After a pretty hard down move in the SPY’s yesterday we gapped up today and never looked back. Today’s action reminded me a bit of September 24th when we gapped above 113.60 SPY and never looked back either. On September 23rd there had been some vicious selling but we held the 112 support area. Yesterday we held 113.20. As Brian … Read More
Critical Feedback: ACN
I would like to spend some time reviewing how ACN traded on Friday October 1st. The big picture in this stock was they had reported their earnings and raised guidance going forward. The initial reaction to the news was that it popped in the after hours on Thursday. The next morning it was trading above the previous day’s after hour … Read More
Quick Market Take
The past week or so I have begun to feel a bit uneasy about the market action. It hasn’t been as crazy as the action that we saw in late January that led to pretty vicious two week sell off but it has definitely caught my attention. The failed breakout of the 115 SPY level has me on full alert … Read More
AAPL Flash Crash?
I received a couple of twitter messages about whether I was trading AAPL on the Open today. JoeP had mentioned in his morning thoughts blog that we were watching the 291 level closely for a possible break of the recent uptrend. As it turned out I was short RIMM on the Open and watching CRM as well for a break … Read More
My Radar Trade In JCG
At 9:45 I glanced over at the SMB Radar, our proprietary scanning tool, and saw JCG towards the top of the volatility spike column. I punched it up on my platform and it appeared to be a pretty good short set up. It had just a had a strong opening drive through the prior day’s two key support levels and … Read More
An “Old” Options Pro Joins The SMB Blog
The goal of my blog is to teach traders about options. I started trading stock options back in 1985 making markets on the Floor of the CBOE. The changes over the past 25 years in some ways are good while others bad. My views come from looking from the floor outward. Computers have sped up the process but the game … Read More
I Love That!
During the AM Meeting I spent a few minutes discussing the importance of focusing on the “right stocks”. The right stocks are one’s that have the attention of a sufficient number of market participants to cause them to have powerful and clearly defined moves on many different time frames. Too often traders attempt to execute trades in every stock that … Read More
One Of My Favorite Plays
When I was younger I played a lot of pickup basketball. Many times I was matched up against players who were either bigger, stronger or quicker than me. Well maybe not stronger 🙂 I found playing “up” to my competition was much more enjoyable than playing “down”. Playing better competition tends to heighten your focus and forces you to improve … Read More