If you want a get-rich-quick ride on the roller-coaster of the online stock market one rule must be branded on your brain and your stone-cold heart: you are only in it for the money. For this day trader (written in the first person by two people) nothing is more amusing than investors who are married to the stocks they buy, who stick with them through good times and bad.
Those who want to make a million bucks in a hurry know you have to be up early, in this case 4.50 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (our narrator lives in an outrageously expensive apartment, off Market Street in San Francisco, and begins his day trading career in the heady days of autumn 1998). On with the coffee pot, then the monitors - three cups later and we are ready to roll.
An increase in the number of trades is the sign a stock has caught the interest of the crowd.
Our day trader does not agree the stock market is like a Las Vegas casino. It is more like a race track, you are taking money from other players rather than the house. The more small traders move in and out, the better the chance you are not the biggest fool in the game and that someone is getting on board when you are ready to get out.
The day trader adventurer owes a lot to eBay. After making $50,000 (€59,380) in four weeks, everybody was telling him to sell. If there is one thing worse than being poor at the end of a bull market, it is being ex-rich. So he let go at $140 - easy money, in the game, a player. Four months later, eBay hit $700.
Although this tongue-in-cheek story was written in those crazy days when anything Net-related turned to gold, Adventures Of A Day Trader is obligatory reading for those who fantasise about packing up the day job, plugging in the PC and making millions without breaking into a sweat.
Well, forget about the sweat bit because Adventures emphasises the sheer madness of the day trader roller-coaster. Based on the real-life experiences of author Joey Anuff, the book ends on a sober note. At a seminar starring a trader who boasted he was close to his first million-dollar day, he realised he didn't want to risk losing everything he had several times over. He had something to lose.
Worse, he would have to work really hard for it. He would earn enough but not enough to dream about. Having said that, he still has business channel CNBC on the favourites list of his remote.
Adventures Of A Day Trader is a rare commodity: a funny and accessible insight into the day-to-day events of the stock market. It is both entertaining and illuminating.
jmulqueen@irish-times.ie
