It looks like holiday interruptus for the traders at SMB. The financial/real estate bubble that is better known as Dubai has burst like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. As I write this quick note the Hang Seng is down about 550 points but 200 points off its low. The S&P futures are off 23 and the NAS 100 futures … Read More
Focus on The Fundamentals
Wouldn’t it be great if every day you could turn on your trading platform at 9:25AM, quickly type up a few stocks, and then start trading the Open? Woudn’t it be great if every day you could buy/short 5,000 shares at some great technical level and cash out for 10K by 10:00AM? Wouldn’t it be great if the stocks you … Read More
Competitive Advantage
If a business has a clear understanding of what they do well they can spend time and energy fully developing these things until each becomes a competitive advantage that will have a direct impact on their bottom line. In the world of trading it is fairly simple to measure the impact of certain behaviors on our bottom line because we … Read More
If It Ain’t Broke Don’t Fix It
A bunch of trader’s on our desk made nice chops shorting RIMM yesterday at the 65 level. The trade worked four times. Today the trade was highlighted in our AM Meeting and tweeted as our Best Morning Idea. I checked my risk monitor at 11:00AM to see how we did in RIMM on the Open. To my surprise we were … Read More
Trading A Breakout: MON
The MON move that began at 2:30pm on November 10th 2009 was a classic breakout trade on heavy volume. The catalyst for the move were the documents that MON released on its website giving financial projections for the next three years. But put aside the fundamentals for now and focus on the tape and the technicals. 1) MON had failed … Read More
How Would You Trade This Setup?
MON had been consolidating in a tight range for the past three days between 68.70 and 70.30. Today it finally moved. How would you have traded it? Take a look at the two charts below to better understand the context of the move. How will you trade it tomorrow? I will offer my thoughts in the AM…
A Short Term and A Long Term
WFMI was In Play today. It gapped down in the premarket on disappointing earnings results. My first instinct was to look for a good level to get short as WFMI usually follows through on the direction of its gaps. I had a downside target of 27 based on a longer term level. What I needed was a safe entry point. … Read More
WoW!!
Occasionally, I give a shout out to one of the less experienced traders on the desk for sharing great trading information. I am definitely not the type of person who offers faint praise. In fact, if you talk to those who are closest to me they probably would say that I am somewhat parsimonious with my compliments. So when I … Read More