifetime 8
Chapter 1 Making Order Out of Short-Term Chaos 9
How I Learned about the Market 9
Charting the Market 11
The Nonrandom Market 13
Understanding Market Structure 15
Market Structure Will Never Change 21
Short-Sell Pattern 27
Target Time and Trailing Stops 28
Recap 32
Chapter 2 It's a Question of Price and Time 33
All You Will Ever Need to Know about Cycles 33
The Natural Cycle of Range Change 39
Where the Trend Is with You-The Second Power-Play Price Pattern 50
Recap 54
Chapter 3 The Real Secret to Short-Term Trading 59
It's All about Time 61
Bankrolling Hotshot Traders 62
Proving the Point 65
How to Make the Most Money 68
Recap 70
Chapter 4 Volatility Breakouts-The Momentum Breakthrough 71
Simple Daily Range Breakouts 76
A Look at Volatility in the S&P 500 80
Separating Buyers from Sellers to Find Volatility Using Market Swings 95
Results 96
One Step Further 97
Recap 98
Chapter 5 The Theory of Short-Term Trading 99
What Is Wrong about the Information Age 103
E H Harriman's Rule of Making Millions 104
Recap 105
Chapter 6 Getting Closer to the Truth 107
The Market Is Not a Coin Flip: Random Walk or Cootner versus Cohen (Cohen Wins) 108
Gold TDOM Study 117
Bond TDOM Study 118
Monthly Road Maps 120
Recap 123
Chapter 7 Patterns to Profit 125
The Common Element 126
The Questions to Ask 131
My Smash Day Patterns 132
How to Use Smash Day Patterns 136
Specialists' Trap 137
A Vital Note-This Works on Shorter Time Frames as Well 141
Oops! This Is Not a Mistake 145
S&P Oops! Trading 151
Recap 152
Chapter 8 Separating the Buyers from the Sellers 153
Greatest Swing Value 155
Stock Index Trading with Greatest Swing Value 156
Some Pointers 160
Recap 161
Chapter 9 Short-Term Trading from a Quote Screen 163
How a Quote-Screen Trader Makes Money 165
Swing Points as Trend Change Indication 166
The Three-Bar High/Low System 167
A New Indicator for Short-Term Traders: Willspread 170
Willspread and the S&P 500 Stock Index 174
Recap 180
Chapter 10 Special Short-Term Situations 181
Month-End Trading in Stock Indexes 181
Target Months 184
Making It Better 184
Month-End Trading in the Bond Market 186
Getting Specific 187
Better and Better 188
A Time to Sell 191
Recap 193
Chapter 11 When to Get Out of Your Trades 195
Chapter 12 Thoughts on the Business of Speculation 197
Exits before Entries 197
What Speculation Is All About 200
It's about Time 201
Essential Points about Speculation 202
Recap 215
Chapter 13 Money Management-The Keys to the Kingdom 217
Most Traders Use a Hit-and-Miss Approach 218
Approaches to Money Management-One Is Right for You 218
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Money Management 219
Looking in New Directions, Drawdown as an Asset 222
Back to Ralph: 2011 Money Management Breakthrough 228
The Kelly Ratio Mirage 229
Recap 233
Chapter 14 From Kennedy to Obama, Thoughts from 50 Years of Trading 235
Trading and Collecting Honey 236
Low-Hanging Fruit 237
Look before You Leap 238
Remember the Game Called Pick Up Sticks 238
And It Can Get Worse by Far 239
Lock-Up Time 240
Enough on Greed Now Let's Deal with Fear 241
Running, Trading, and Losing 242
Doing the Wrong Thing It's So Easy, Isn't It? 242
It's Not the Trade, It's the Battle 243
The Art of Fly-Fishing Revisited 244
Fear and Greed, Looking Them in the Face Again 245
Why Most Traders Lose Most of the Time 246
A Review of Losing Trades Showed That 247
The Number One Reason We Lose Money Trading 247
The Most Important Trading Belief You Have 248
The Worst Dog I Ever Had Cost Me the Most 249
Athletics Are Such a Parallel to Trading 251
What Causes Stock and Commodity Market Trends 251
How to Measure the Public versus the Pros 253
Folks, It Just Can't Be Done 254
The Rush of Trading 255
Beating Them to the Punch 257
It's Just Over My Head 259
I Looked Fear and Greed in the Face 259
The Show Must Go On 260
Broken Noses, Cauliflower Ears, and Bad Trades 261
Learning How to Lose Money 262
Hillary, High Hopes, and Heartaches 263
Nervous Nellies-Heaven Bound 264
Secrets of System Developing and Trading 265
The Difference between Winners and Losers 266
Recap 268
Chapter 15 Just What Does Make the Stock Market Rally? 269
Logic 101 270
These Words Are My Bond 270
A Look at Data A and Data B 270
Let's Break Some Bad Habits 273
How to Break Bad Habits 273
Comments on Setting Stops-Dollar Loss and Unpredictability 275
An Overview of How I Trade 278
My Trading Strategy How It Works 282
Recap 285
Chapter 16 Hard Facts about a Very Hard Game to Win 287
It Is Just Like Life 289
Maybe You Are Not Cut Out for This 292
You Are in a Tough Spot 293
But There's a Little Bit More 294
In Closing 295
Index 297
