The following guidelines will sound radical, but they have guided me in making my living from trading for many years.

1. If a trade doesn't go your way within first one to five minutes, get out. I usually get out within one or two minutes as soon as my perceived edge is gone.

2.If a trade goes against you in first few seconds, begin drawing in your hard stop and/ or your target, trying to get out of trade at break even.

3. Never let your hard stops get hit. When it happens, you may want to take a break and get some fresh air.

4.Hard stops are adjusted to market conditions. At moment (July 6,2005) I am using 1.50 point hard stops on SP futures.

5. Never move your hard stop away from your entry point, hoping that a bad trade will turn around.

6. If you find yourself *hoping* as you trade, it is a clear sign that you are not following good survival (money management) principles.

It will be impossible to put these principles together without a set of high-probability setups. Without good setups, trading is just a flip of coin.

The 2004 base amounts are:

$25,000 for single, head of household, or qualifying widow/widower with a dependent child $25,000 for married individuals filing separately who did not live with their spouses at any time during year $32,000 for married couples filing jointly $0 for married persons filing separately who lived together during year

If your benefits are taxable, you can avoid estimated tax payments and minimize your tax bill next year by having federal income tax withheld from your benefits. Simply complete Form W-4V, Voluntary Withholding Request, and file it with Social Security Administration.