It is the summer.  It is finally hot in NYC.  It is so hot that when you just miss your subway it gets really uncomfortable waiting for that next one.  Ripper.  And most market commentators keep talking about slow summer trading.  Chirp.  Chirp Chirp.  And most market players were predicting a correction a few days ago.  Chirp.  Chirp.  Chirp.  And this leads me to our topic of the day.  Don’t start your vacation before your vacation.

Look I get that it is hot and nice and it is human nature to start thinking about all the places you could be playing golf.  And it is the end of the summer and easy to start daydreaming about your summer vacation.  It is so near.  And then the talking heads start with “trading is slow.”  And then some more talking heads offer “the market is headed for a correction.”  And you are sitting at your seat and just watch the market trade higher.  Where is this buying coming from?  Why is the market trading higher on a slow summer day?  And then AIG trades higher and you pass.  HURN trades higher and you pass.  FAS finds support into the close and you pass.  HPQ shows strength and you pass.

You cannot ask for a better opportunity than HURN above 19.45, with a quick pop to 20.35. HPQ was a layup on the open begging the alert trader to buy.  FAS was a gift from the trading gods for the focused trader who saw 67.25 support.  For the momentum trader AIG entered the room above 25.  Today I sat in my seat and was in every one of these opportunities.  My vacation starts 9/5 and not  8/19.

If you missed all of those plays above because the setups were not right for you then fine.  But if you missed these setups because you were not expecting an upmove, or you were not ready for today’s upmove, well that is not ok.  And if you were distracted because of the time of the year that is really not ok.  The Market is not going to show up at your office and start handing out cash.  And on a day like today even if the Market did, would you even be there?

Over the past twelve years I have found the last week in August to be slow.  But guess what?  It is not the last week in August!  And there were excellent opportunities in all of the stocks above.  For the intraday trader today was not a day without opportunity.  And the last week in August will not be here for another seven trading days.

So for the intraday trader not yet on vacation, sit in your seat.  If you show up to work, then focus. Don’t start your vacation before your vacation.

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