As far as I am concerned, it is definitely true that the older you get the faster time seems to pass. I just looked at the calendar and suddenly realized that 2009 is almost half gone. That observation gave me pause to look back on the year so far. It has been quite a year for trading. The Dow 30 Industrials fell almost 2600 points from the first of the year until the March low and then climbed back just over 2400 points to the highs in the first third of this month. Similar violent action occurred on the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite. The S&P fell from a January high of 943.85 to a March low of 666.79 only to rebound to a new high of 956.23 on June 11th. Though volatility as measured by the VIX failed to attain the all time heights achieved in late 2008, they remained uncharacteristically high as the markets fell to the March lows. In short, this year has seen a pretty wild market; one that resulted in very substantial losses for many from January to March.

During that descent, I attempted to trade very cautiously, only to become more aggressive during the run-up. Most recently I pulled back as the market looked like it was turning over. In the alert services I edited, I probably have made fewer trades than in other years. As I write this article on Tuesday, June 23rd, I checked the Trade Tables to see what my percentage of winners has been for trades closed in 2009. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the overall percentage of winners in all the services I edit combined (Option Trader, Trend Trader, and $10 Trader) was 82.8%. Broken down, $10 Trader achieved a winning percentage of closed trades of 86%, Trend Trader 83%, and Option Trader 75%. Those statistics were particularly interesting because both Trend Trader and $10 Trader are essentially designed as bullish services in which I am illustrating situations where I open a position by buying a stock and closing the position by selling. Option Trader uses a variety of strategies designed to attempt to profit on bearish and neutral trades as well as bullish trades.

In the last six months, I was also very fortunate to have my new book, "Smart Investors Money Machine" , published and my new DVD "Trading for Keeps" released. I discussed the book in some detail in the article last week. I am really pleased by the DVD that was produced by traderslibrary.com and includes subjects like trend line use, principles of disciplined trading, how to let profits run, the use of collars and protective puts, and the effective use of stop losses. All of those are subjects with which I have dealt in many private coaching sessions as well as in my own trading.

One of the sad things I have noted over the past 6 months is the number of folks who have contacted me regarding coaching sessions who have lost very significant amounts of money in the most recent crash and who are looking for ways to stop the bleeding. In past articles, I have written about concepts that I consider to be critical to successful trading. They include things like money management, establishing exit strategies before entering positions, recognizing reward to risk potential, educating themselves about trading, and having a trading plan in place. Most of those who called about coaching because they had suffered severe losses were unaware of those concepts or failed to put them into practice. Whether they signed on for coaching or not, I encouraged the callers to learn and apply those concepts. In trading and investing ready, fire, aim is definitely not the way to go.

No one, including me, knows what the next six months will bring in the markets. As is often said, we can only trade the right hand side of the chart, but to do so successfully, we must prepare ourselves and we must continue our trading education. As all too many learned in the disastrous market fall from October 2007 until the March low this year, buy and ignore is simply a dangerous strategy. I wish you all good trading and hasten to add that the "luckiest" traders are generally those who work the hardest at learning the craft.

Good Trading!
Bill Kraft

Our Success Trading service delivers quality trading ideas for the elite investor that has the financial wherewithal and market nimbleness to profit on small moves in a stock's price. Become a member and you will be provided with email and/or PDA alerts intended to provide you with the opportunity to make many, many profitable trades.

Here is a play from the Success Trading Group:

Procter & Gamble Co. (PG)
Our Success Trading Group members scored another winning trade this week when we closed out a position in Procter & Gamble Company (Ticker:PG) in a quick two-day trade. We have several stocks on our radar and are looking forward to trading next week.

Have a great weekend and we'll trade next week.
Success Trading Group Team

Our Option Trading Service is for conservative traders that understand leverage principles and enjoy the challenge of options trading. We focus on powerful option trading strategies that place volatility and momentum in your favor. And we pride ourselves on always minimizing our losses!

The Option Trader service utilizes standard trading in Puts and Calls as well as strategies using Leaps, Straddles, Credit Spreads, Calendar Spreads, and Naked Puts. But no matter how sophisticated a strategy may be, we ALWAYS know our downside potential on every trade.

Here's a look at a trade Bill is currently working on:

Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. Ltd. (YGE)
YGE has been moving relatively steadily in an uptrend. As of Friday, the July $12.50 puts were trading in the 70 to 80 cent range. Consideration might be given to a naked put sale as the extended trend line might suggest that the stock price could stay above the $12.50 mark through July expiration.

Good Trading!
Bill Kraft