I would like to take this opportunity to officially announce my retirement from modeling. Well let me modify that statement. I will not model another day unless I get paid 10k. Ok now that makes more sense. So Steve and I were asked by Trader Monthly to do a shoot for an article they are writing about SMB Capital. The … Read More
Tier Size
The last few days have been a bit slow after the Open. We must adjust. One adjustment I make on such trading days is to lower my tier size after the Open. I traded HPQ on the Open (chart below). It held 45 and made a nice upmove to 45.25 where it was met with resistance. After a struggle at … Read More
Best Pizza
So one of our new traders, who grew up near my home town, and I were discussing the best pizza. For some reason there is this false notion that NYC has the best pizza. They don’t. The best pizza, Colosseo, is from my home town. This is not some parochial or biased call. I have traveled quite a bit. And … Read More
Vacation
It is important to take vacations during the trading year. Trading for one day is like working three days at another job. I remember in law school taking finals. We would learn and study for half the year and then take one exam. For example, I took Constitutional Law with the Jeremy Paul, now the Dean of UConn Law School. … Read More
Alert
Well yesterday was a bit slow. We trended up and then trended down towards the Close. On the Open I traded FCX and HK and recognized light order flow. I was aware not to get caught in the Low Volume P. For SMB that means the low volume programs where the short term longs lose as the stock is dropped … Read More
Morning Meeting
One of the greatest advantages each trader on our desk has is being able to listen to the exchange of ideas from our AM Meeting. At the beginning of each meeting Dov gives the Big Picture, which is an overview of world markets and both macro and micro events that may create intraday trading opportunities for our desk. After Dov … Read More
The Absurdity of MER
I really wanted to write this post after the market closed today. But I have been literally working on other projects for our firm for the past seven hours (11:50pm EDT now). So I’m going to share my thoughts on what I believe is a very good risk/reward trade in Merrill Lynch. MER issued a secondary about two weeks ago … Read More
Just Trade
There was a bunch of chatter on our desk before the Close about a dead market. DQ, a solid young trader, was complaining, “The energy stocks stopped moving. They don’t move that well after 2:30. Nothing is movin.” I remarked, “So take a look at some of the financials, young fella.” MER was sitting there at 25, bobbing and weaving … Read More