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you refocusing but you are calming yourself with the natural, living environment at the same time. |
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This helps balance the amount of time spent focusing on a computer screen in front of you and perhaps a TV screen to the side. Frequent looking away to a calm setting gives a visual and mental break from the intensity of the electronic information coming from the computer screen and the television. |
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Other elements of the home office include good lighting and room ventilation, easy access to past hard-copy trading records, a fax machine and copier, a separate telephone line so that calls may be made and received if your main line is being used for a modem connection, and an ergonomically correct chair to help you stay alert and comfortable when spending many hours at the computer. |
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For active traders, it is also good planning to have a back-up source of electricity should your power go out. Power outages mean you're out of the market if you're trading for fractions. Investors, of course, can still pick up the phone and call their discount broker to enter a trade. |
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In the same vein, brokerage web sites or quote sites are sometimes down or impossibly slow to get through to, no matter what form of browser-based connection you may have. Because of this, it is a good idea to have more than one source for quotes, and more than one brokerage account for trading. The occasional investor may perhaps view these precautions as overkill and unnecessary. But more active traders will climb the wall if they are unable to get through to make trades when the market is hot. |
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So, all of these things need to be considered, or they will only be thought about after you have learned from experience that, in the worlds of high technology and cyberspace, anything can go wrong at any time, and, sooner or later, will. |
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The mind does strange things when you are sitting alone at the computer for long stretches of time and watching the market go by. Many "home alone" traders and investors complain about feeling isolated, especially if they are dedicated to following the market on a daily basis. They feel cut off from other traders and want feedback on their own hunches and analysis of the market. |
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One effect of feeling isolated is doubting your own mind. Instead of the more common process of having ideas and testing them |
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