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Report all errors immediately! Check your order sheet before market closing to make certain you have taken the necessary steps to close out positions. The more you trade and the larger your positions, the more important this will be. These are just a few suggestions which will help you master the pragmatic end of day trading.

Don't ever discount the importance of proper order placement and consistent procedures. The wrong order in the wrong market can cost you plenty. I know. I've made all these mistakes at one time or another, and I don't want you to have to repeat them. Learn it from me the easy way-don't learn it the hard way by losing money. How Seasonality Influences Markets A seasonal price tendency is the tendency of a market to move in a given direction at given times of the year.

Seasonal price tendencies exert a significant influence in all markets. Although some markets are more prone to react on a seasonal basis, I know no markets which are totally immune from such responses. The day trader who is familiar with seasonality can use it to his or her advantage. Seasonal influences cause markets to move in a given direction a large majority of the time during certain weeks, months, and even calendar dates.

Art Merrill, in his classic book, The Behavior of Prices on Wall Street (Analysis Press, Chappaqua, New York), demonstrated this phenomenon statistically. He proved definitively that the Dow Jones Industrial Average was prone to close higher the day before certain holidays a large percentage of the time. His statistical base dated back over 100 years, and thus the odds that his findings were random events or chance results were less than 1 in 10,000.

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