The January 2008 issue of Stocks, Futures and Options Magazine included an interesting article on how to create the perfect trading room setup at home. If you're thinking of turning to trading to make a part-time or full-time living, there are five success factors to keep in mind:

(1) Privacy/Focus - "Locate your trading room outside of the domestic traffic flow. It's best to have an actual door separating you from your home life... If a person knocks on the door during trading hours, someone had better be burning, bleeding or unconscious. "

(2) Comfort 

(3) Speed - "Being able to receive, process, view and react to data and situations quickly is vital to most traders. Getting and maintaining data speed is an uphill battle, as connectivity, processor drain, software conflicts and inefficient computer configurations all conspire to blunt your edge without your knowledge. When data slows, it typically doesn't blink, freeze or give any warning signs. Using a slow-moving computer in a fast-moving market may result in data that is three to four minutes old by the time it appears on your screen."

(4) Reliability

(5) Data integrity

Somewhat cheekily, the article from Stocks, Futures and Options Magazine also advises installing a mirror in your trading room: "One more necessary component: a mirror. When you create a trading environment built around the top five keys to success, remember to install a mirror somewhere in the room. Having removed so many external impediments to trading success, that mirror will be the first place to seek the source of any future trading difficulties."

So what does your TradeKing trading room look like?

[image: My Trading Room from begePeluw on Flickr]

An easy way to get dual display without having to fork out cash for dual display graphics cards (though they have come down in price) would be to use a laptop and either the external display port or a docking station.  Configure the setup so that the laptop display and the attached monitor plugged into the external display or dock displays an image as well.  Then go into your preferences in the operating system and choose to extend the desktop to the attached monitor.  You should also be allowed to choose if you want the laptop display or the monitor to be the primary display, which would determine the location of the menus and taskbars.