Trading is all about managing probabilities. But when the variables keep changing at a breakneck pace, as they do in today's mercurial markets, managing probabilities can be like herding cats. Which is why, as Dr. Anthony Trongone avers in this refreshingly unconventional guide to trading (and beating) the markets, the quest for the perfect trading system is, at best, a sucker's bet. Instead of chasing after the impossible, he explains, you need to focus your energies on continually evolving and fine-tuning your analytical and trading skills so you can keep up with the unrelenting change in the financial markets. You should be ever on the lookout for fresh ways to calculate the odds and play the percentages. And you must continually test and monitor your trading system and the raw market data that drive it—which will give you a commanding edge over traders who aren't willing to get their hands dirty digging into the data. Trongone doesn't just talk the talk, he walks the walk, arming you with powerful analytical tools—tools that you can adapt to your trading style, risk tolerance, emotional makeup, and time constraints—that help keep you focused, primed, and ready to pull the trigger when opportunity looms in your crosshairs and the moment is right. For example, you'll learn how to transform Excel into a highly reliable tool for defining market patterns and for monitoring and measuring all your trading system's major components as well as its overall performance. And, on a companion website, you'll find time-tested proprietary applications for statistically analyzing current market conditions and identifying tradable patterns based on the time-of-day, inter-market relationships, and other key factors. The approach you'll learn about in this book is based on the conviction that constant innovation is the key to trading success. Adapt or die is evolution's motto, and those who lack the will or the creative flexibility to adapt, who rigidly adhere to the same one or two technical indicators and spend their time chewing over static data, or who are unwilling to abandon their grail quest for the perfect system, are doomed to go the way of the dinosaur