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
Professional Entry Techniques with Adam Grimes 6/9/11
sorry about the audio issues at the beginning Here is the PowerPoint deck for the presentation.
Maximizing Profits: Legging Out of a Winning Options Spread
Nothing is more frustrating to an options spread trader than working a trade for 30-60 days, using all of your skills and knowledge to initiate, adjust and improvise to position the trade for a nice win and then, on the day you have decided to exit and pocket that profit, you run into execution problems. There is nothing quite like … 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
Why BIDU Kicked My Ass Today
I lost money in BIDU today. I was trading it strictly on the short side. It opened at 137 and close at 131. Wow, you must thinking that this guy really has no idea what the heck he is doing. You might be right 🙂 Let’s review some of the things that caused me to lose money in it today … Read More
Traders Ask: Is it better to neutralize a double butterfly or simply close it?
Martin asks: I have a question about one of your first webinars involving the February butterfly. At the end of the trade it appears that instead of closing the trade completely you just neutralized it. What was the reason that you handled it that way ? What is the advantage of neutralizing the trade instead of closing it?: Martin is … Read More
“Milking” an Options Trade
Every properly designed income options strategy should have both a target profit and a maximum loss. Both are extremely important in order to maintain a realistic annual return target for a particular strategy. The skilled income trader is both disciplined at exiting when a trade has hit the maximum loss threshold and skilled at what we alluded to in my last … Read More