This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach

At various times over the life of this column, I've profiled a "day in the life" of GBS. Frankly, and thankfully, it hasn't changed much.

I normally get up at around 6:30 a.m., and the only thing of note is that I rarely use an alarm. Long-time readers will remember I'm a big proponent of sleep and its restorative effects on the mind and body. So, I go to bed fairly early and generally get eight or nine hours of sack time.

Over the past few years, my breakfast routine has been pretty consistent. Over the hour after I wake, I have a bagel, a cup of black coffee and three newspapers: The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Each has a slightly different role. In the Post I read the sports and "lifestyle" section (yes, the gossip and TV stuff!). In the Times, I read the business section. It's kind of like the Cliff Notes of business. In the Journal, I glance at the front page, and then read the op-ed section. After two liberal papers, I need that conservative balance.

The key note here, though, is that I don't search for picks or look for a story behind any stock. In fact, my trading for the day is not influenced at all by what I read. It's taken me years to get to that point, though, so it's not a bad idea for some to put the papers aside until after you make your morning trades.

I download the closing data each night to do my newsletter, but I always do a final download at 7:30 the next morning because TC/2000 scrubs its data overnight, and has final volumes and such. A cable modem allows me to download and update all the charts in less than a minute, but booting up my PC takes about five minutes.

From 7:35 a.m. to 7:50 a.m. my TC/2000 algorithms do the bulk of the scanning, and I'm left to pick longs and shorts from about 100 stocks. I know exactly what I'm looking for by this point, so it doesn't take much longer than 15 minutes to figure out my longs and shorts.

For the next 10 minutes, I use a spreadsheet I have set up so that when I enter the closing price it computes my lot size based on my closing equity. I then cut and paste the order from the spreadsheet and email it to my broker.

I usually get a confirmation back at 8:15 a.m. that he's received it, and that's basically it until 9:30 a.m., when I note my fills and set my quote screens to give me exit alerts. I've gotten to the point where I use primarily mental stops. That will yield a horrendous trade now and then, but I also avoid the slippage that comes with hard stops. (For most traders, though, I do recommend hard stops, as you don't want to live through a nasty pounding unless you're really ready for it.)

Intraday my schedule is free. In the spring and summer, I'm rarely around past 10 a.m. and before 3 p.m. In the winter, though, I'm in the house pretty much all day. It does take me a few hours to put together this column and the newsletter, so I do writing and email from 8:15 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. I'll also note any alerts that go off during the day so that I can close the position the next morning. Shorts, though, I will try to exit at end of day if a stop is hit.

I'm back in front of my PC by the close 99% of the time. This is less to note the closing action than to get started on the newsletter, which I try to have done and out the door by 5 p.m.

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After I send the newsletter out, I do little reflection about the day or what I did unless I screw up on my execution. But, since I'm pretty mechanical, that rarely happens. Again, my trading is just odds and percentages. Does a good poker player reflect on his full house losing to four Kings? No, he bet accordingly, and then after that, it's just a matter of the cards falling the right way.

That's not to say I like a bad day. I do mark-to-market and get annoyed when I take a beating. But if I've done everything right all that's really left is to sigh and admit that the market got me that day. But I'll be back the next day. It's all just routine.

And that's it. No flashiness, no heroics, no fireworks. I tell people I treat trading like my college years working the graveyard shift at a cardboard box factory. I filled up my Thermos with coffee, packed a sandwich, punched in at 11 p.m. and punched out at 7 a.m., with little thought other than not hurting myself during the night. And then the next day I did it all over again. Mindless execution is what I call it, and given how hard trading is, it's the best way to achieve a long-lasting tenure in this profession.

Tomorrow, a few thoughts on trading for a living.

Today, the Nasdaq, Kinetic Concepts (KCI Quote), Monaco Coach (MNC Quote), Chesapeake Energy (CHK Quote), Hawaiian Electric (HE Quote) and Qualcomm (QCOM Quote).

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Charts produced by TC2000, which is a registered trademark of Worden Brothers Inc.

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And that is the final word from Toronto, where the silence regarding the NHL is deafening. The league could never come back, and I'm not sure anyone would notice. Shoot, even the Canadians don't seem to care!

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