la descrizione della propria giornata tipo di Gary B. Smith - gz
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By: GZ on Mercoledì 17 Marzo 2004 20:44
Qualcuno ha letto oggi la descrizione della propria giornata tipo di Gary B. Smith su TheStreet.com ?
Si alza presto, guarda i grafici (solo grafici), prepara gli ordini prima dell'apertura e li invia per mail al broker, poi va a giocare a golf, a vedere le figlie che si allenano per il nuoto o altro sport, scrive una colonna per il sito con il portatile che lo tiene collegato se deve controllare, va a pranzo e fa pure la siesta.
Senza mai guardare cosa fa il mercato durante la giornata perche' usa solo i grafici e solo quelli giornalieri, i movimenti in tempo reale li ignora, ignora le notizie e ignora tutti i fatti economici. Usa solo alcuni andamenti grafici e li prepara in un ora tutte le mattine e poi mette gli ordini e ha finito di lavorare.
Ovvio che non è un gestore e che così si limita a gestire dei propri soldi, ma dopo anni ha imparato, ha un feeling per cui ha rendimenti positivi
Una volta faceva il tecnico all'IBM. E' incredibile che nella nostra era sia possibile vivere cose' bene grazie alla tecnologia e ai mercati finanziari (anche se io lo troverei troppo lento, diciamo che è adatto quando sei in pensione).
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A Day in the Life of
The Chartman
By Gary B. Smith
Special to RealMoney.com
3/17/2004 8:26 AM EST
URL: http://www.thestreet.com/p/rmoney/techforumrm/10149091.html
Technical Analysis BULLISH
Hovnanian readies for another leg up.
Disney may eventually touch $24.
GM gets back to its weekly uptrend line.
Following on from Tuesday's column, the question is: What does my typical day look like? Is it a dream life where I can kick back after a few minutes of trading and spend the rest of the day working on my short game? That is, when I'm not mixing up the next batch of martinis? Usually at this point, the writer is obligated to say that's all a fantasy and it's nothing but work, work, work. However, what I wrote above isn't far off -- save the martinis, of course. Yuck!
(After I take you through my day, I'll take you through today's charts, including Nasdaq, Hovnanian Enterprises (HOV:NYSE) , Disney (DIS:NYSE) , General Motors (GM:NYSE) , Nike (NKE:NYSE) and General Mills (GIS:NYSE) .)
My first rule is that I sleep in as late as I need. I am a firm believer in the restorative powers of at least eight -- preferably nine -- hours of slumber, so I never set the alarm clock. Because I go to bed so early, I rarely sleep past 6:30 a.m., so it's never a problem. (This differs from my habits in the past, when both my girls had early-morning swim practice. Then I'd be up at the ungodly hour of 4 a.m.!)
Also, I have a big advantage in that my kids are old enough to fend for themselves and are pretty much out the door by the time I start moving. Translation: I can have a cup of coffee in peace! In any event, I usually skim The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and I spend a few minutes with The Washington Post. If I'm in a hurry, though, I go right to The New York Times business section, as it pretty much captures whatever I need to know businesswise. (Which is, frankly, not much. In fact, if I didn't do TV every week, I'd probably read the sports section exclusively. However, business anchors have an annoying habit of asking me things in the business world that I suppose I should know.)
I'm generally at my desk by 7:30 a.m., and the first thing I do is download my email. A package called Mailwasher quickly allows me to delete all my spam and viruses without downloading the actual email into Outlook. That makes my final email dump pretty straightforward.
I answer some email at that time, but because I get so much of it throughout the day, I tend to tackle it in bits and pieces. All told, email takes me almost as long as all my writing combined!
At about 8 a.m., I'm ready to do that day's trades, but it's fairly straightforward. TC/2000 does the scans for me, and I look at about 50 stocks. I pretty much know what I'm looking for, so it's just a matter of entering my orders and emailing them to my broker. I use email, by the way, instead of direct entry for my orders, as more than once my broker has caught an error I've made. Typically, it's an incorrect lot size -- I originally bought 4,700 shares and I incorrectly want to sell 5,700 -- or something like an incorrect symbol. The extra commission cost is well worth the money.
