Sharekhan Ignite Trading Guarantee-the caveats render it usless

I got an email from Sharekhan offering a 1yr trading education program, with the claim that they are so confident in it, they will absorb the losses on your first 40 trades! However, while reading the full offer, I saw the below fineprint. Lesson learnt-ALWAYS read the fineprint

http://www.sharekhan.com/IgniteDisclaimer.html

1	Total 40 trades to be taken under “controlled trades” in Ignite TradeTiger.
2	All trades will be intra-day (compulsory square off by 3.15pm).
3	Trades to be taken in cash segment only and in BigTrade scrips only. They are not confident enough to extent the offer to F&O/Commodity segment, or even to smaller scrips. Just shows their faith.
4	Order entry by bracket order only, i.e. entry, target and stop loss to be entered initially.
5	Maximum loss per trade will be Rs125. Position size will be decided accordingly by the system. For eg. if long entry is at Rs100 per share and stop loss is Rs99, then risk per share is Rs1. Position size in this case would be Rs125/Rs1 i e 125 shares. That means even if ALL 40 trades end in loss, their max risk is Rs 125*40 or Rs 5000. Do remember they would earn a minimum of 25-50 Rs in brokerage itself, so their risk is much less
6	At the end of all 40 trades, cumulative profit / loss will be calculated. If there is a net loss at the end of 40 trades, Sharekhan.com India Pvt. Ltd. will reimburse the loss to you. SO there is a setoff but no capping/retention of profit to you
7	For the purpose of profit/loss calculation, only market price of entry and exit shall be considered, i e other trading costs such as brokerage, STT etc will not be included. For small positions with max loss of Rs 125, these costs often equal the profit
8	To get the reimbursement, you will have to take all 40 trades in your account. The time limit for taking these 40 controlled trades is the end of the calendar month following your Certified Trading Professional course, i e if you have enrolled for the Certified Trading Professional course in September 2013, then the time limit for doing the 40 controlled trades will be till October 2013.
9	All the trades have to be as per Online Trading Academy’s core trading strategy that will be taught in the Certified Trading Professional course.
10	At least half of these trades must be as per trading calls given by the Ignite research team. The remaining trades can be based on your own analysis (using Online Trading Academy’s core trading strategy).

Why you should not be glued to the market/watch ticker all the time

Day trading is not for everyone. An article I read recently explains it in great depth below(reproducing the whole article as it is simply too good!). For those with the FOMO(Fear of missing out) yet considering trading as a 2nd day job, they can get heart from this article.

http://www.daytradingbias.com/?p=118073

• Restraining oneself from watching the market until decision making time can help reduce anxiety and indecision issues. Having the discipline to stay relaxed until the necessary decision time (i.e. when the bar on your chart is about to be completed and that a new bar is about to be formed) is great but not everyone can do that.
•  Once you glue yourself to the screen monitoring every tick, you mind cannot control itself in response to the changes in the chart. It is especially true when you have a position on. Your mind is working hard to make sense out of the information every second. You are practically setting yourself up to burn your brain out.
•  Not everyone can analyze a fluid situation dynamically like the chess grandmasters do. Reduce the decision making process to very specific conditions and shut out the rest. After all, you are not playing chess. You are not required to compete in trading from start to finish. You can pick the battle you know you have better chance to win. Do not even look at the markets when the prescribed conditions are not showing. That will limit your mind from random thoughts messing up your decision making process.
•  Some people are capable of highly concentrated real-time processing. But such talent has its limitations. Even if you are physically fit, using mental strength in highly concentrated ways every day will burn the brain out very quickly. This is what happen to many day traders working for trading firms as they are pushed to perform. It is not a good idea if you are planning to make day trading your career.

The solution is to utilize the talent by trading within a very short time window every day (e.g. just the first 10 minutes from stock market open). This allows the trader to fully focus within that short period of time making analysis and decisions on every tick. The rest of the day the trader can do other productive things. Most important of all, the trader is giving the brain time to recover so that long term performance is not jeopardized.

First impressions of a trading floor

After reading the horror stories in Liar's Poker and other books, I was mentally expecting the worst(ambience wise) in my stint on the trading floor(in structuring). But I was pleasantly surprised. Rather than the bunch of battlehardened phone throwing screaming manics I was expecting, I saw rows and rows of screens, with serious faced faces on them. Even the TV in the backdrop was largely muted with only the headlines flashing. My initial impressions(in no particular order) are

1. Traders have 3-4 screens(with atleast one Reuters/Bloomberg terminal) to let them multitask-watch the market movements, check their mail, update the Excel sheets, execute trades etc. This may lead to information overload but hey they are paid handsomely for that
2. The phone line allows around 4-8 incoming calls at a time, with user friendly interface on a specially designed phone instrument
3.  Research/Capital markets are physically segregated behind glass walls(!) to preserve that Chinese walls needed by regulators. That makes interaction rather difficult-which IS the intention of course!
4. Interns are rarely asked to bring food for the entire team('desk'). Those old days are revived selectively but are no longer institutions.
5. Since quotes can be received/sent by terminals, phones are not used that much-so there is much less  noise than I initially supposed.
6. Temper tantrums(like in Liars Poker) and swear words do exist but that is individual specific. Even elsewhere, it is not a badge of pride to use expletives.

This post will be updated as time progresses.