NEW YORK (AP) -- Just how turbulent is the stock market? More than half a trillion dollars in paper gains were made and lost within just two weeks in September. The S&P 500 jumped 5 percent in the week ending Sep. 16, the second best week this year. The next week it plunged 6 percent, the second worst week this year.

The wild swings have made many wary of putting money in the stock market. "It's like an elevator with only two buttons," said Jeffrey Sica, president of Sica Wealth Management. "If you see one button says `surge' and the other says `plunge,' you're not going to get on the elevator."

In market-speak, it's called volatility: Large jumps followed by deep dives, within the course of a week or sometimes the same day. The surge in volatility since early August has been blamed for preventing companies from going public and scaring people out of stocks. Some think that even if Europe resolves its debt crisis, large price swings are here to stay.

In August, many put part of the blame for that month's volatility on the summer vacation season. Come September, they said, more people will be at their desks buying and selling, making it harder for large orders to rattle the market when trading volumes are thin. That turned out to be half right: Trading volume has picked up since Labor Day, but the stock market looks far from calm.

"What was wrong with the vacation idea is that Europe didn't get any better when people got back to work," said Nick Colas, chief market strategist at BNY ConvergEx Group. "People are still focused on the same clear and present dangers."

To get an idea how volatile the market has been, consider:

-- The Dow Jones industrial average has gained or lost more than 200 points in a trading day 16 times since the start of August. Six of those days came in September. In the first seven months of the year, that happened just four times.

-- The long-term trend is toward more volatility. Judging by the number of times in a year the S&P 500 swung 2 percent or more in a single day, markets are much more likely to have large leaps up or dives down, according to S&P's equity research group. Swings of 2 percent occurred an average of five times a year from 1950 to 1999. It's already happened 20 times this year, with three months left to go.

The heavy turbulence that started in August is the main reason why no company has managed to pull off an initial public offering since the Chinese online video website Todou Holdings went public Aug. 16. The backlog of companies waiting to debut in an IPO has never been larger.

"All the volatility has made for an unfavorable IPO environment," said Claude Courbois, managing economist at Nasdaq OMX's research department. "An IPO is your coming out party, a chance to tell your story. You don't want an enormous amount of uncertainty surrounding it."

Analysts say it's also the chief reason Americans are fleeing the stock market as if it's 2008 all over again. Retail investors pulled $36 billion out of U.S. stock funds in August, according to preliminary data from the Investment Company Institute. That's second only to the $47 billion withdrawn from U.S. stock funds at the height of the financial crisis in October 2008.

"The swings themselves have eroded the confidence of investors," said Jeff Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial. "It's the sign of a market and an economy not on sound footing."

Sica, the wealth manager, told his clients to leave no more than 10 percent of their savings in stocks at the end of May on the belief that markets would slide as the Federal Reserve's efforts to help the economy came to an end in June. The stock market's drop since then has failed to lure Sica and his clients back in. In fact, he's told his clients to get the rest of their money out.

In the past, a rally like the 5 percent one in the week ending Sep. 16 would be enough to cause Sica's phone to ring with calls from clients wanting to shift more money into stocks. "They'd have the sense their missing out on something," Sica said. In recent weeks, stock market surges are followed by clients calling to say "`Please keep me out,'" he said.

"This is the first time in 20 years that I'm totally out of stocks, unfortunately. Just because something declines, it doesn't mean it will ever come back."

One way to trade the market is pattern recognition.

Once you've been in the market for quite a while you can start building your own understanding about the market's movement.

And from there you can start forming your own ideas.

Your confidence starts to build up and you will not be carried anymore by the noise.

But that will take lots of time (possibly years), that's why patience and commitment in learning is essential.

Trading is simple but not easy, reading the minds of the market is the most important one.

The market is composed of human emotions and learning the psychology of the market participants takes a lot of studies.

How you react and how you respond is where you can exploit the market opportunities.

But its easy to narrate but hard to implement.

That's why practicing trading ideas in real time is the way to be a good trader.

As studies has shown, it takes 10,000 hours of practicing your skills to master your craft.

That same in any endeavor even in trading.

This daily chart from the market (YM) doesn't show any bullish traction unless there will be a big news coming from Europe before the market opens late today.

Last Friday's market was a big drop and there is a big chance it will continue that way.

But the way I can see from there a bounce is most likely.

The market is still on the trading range with the support at 10500 and resistance at 11500.

Monday's market will be a volatile trading as usual, while the most profitable to trade the market is the TWTh days. Friday is usually a choppy range.

Let's see the overnight range what the market brings.

An "edge" in trading? Just find one idea.

With the market is on a tight bearish range, finding an edge in the market is hard to find or impossible to look for. That's how the market right now especially with so many unpredictable news that is coming from Europe. Lots of traders are having a hard time coping with the extreme volatility that the market projects daily.

But the edge right now is to stay on the sidelines until the market stabilizes. Unless traders don't know their edge, you don't really have an edge at all.

An "edge" in trading lingo is sometimes or most of the time is being misinterpreted (mostly) by newer traders. As they say in trading, if you don't know your edge, you don't have one or none at all.

An edge in trading has lots of meaning. A few of them is how you trade, what instrument will you trade, how far you understand how the market works, how much capital are you going to trade, how you implement your trading knowledge, how you trade your plan (if you have a plan), how do you place your stops, how do you find a good location to put a trade, how much indicators are you going to use and how are you going to relate them, how you read the markets and what timeframe are you going to trade, and a lot more. These are just a few of the items I mentioned.

One edge that you need is to read trading and investing books and learn more about the markets in real time. Spend years reading while building your capital, in that way you can have some kind of idea how you approach the market.

Rational thinking is also important in trading and or investing. If you are not used to losing amount of money and don't have any patience in learning and getting knowledge about the market, it's impossible or it may be hard to get involve in the market.

Passion in the market is also an important factor as a trader. Love what you do. If you don't love what you do, even in real life, if you are not passionate about in what you are doing, success is not possible or it will be hard to accomplish.

Most great traders and investors love what they do, they eat...breath...and sleep...in the the market. It's like an obsession to them. It's their job. They treat trading as a business to pay their bills.

But once you learn how the market works, the rewards are astronomical. But few are succeeding in the market because of lack discipline, don't know "their self", don't know their edge, they trade without a plan or don't have any idea at all.

Trading is about having your own understanding about the markets, one idea is all you need, master it and you're on your way.

The market remains on a bearish range as can be seen from the daily chart.

It will take a long while with a positive conviction from all participants to turn around the market.

Unless a miracle could take place, the market will stay idle from 10500 to 11500 (YM) range.

Today's trading range was a short trade.

The bears made a lot of opportunities in the market.

Left my trading table after I set up my sell limit and it triggers for a gain of 60 points...my observation was right on the trade...

Moving sell stop to break even, 11000...