I remember my days on the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. My job was to facilitate institution order flow.

This morning I was flipping between some news networks and after listening for two minutes, you would think the world was coming to an end?or as TV tells us, ?falling off a cliff? (as in the impending fiscal cliff).

I have been in the trading business for over 15 years as a trader, fund manager, and trainer, beginning on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. While I feel like I have seen it all, the one thing that still surprises me is how most traders handle breakouts.

One of the most important things you need to do to be successful when short term trading for income or long term trading for wealth is to have proper focus.

One thing I have paid close attention to in my many years of writing articles is making sure I do not spend much time writing about concepts and strategies that everyone else writes and talks about.

For all you ?Whos? down in ?Whoville? who want to succeed, I have something to say, so take careful heed? Whether you?re Horton or Mazie, Thing One or Thing Two, you must use simple logic to do what you do.

If you are a one time frame trader, you are like the one-trick pony. As soon as another pony comes along with two tricks, the one-trick pony can?t compete.

Understand a simple truth, most retail traders and investors are not very successful when speculating in markets. Short term traders especially tend to lose money over all.