My expectation for the past week or so has been that AAPL would break to new highs and offer another 10-15 points of upside. So each day I spend some time thinking about how to best enter an AAPL trade so that I will be in a position of strength when the breakout actually occurs. Based on the price action … Read More
I’m Seeing A Pattern
As I view the list of stocks I traded today and their corresponding P/L I definitely see a pattern. GME, FDX, and NKE all green. APOL a big red. I have written many times about the value of trading stocks with fresh news. Stocks that we refer to as “In Play”. During earnings season there are a huge number of … Read More
Mental Flexibility Is A Prerequisite…
Yesterday our Best AM Idea was to short AMZN for a potential 4-6 point downside move. AMZN had failed to participate in the tech rally during the last week and seemed to be setting up for some serious downside. I got short at 117 and caught about 1.5 points of downside. The volume wasn’t great so I was somewhat suspicious … Read More
Its Probably Going Up
I started trading AAPL around 10AM this morning. I noticed it held its small gap from the Open and that each time it was dropping below 202 it would quickly recover. I also noticed that each time it popped above 202.50 that it would fail to hold the bid and drop back down. My thought process was that AAPL had … Read More
Part of Being a Successful Trader
For those of you who trade as part of a desk I’m sure you have heard expressions like these a thousand times: “I can’t believe I missed that move in XYX. I was wating for that breakout for a week!” “I got stopped out in ABC then it took off!” “I missed getting hit on the bid by a penny … Read More
The Open Today
I wasn’t feeling that great on the Open today. How you feel both physically and mentally can have a huge impact on your trading results. If you are tired you will process information less quickly and in today’s highly volatile market this will put you at a severe disadvantage. If you are feeling worn out from being tossed around in … Read More
What Type of Market Are We In?
We are in a downtrending market! What? We are in a downtrending market!! What? downtrend!!!!!! What does this mean for short term traders? Short stocks if they pop to previous support levels If the market trends up for two days then pray for a third day gap up so you can short the market!! Trade with less size as downtrending … Read More
Stock Selection
I received an email yesterday from a reader who asked if I could discuss why we choose to avoid certain stocks. What I would first like to address is the idea of stock selection in general. At SMB we have a very specific methodology to select the best stocks for intraday trading. As most who have read our blog on … Read More