So I ran out of the office after the Close to grab a couple of slices of pizza. By the time I got back AMZN was trading up 5 points. About six traders on the desk were actively trading it in the after hours. I quickly gathered some information from those who had been watching it. There was selling at … Read More
Trading Unusual Weakness
Many short term traders get killed trading weak stocks on the short side. What is the root cause? The most common error is they have poor entry prices. We all know that a stock in rapid decline is on the radar of every day trader and hedge fund on the Street. This attention creates spikes that some interpret as a … Read More
“How Did You Know to Bid There?”
We are always instructing our traders on the setups that present the greatest risk/reward. If they are involved in these setups trading will be easy. If not they will struggle. I pointed out one such trade to our newest group of trainees. I was trading AAPL on the Open as it was very In Play due to Steve Jobs taking … Read More
Please Make This Trade–Especially SMB Traders
The past twelve months have been a complete roller coaster ride in the energy markets. We watched oil go from $50 to almost $150 and back below $50 again. In fact, the other day it was around $35 per barrel. On New Year’s Eve oil made a powerful up move on very high volume. There was some good money in … Read More
Why Trade Stocks in Play?
SMB Capital trades Stocks in Play. Our traders are taught how to find such stocks. And during our SMB AM Meeting we review the best Stocks in Play for a particular trading day. Over the past few years I’ve had quite a few conversations with interviewees, including “experienced traders”, about this core trading philosophy. Some don’t seem to grasp the … Read More
Trade With The Break
For the past few days the SPY’s were trading in a fairly tight and narrowing range. Traders were waiting for them to breakout from their narrowing range. Yesterday afternoon the sellers overwhelmed the buyers causing a break to the downside. The 89 support level was broken with force. In after hours action the SPY’s traded down an additional 2+ points. … Read More
FCX Revisited
One of the most important attributes of a trader is the ability to quickly change your bias in a stock. This mental skill is paramount for an intraday trader. In today’s market, a stock is likely to reverse its trend multiple times each day. A stock that is very strong one day will be very weak the next. It is … Read More
FCX–A Second Day Play
Today in the AM Meeting one of our young traders discussed trading FCX. It was In Play yesterday because of the news that they were eliminating their dividend. So our young trader who I will refer to as ALJ (I don’t do nicknames like Bella) talked about important levels that he observed while trading the stock. When we discuss a … Read More