I think this is an important aspect for anyone who is day/swing trading. One certain number could establish how the market will behave each day, and I feel like it's important you don't become lazy and keep a solid routine each morning/afternoon. I was just curious as to what other peoples current pre and post market routines are.

I get most of my research done in the morning.

Right now each morning I check futures, commodities, read the wall street, and there is a research report put out by a Merrill Lynch analyst that I read each morning. It highlights how the over seas markets did, a recap of the day before, economic data coming out that day, with the expected values/comparisons. After this is all done I'll start on my research into individual positions. I check a bunch of different sites for any news that came out after hours of the previous trading day. These include seekingalpha, yahoo finance, google finance, clearstation to name a few. Then I get into some more technical stuff such as current trend analysis a site emails me for all my positions, and also since I deal mostly with options I'll check certain implied/historical volatilities of things.

After hours I evaluate charts, implied/historical volatilities, updated greeks,and evaluate my trades for the day/ possible trades for tomorrow.

Even though I do all this, I still feel like I might be missing out on some important stuff.

Hopefully this thread works, a couple of my last ones have flopped, but I think people could benefit to see how everyone goes about their research.


Some questions I have for anyone to answer...
What would be some things important to do after trading hours but not in the morning?? This could be overall market stuff, specific position stuff, whatever.

How does after hours trading work? Who does it/who CAN do it?

(random) Is it a mortal sin to not have an exit strategy when you enter a position?

Even though you have a nice 'pre-trade ritual'............your last random comment is the most important:

(random) Is it a mortal sin to not have an exit strategy when you enter a position?

It is absoulutely imperative as trader

GL,
Stephen

don't know much about trading equities in the after-hours - here's some info from google: http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/...les/-76192.cfm

suspect that equities are pretty illiquid unless some news event occurs.

Most major FX pairs are pretty active almost 24 hours a day (there is a slow period right after NY closes, but then it picks up as the far east wakes up around 7-8pm ET). Other active markets are futures - mostly oil, S&P, and interest rate contracts.

Anyone can trade FX/futures though given the amount of leverage involved - you should only do so if you have lots of experience and some unneeded tuition money.

You must have an online account permissioned for pre/post market trading(just about every standard call-in BD doesnt allow it)

As far as who participates.......basically any trader/individual can.The most important thing to understand is that pre/post market trading is VERY illiquid.While market makers can and do often trade........they are not required to execute or maintian orderflow.That is the reason only LIMIT orders are allowed

Each BD is diff,so I would suggest you ask them their rules and guidelines.Some of the "standard online brokers"(E-trade,Ameritrade.Scottrade,Fidelity,etc) only allow trading from 8:00 am-9:15..........and 4:15 till 6:30.

The top trading platforms/BD's allow trading 24 hrs a day if there is a market for the security on liquid stocks/ETF's via ECN's

GL,
Stephen