There is a new book "Trade the Congressional Effect: How To Profit from Congress's Impact on the Stock Market" that discusses the impact US Congress has on the stock market. Prior to this book, there were studies in 1997 and 2006 that looked at the same issue. Basically, in all cases the conclusion is that the stock market performs better on days when Congress is not in session.

I always like to verify anything and everything I read in a book or a magazine...


So, for anyone who wants to try this out, I created a spreadsheet of days Congress was in session from Dec 1997 to present (the lifetime of the ES contract). I found the data at Days in Session (House & Senate) - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

For you Tradestation users out there, I also created a simple "ShowMe" that shows in the House, Senate or both is in session on any particular trading day. You can find that here: Downloads - TradeStation - Congress in Session - Big Mike's Trading Forum

I hope you find this useful!

Might want to post it here for safekeeping

Master Homework and Statistics Thread I often think of trade ideas, but seldom have time to perform analysis on them. I have even thought of hiring an "intern" type of person that could crunch numbers all day, but I thought I would try this thread first. If I provide the raw formatted …

Mike

michael45 

Hello, I hope to read more about trading, Can you give me source to improve my knowledge quickly. I think you are familiar with books. So you have good knowledge about forex trading , stocks market and more various ways. Thank you.

There are a ton of books about trading out there. Some good, some bad. Some have just little nuggets of info, with the rest garbage.

To someone new, I would recommend reading any book you can, and just keep an open mind. You can probably get many books for free from your library.

After you read a few dozen trading books, you'll start to realize what is fact, what is fiction and what you like and dislike trading wise. Then, you can start to concentrate in the direction that you feel works for you.

For me, that direction was developing rule based mechanical systems. For others, it might be discretionary trading. For others still, it may be technical analysis, or fundamental analysis.

There is no right way to approach trading. So, I suggest you read everything you can, and soon enough the direction to take will be clear.

Good Luck!