Most of the trades that intraday traders make are from move to move. We short a stock when it shows some temporary weakness and then cover when it slows into its downmove. These trades can be held for less than a second at times. But most good intraday traders also hold longer intraday positions. We hold a core position. Basically … Read More
Consolidation
My views about just trading with charts are well known on our desk. This is the most difficult way to start your trading career. This is like trading with one hand behind your back. Learning how to read the order flow is essential for most to be consistently profitable traders. Chart reading is best used to supplement reading the tape … Read More
Picking Your Tier Size, Part II
In my last entry last week I presented an simple yet powerful approach to picking your tier size based on the risk you take on a play. Furthermore, the blog entry describes how to go about picking a tier size that works well independently of what kind of stock you are trading any minute of your day. In this entry … Read More
Buying into a Pullback
EL was a good trading stock on Friday. EL traded between 24.60 and 25 for most of the Open. Then on higher intraday volume EL broke above its resistance level. EL traded up towards 26 and then stalled. Let’s discuss how to buy EL into a pullback. This is a stock I want to be long. It broke above intraday … Read More
Get Your Game Back
Happy New Year. I have been battling some sort of an “on again off again” stomach virus since Christmas that has made me miss many days of trading over the past couple of weeks. But after returning to trading, I have found myself struggling. This gives me a perfect topic with which to start the new year. How to combat … Read More
“How Did You Know to Bid There?”
We are always instructing our traders on the setups that present the greatest risk/reward. If they are involved in these setups trading will be easy. If not they will struggle. I pointed out one such trade to our newest group of trainees. I was trading AAPL on the Open as it was very In Play due to Steve Jobs taking … Read More
The Cheetah and the Trader
I had an interesting conversation with a young trader from another firm today. This young trader pops into my office from time to time and talks trading. He is a very bright and competitive young man. And he is struggling. He killed it in October. But over the past two months he has dug himself a huge P&L hole. I … Read More
Trading AAPL After Hours after Jobs Announces Leave
Steve Jobs announced his leave of absence from AAPL after the Close. AAPL was halted. At 5 PM it resumed trading. Here was the news from briefing.com: Apple CEO Jobs announces medical leave of absence until the end of June (85.33 -2.38) -Update- Apple CEO Steve Jobs today sent the following email to all Apple employees: “Team, I am sure … Read More