Today's Quote: “Success is never ending: failure is never final." The Rev. Robert H. Schuller.

Here are some final thoughts on the first of the five weapons, using a watch list prepared from the prior day's daily charts.

We have spent the last sessions talking about using watchlists to prepare for the day. We discussed ways of preparing your own personal stock universes and how to manually scan your universes looking for the patterns you recognize for core, swing, and intraday plays. We also discussed the option of doing the ‘lazy scan’ which involves an hour every week and a few minutes each day.

Here are a couple of thoughts that may help you. First, staying organized is the key. Do not be looking only for what is ready to play today, look for stocks that will be setting up in the upcoming days or weeks. The secret here is to save multiple lists of prospective stocks. Title one of them ‘future’ or ‘setting up’ and go through it every day. For example, let’s say you run across a stock that just had a huge breakout over a weekly base, and the breakout went so far that it is too extended to play. The absolute novice chases the stock and takes a terrible entry, usually to their detriment. The advanced novice passes the play and moves on. The pro passes the play, and saves the stock to watch for the pullback that will likely occur from that breakout. It may never happen and it may not set up right, but a good trader will monitor the stock until it is resolved.

Second, remember your job is to find the patterns that you know have good odds for success. Some may be ready to play, some may need patience. But do NOT try to make something out of a pattern where nothing exists. Do not try to force a play because you feel you know something about the stock or because it just had news or earnings.

Finally, let’s follow up to that last comment. It is best to go through the charts and do not look at the names of the companies. You want to be looking at chart patterns, and not influenced by names and comments. Remember, you are looking at charts to see through the lies and deception, so do not look back to fundamentals, analyst’s comments, or news announcements. They are not relative to the price of the stock.