This Open I kept saying,”For some reason SOA is working.” Above 14.62 the top of the opening range was my first entry. And above the consolidation at 15.10 was my second. “SOA continues to work for some reason.” Steve quipped SOA was the best stock we mentioned in our AM meeting. Like many traders he then found a moment of … Read More
Bad Habits Within Good Habits
Special Guest Post from my mentee SW After reviewing today’s work, I found myself in a situation where I tend to initiate trades with “bad habits within good habits”, which defeats the purpose of having good habits. What does that mean? In terms of having good habits, I tend to set alerts at great prices and levels which provide … Read More
I guess I am your tour guide
My wife and I spent a week in Italy and something came up that so relates to what I do. We hired a tour guide. Well my wife hired a tour guide as a surprise for my birthday (I know 41 never looked so good). She did for The Vatican, St. Peter’s, The Colosseum, The Pantheon, and center Rome. Steve … Read More
Your head trader as a trading god (a better system)
Ever sat on the desk with a head trader insistent he was right about the direction of a stock/market? I have seen firms get crushed because their head trader was fading a weak market and insisting the market should trade higher. I have been guilty of over-confidently insisting on the direction of a stock/market. GMan has been as well. Certainly … Read More
Our interesting times of Risk
Prop traders are the truest of entrepreneurs. We eat what we kill. We do not have clients. We do not sell anything or organize to sell something to someone else. No one in 13 years of trading has ever called or emailed or IMd my desk with a trading tip. Our pay is based solely on our trading skill and … Read More
Clean Up Print
Back in the day trading NYSE stocks and learning to read the Specialist prints one thing we used to look for was the “Clean Up Print”. This was usually the print on an intraday gap in the direction of the immediately preceding trend with big volume. This was a sign of a floor broker possibly finishing working the order and … Read More
How Bad Do You Want It?
Traders must be ready to become great. Being an elite trader must be important enough to you so that you do the work required to be special. Your mentor, your firm, your institutional bank or hedge fund cannot make you into a great trader unless it is important enough to you. I had a private conversation about a very good … Read More
Traders Ask: What to Do Before You Start Your Trading Career?
Mr. Michael, I am Alexei, from Paraguay, South America, I’ve been following SMB Capital for a year and now reading your blog posts is a must every day. Recently I have finish reading One Good Trade. I have read so many books about technical analysis and trading and I now you heard this a lot but it was by far the best … Read More