The action in this shortened week started on a strong note, and finished on a strong note. After popping above 90 on the SPY in the opening minutes of trading on Tuesday, the bulls seemed to be in control for the most part, never dropping 89, even when it appeared on Thursday that we would be trading down to the … Read More
Fundamentals
Trading is not just about reading charts, or reading the tape. We also must understand the market’s and a stock’s fundamentals. We are not fundamental traders but we use fundamentals to help us increase our win rate. For the intraday trader we use fundamentals very specifically. Let’s discuss. We used fundamentals to help us profit in JCG yesterday. Yesterday JCG … Read More
The Face of a High Short Interest
Before I trade a stock I check its short interest. Why? Because it may affect how the stock trades. Simply, the higher the short interest the more buyers there may be intraday. 26 percent of the float is short JCG. I considered this with my every trade today. Let’s discuss. In our SMB AM Meeting we discussed 25 as resistance … Read More
Sabotage
Today on the desk I heard,”Oh that MON is so hard.” And it was at times. In fact it was very difficult about 90 percent of the trading day. But it was not hard. There were three simple trades that if made would have left even the average trader profitable. Let’s discuss. At 82.75 the offer would not lift in … Read More
Find the Best Teacher
Mike wrote a very thoughtful article for SFO Magazine about how to find the best teacher. In the article, Mike discusses the characteristics of a great teacher and why it is important to find someone with these qualities when searching for guidance. You can read the article here. Feel free to leave comments on this blog.
Growth
Today is a good day to sit around and think about how we will improve as traders. Between the barbequed chicken, Cavs/Magic game, summer beers, and crazy relatives there is some time to reflect. Back in the day I would be someplace like Hilton Head, with a rental on the ocean, on an immaculate course, thinking about a new club … Read More
One Trick Pony
I get too many emails from, I meet too many people who, I hear of too many stories of traders who live off of one play. Commonly this play is as follows: a trader sees a big bid and they step in front or they see a big offer and they step in front. This is my definition of scalping. … Read More
Anatomy of a Rip
I mentioned last week that I would blog the next time I took a rip of more than 1K. Unfortunately, I ripped up a lot more than that today. There were several reasons why I took this unnecessary loss and they were all my fault. Sometimes as a trader you will take a large loss due to market circumstances. But … Read More