Day 17 completed on the S&P 500 consolidation. I have updated the chart to reflect today’s action and have a rough tabulation of the amount of time we have spent trading within each “zone”. The most interesting thing about these 17 days is that we have only spent one full day between 128 and 129. The rest of the time … Read More
My Take On The Market
My view on the market is encapsulated via a chart on the SPY for the past several weeks. We have been in consolidation mode for 16 days now. I am starting to wonder if we will continue to stay in this range until earnings seasons begins. Each time we have moved to the 126.60 support area buyers have stepped in. … Read More
This Concept Could Get You Through the Learning Curve
Understanding how to identify support and resistance areas and execute trades at these prices is a prerequisite to become a successful day trader. When I reflect back on the dozens of people we have trained over the years I can’t recall a single trader who made it to consistent profitability who didn’t have a few plays in their playbook that … Read More
Man v Machine—(Spencer v SMB Algo)
SMB has been working on building out a systems trading desk for about a year. At the heart of this effort is a series of algorithms that detect changes in momentum and trend. From these algos we have developed various strategies. One of the cool byproducts of this process will be the creation of some pretty awesome tools to enhance … Read More
Man v Machine: CTXS Opening Trading
The other day I mentioned on my Twitter account (@sspencer_smb) that I would begin to blog about my daily interaction with HFTs in the US equities markets. I have been actively trading stocks with heavy HFT activity since at least 2003. In 2003 I traded AAPL on a regular basis and it was already flooded with dozens of HFT programs, … Read More
Three Days In One
Those who follow the markets closely have heard the expression countless times “the market takes the escalator on the way up and the elevator on the way down”. This simply means that markets tend to go down in price a lot more quickly than they go up. Today the SPY eliminated three days of gains in one massive down day. … Read More
SMB Fundamental Trades: #1: EP May 25th 2011
Thanks to everyone who responded to my initial post yesterday regarding the setup in EP. I think this series of posts is gonna be a lot of fun and we will hopefully continue to see a large amount of community feedback on how YOU would trade various setups. Because ultimately we each must develop a trading style that suits our … Read More
Conversation With A Trainee At 10:45AM
trainee: “So this SLV isn’t really doing much this morning” spencer:”Yeah, pretty tight range” trainee:”it is just stuck in a 35 cent range” spencer leaves the desk to attend firm business at 11:00AM. second conversation at 12:20 when spencer returns spencer: “you long this SLV? finally broke out of the range” trainee: “no. i’m watching it.” ———— A large part … Read More