I have been investing for over 20 years. For most of those years I made one or two trades per month.
In late 2007 I shortened my holding time and increased my trading frequency. I now do about 250 round trips per year. It has taken me a while to get the hang of short term trading, but I am starting to feel comfortable. I made a small amount in 2008. 2009 was rough in the early going because I made the mistake of trying to fight the market. I recovered and had an excellent fourth quarter.
I mostly trade ETFs, holding them for a few days up to a few weeks, sometimes longer. At any given time I usually have several open positions. Right now, I have 10% in gold. My gold position is down from 18% after I took some profits on today's nice move up. My gold holdings are in GTU (Central Fund of Canada), and GDXJ (Gold Miner Juniors ETF.)
Today I opened a 5% position in QID (ultrashort Nasdaq index.) If it moves against me I will close it out tomorrow.
I have had my best success trading precious metals and currencies: GLD, GDX, SLV, FXA etc. I also trade index equity ETFs, but do not do as well in these as in precious metals and currencies.
I stumbled on the website somehow and it looks interesting.
Kind Regards,
xorion
Minnesota