Bobby Curtis was a world class distance runner who developed insomnia (NY Daily News article). He had to quit competitive running. He tried and considered every solution. And then…… It was on one of his innumerable Internet searches that Bobby Curtis finally found a deceptively simple approach, one that counseled him to follow his normal schedule of activities, no matter … Read More
The SMB PlayBook: Compiling our best trades
We have been doing an exercise with our traders that I thought I would share. We ask our traders to create a playbook. Plays and patterns that make sense to them that they want to trade more of. At the end of the day the trader considers a best trade they made, details this trade in our SMB PlayBook template … Read More
Gap, Battle and Go (SYY)
SYY gapped up on the open after earnings. Intraday Fundamentals From Reuters: * Q3 EPS $0.46 vs est $0.41 * Q3 sales $9.76 bln vs est $9.48 bln * Shares up 11 pct, at year-high (Compares with estimates, adds background in paragraoh 2; updates shares) May 9 (Reuters) – Top U.S. food distributor Sysco Corp reported quarterly results that easily … Read More
Refresh Refocus
From The Economist, a piece studying judicial rulings: Decision making is mentally taxing and that, if forced to keep deciding things, people get tired and start looking for easy answers. As active intraday traders do we hit a point where we want easy trades? Do we stop thinking as thoroughly as we should after a series of trades on the Open? … Read More
Dimes for Dollars
The second reason many traders fail to “stay with the move” is the fear of giving some profits back. The overriding emotion of having to get every penny in every trade causes them to get jumpy as soon as the stock does a stutter step. That’s fine if you are willing to get right back in if the trend resumes, … Read More
Forex trade of the week
A key point in the EUR/CHF trade was when the price fractured the areas of support, which are identified by the Fibonacci retracement at level .618 % at an approximate price of 1.2800. Once those areas have been breached, we expect the trend to be lower than the previous minimums, but in turn, the price increases producing up trends. This … Read More
Confirmation bias and the trading this week in SLV
From Ian Leslie in his blog why is reasoning really all about winning: It’s been shown again and again in studies that we have a very strong ‘confirmation bias’; once we have an idea about the world we like (Obama is un-American, my girlfriend is cheating on me, the world is or isn’t getting warmer) we pick up on evidence … Read More
Fighting for the best prices
I was standing behind a new trader, Battery Park, watching him buy a pullback in a Stock In Play. Battery Park bought 76c and hit out at 63c. He should have hit out at 69c. Then Battery Park reentered at 65c when he could have bought 58c on the bid. We talk about Reading the Tape often in this blog but … Read More