The face of the stock market has changedforever. With the introduction of the online trader, the market exploded inlate 1996, creating volatility and momentum previously not thought possible.From this, the spawn- ing stocks like Qualcomm, Yahoo, Iomega, and Cisco, onlyincreased the interest of the everyday American to join the ranks of thedo-it-yourself investors and traders. Instant wealth was created and it seemedas if the market could only keep going up. No matter what a trader did, it was hardlosing money as the market continued to climb to new heights every day. Thisadded more members to the online trader ranks as rags-to-riches stories were onthe news and in almost every conversation on the streets.

Then the bubble popped in March of 2000just after the Nasdaq peaked over 5,000. Massive panic hit the streets asstocks continued to plummet and those instant millionaires saw their paperprofits disappear almost overnight. When the market didn’t immediately recover,this further added to the exodus, creating a downward spiral to the likes neverseen in the history of the stock market. For the everyday momentum trader, theperiod from 1996 to March of 2000 was like shooting ducks in a pond. Stablepredictable patterns that repeated over and over again were the norm. All one had to do was find a pattern ormethod that worked and ride it for months on end, over and over again. Afterthe crash in March of 2000, the face of the market changed forever. Although themarket actually had more of the main ingredient of volatile momentum requiredfor a momentum trader, the patterns and methods that previously worked formonths on end, changed on a daily basis.

What worked yesterday, didn’t worktoday.This new dynamic and ever-changing markettook, by some estimates, 40 percent of the short-term traders out of themarket, permanently. Those traders who learned to change tactics in this newchanging market, not only survived this new market momentum, but also profitedhandsomely. The two required traits in the market for a momentum trader aremomentum and volatility.

The period after the crash in March of 2000 actuallyshowed more of these two traits, yet the majority of momentum traders lost inwhat was actually a better market condition to profit in. Why? For one simplereason: they failed to change tactics and methods as the market changed. They continuedto do what worked yesterday, but not today. This is the purpose of this book.
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