Are you a short-term position trader, long-term position trader or a day trader? Knowing your trading style or preference might be the most useful when formulating your next trade.

The short-term and long-term trader is looking for a defined trend.  They look for a price that would be the turning point that would take the trend from up to down to sideways, or vice versa using key support and resistance numbers to place strategic stops and profit targets.

The day trader uses the same key numbers but does not necessarily follow the trend. Key example:  Today the trend for the indices is down.  Short-term and long-term position traders are holding short positions from the higher levels made last week.  Day traders, on the other hand, came in today looking to trade these markets from the long side, buying along key intraday support levels.  The same support and resistance numbers used by the position traders can be used by the day trader as well even though they have different objectives.  If the day trade longs make money today, that does not mean the position traders are wrong.  Those who do not want to take the overnight exposure or put up the full margin (day traders pay 50% of the full margin) to trade these markets, may want to take a look at the intraday opportunities no matter what the trend may be.

888-861-1584312-373-4991Series 3 Licensed

Laura Taylor

Senior Market Strategist
Laura began her career in the financial industry in 1981. In 1985 Laura and some former colleagues developed and organized a new IB division at Index Futures Group. With a partner, she named the division (Brokers Resource Corp.), developed the client base and supervised a staff that serviced guaranteed and non-guaranteed IBs located across the country. She developed the in-house procedures manual and conducted on-site compliance audits. I was also one of the original co-founders of the National IB Association (NIBA) and hosted the very first NIBA conference in Chicago. After Index Futures Group sold their IB division Laura stayed on to manage the new accounts department as vice president of operations and then became their director of compliance. In 1996, as part of ED&F Man, Laura decided to venture into a new role in the commodity industry by putting her AP license to work by developing a client base as a commodities broker. Laura joined RJO Futures in 2011 where she enjoys being a senior commodities broker assisting clients with their trading decisions, the execution of their trades and specializing in automated trading for newsletter and hotline subscribers.
Read More