After my orders are in, generally by 8:30 a.m., I answer some more emails, make a stab at starting both the newsletter and column, and generally screw around until the open.
Once the weather turns warmer, I'll move my schedule up a bit and try to be on the first tee at 7:30 a.m. That way, I can play 18 holes in a little more than two hours and be back almost in time for the open. It's helpful that my commute to the golf course is all of five minutes, and during the week, the pros will let me skate out early and cruise around alone.
By 9:30 a.m., I'm mostly done trading for the day. I get my fills, enter any limit or stop orders I need and then have the day free until about 3 p.m. What do I do during that time? At some point, I write the bulk of the next day's column, getting everything down except the charts. I also flesh out the text of that day's newsletter, saving the picks and charts for postclose, of course.
Still, the meat of the day is mine, and what I do depends on the season. Starting in March, I drive down to the Potomac at about 3 p.m. to watch my girls row. That's the fabulous thing about having a wireless modem. I grab my laptop and a good pair of binoculars and watch the activity from the upper deck of the boathouse, while still working on the newsletter and column.
(Sidebar: Once a pattern-watcher, always a pattern-watcher! Crew coaches are notorious for being tight-lipped as to which boat and seat the kids will race in at the regattas. And God forbid a parent should ever ask! Therefore, I watch practice intently to see who is rowing with whom, which boat everyone is in, who gets switched out, who is riding in the launch, etc., in hopes of figuring things out. I'd be the quintessential stage mother, in fact, except I hide during practices, trying not to be conspicuous!)
At about 4 p.m., I start on the charts for the next day's column and usually have those done by 4:30 p.m. I've done the text earlier, so all that remains is usually the "and that's the final word" part, which sometimes takes me a while to come up with!
After I'm done with the column, I download that day's data and make the picks for the newsletter, compose the corresponding charts and send them along. Editing is quick, so I'm done with everything no later than 5:15 p.m. Then it's back to watching the rowing.
I'm usually back at the house by 7 p.m., where we have dinner, watch a little TV and then, boring as it sounds, it's lights out by 10 p.m. All pretty routine, but which always leaves a few questions:
1. Do I really play golf every day? I confess, I'm an addict, so I tend to play or practice six days a week. It is shocking, then, that I'm not any better.
2. Do I look at the market intraday? I do leave my quotes running and admit that I peek at what's happening throughout the day if I'm near my PC. The only time I'll turn off my quotes is when the market is doing extremely well or extremely poorly. In both cases, I can't bear to watch.
3. How does my schedule change for TV? At about midweek, the producer and I will talk so I'll know which charts I need to produce for the show. That takes only about 15 minutes, and my "show prep" doesn't take much longer. Therefore, almost everything you hear me say on TV is ad-libbed, which makes it easy to get ready for the show. On Fridays, we pre-tape at 5:45 p.m., so I leave about 3 p.m. so I can do the newsletter right before the show. Then we tape until 6:15, I pick up dinner for the family on the way home, and I'm back by 7 p.m.
In addition, about once a week, I normally do a live show like "Cavuto," where I'm on at about 4:30. Same plan as above, although I do read the business news a bit more intently that day. I bring my laptop and simply move my "desk" to the Fox Studio.
4. When do I find time to watch all those rental movies, read, etc.? Weekends, mostly, for the movies. I read a bit at night and when I'm watching the kids at the boathouse.
5. When do you experiment with your trading? I look at new trading ideas throughout the day when I'm at my computer.
6. What do I do for vacations? Between my wife and kids, someone has a regatta nearly every weekend of the spring, fall and summer. So, my "vacation" is usually along the lines of staying at a hotel near the Schuykill, standing in the rain for five or six hours watching the races, and then ordering room service at night. Of course, I find that thoroughly enjoyable. I do bring my laptop, of course, and do my trading in the early morning. It's those four or five times a year where I'll skip my column and do an edited version of the newsletter. Over Christmas, my "vacation" is when the rest of the family goes skiing, and I have the house to myself.
7. Do I still take a nap during the day? With as much sleep as I get, I still need to lay down at about 2:30 p.m. or so. Must be circadian rhythms!