Last night our trading desk grabbed some Mexican and beers with our top traders for dinner. Generally we trade stocks with a news catalyst (we say Stocks In Play), but recently we have been focusing on market trades. SPY, UVXY, DWTI, OIH, SCO are products of interest.
Many would assume these traders would sit around predicting the bottom in oil, or that this is not the bottom in oil, or where the bottom lower will be. But they didn’t. They mostly talked about tells and tools. TICK tools to be precise.
The main topic of conversation was how to use the NYSE TICK to game market direction. One trader on a call with a veteran trader, who uses TICK, remarked how helpful it was to gain insight about market direction with this indicator from this trader. One shared taking notes while trading and learning how to trade SPY best for him. A few others discussed the most significant TICK readings for them. Another talked about a model he had built, turned off, and now wanted to dust off.
These traders had edge with market trades, because of their other trading skills, but they were searching for tools and tells to broaden that edge.
Traders trade. Traders look for ways to improve. Traders talk about tools and tells to broaden that edge.
*no relevant positions
5 Comments on “TICK TICK TICK tools at this trader dinner”
One thing that was difficult to understand as a trader at the beginning was that the market is always changing and no set up is eternal, being a good trader is a complex combination of discipline, learning, adapting, watching, and modifying behavior to have an edge on the game, this sometimes is unbearable for some personalities, but for some of us this is the ultimate challenge on being successful as a trader, the continuous challenge and room to improve, is like live an quickly changing planet and trying to evolve to survive ice ages, earth quakes, flooding, etc. only the grow mind set survives 🙂
I think you guys should stop grabbing Mexicans, that’s just not polite.
I’d also like to know about what kind of insights you shared on the use of $TICK for the different instruments you mentioned.
They were different for each trader, who all trade differently. Thxs for reaching out.,
well said! thxs for sharing.
+/- 1000 $TICK readings are the new normal in 2016, thus far…