Case Study - Linda Hardin

In 1995, Linda Hardin was a busy registered nurse with a husband and two young children. But when a booklet arrived in the mail one day, something about it caught her eye. The booklet was an advertisement for a commodities trading course from market guru Ken Roberts. "The information piqued my curiosity," Hardin says, "but I couldn't afford the course at the time."

Luckily, Roberts' organization didn't give up on Hardin. When she received another booklet over a year later, she seized the opportunity and has been enjoying studying and trading ever since.

Developing a Trading Approach

After Roberts' course, Hardin paper-traded for a few months, making buy and sell decisions with a hypothetical account to gain experience without risking her real money. She recommends this for any beginning trader.

Record your successes and failures as if you were trading with your real money," she says. "Study fundamental data, technical data, and combinations of the two to find your ideal system. And do lots of reading and study—practice using different technical indicators while you paper trade." It's important for beginning traders to find the system that works best for them. Once that system is in place, Hardin says, the crucial thing is to "stick to it!

Hardin followed this advice herself, but she found she needed to continue to develop as a trader even after she put her real money in the markets. The method she found working for her might surprise some investors.

She traded for a short time using paper charts, trying to see chart formations such as 1-2-3 tops and bottoms and narrow sideways channels to signal possible entries into markets. "There was no use of mathematical indicators such as moving averages—I didn't even know about them," she says. "So it was a very subjective system. It's my opinion that when you're working that way, if you want to see a channel badly enough, you'll see a channel." At that time, Hardin says, she was also still green enough that she allowed fundamental analysis to sneak into the picture. This approach brought her only limited success.

But like any smart trader, Hardin has let her style evolve since then. She's now a purely technical trader. She makes her trading decisions based solely on mathematical analysis of price data using computer software, watching for patterns, trends, and indicators that clue her in to the movements of the markets. As evidence of her approach, when asked how she keeps up on the state of the markets, she unequivocally states, "I don't. Any fundamental data I see or hear might influence my decision-making. So I intentionally avoid any sort of media influence.

Hardin is quick to note that her technical-only approach might not be the right one for every trader. She describes herself as a computer-phile and a lone wolf type who wants to be her own authority figure. So keeping her trading decisions between herself and her computer makes perfect sense for her.

The Technical Trading Difference

Hardin feels that computerizing her trading has allowed her to reach some important goals. She describes her trading prior to leaving nursing, when she was using paper charts, as "frustrating, time-consuming. My charts were supposed to arrive on Mondays, but some weeks, I wouldn't get them until Wednesday.

In the spring of 1998, Hardin had her third child, left nursing, and began to use a computer program, MetaStock®, for technical securities analysis. "I wanted to remove the emotional influences from my trading decisions," Hardin says. "Focusing on the technical analysis provided by a computer program allows me to do that."

She's been using the program successfully since April 1998. And she's quick to recognize one more factor that's helped her: Equis International, the Salt Lake City, Utah, makers of MetaStock. "I've been impressed with Equis, particularly their friendly web site (www.equis.com) to keep traders current. Also, the customer support team is top quality. I've e-mailed them several times with questions, and their responses have been prompt and helpful.

A Balancing Act—Made Easy

When Hardin talks about her trading, you get the impression it might be her foremost interest, but that's actually not the case. When asked to describe her occupation, she doesn't say she's a trader. "I'm a stay-at-home mom. Really, my trading takes up very little of my time now that I'm using the computer and MetaStock software rather than paper charts and guesswork. This gives me much more time to be with my three kids—a definite bonus!

At the same time, Hardin says, it's comforting to know she could support herself with her trading if she needed to. "One thing my mother told me as I was growing up was never to depend on anyone else for my livelihood. You see, my father was a firefighter killed in the line of duty when I was two years old. My mother was 24 at the time. So I've always made sure I could take care of myself and my children.

But she isn't the only trader in her family. Hardin's husband, Ron, found his interest in the markets rekindled when his wife began trading. He had stopped trading, eight years previous to her entry into the markets, due to losses based on a third party's recommendations. This emphasized to Linda how important it is to develop one's own system and make independent decisions. "A system is so important—it's vital to one's success as a trader! That cannot be emphasized enough," she says.

Hardin acknowledges that many women may feel too intimidated to participate in the financial markets. "I know I was at first, until I began reading and reading and reading," she says. But she believes that more and more women like her are seeing the potential to gain independence as well as profit by trading. "Once you learn the lingo and make that first dreaded call to a broker, I think your fear is replaced by knowledge—and, in my case, tremendous excitement over the opportunities."