Archive for September 2009
Sep 21st, 2009 |
By Bella |
Category: Mike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs
Into the Close I sit, trade, and also must watch what our traders are doing on my Admin screen. It is my job to make sure they are not violating market fundamentals. And I saw this on a few trader's screens:
-1000 AIG
-1600 AIG
This is an example of breaking a market fundamental. We do not short strong stocks. Let's discuss why.
1) There is more money buying into pullbacks and then selling the new highs.
2) You take yourself out of the game by shorting, watching AIG trade higher and then getting pissed at yourself for doing something so stupid (for lack of a better word).
3-10) See answer 1.
If you short a strong stock into an upmove you may make 12c on a trade. If
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Tags: AIG, fade, smb capital Posted in Mike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs |
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Sep 20th, 2009 |
By ajames |
Category: General Comments
Tonight, SMB Capital's Mike Bellafiore appeared on StocktwitsTV to pick up where he left off last week discussing "A Trader's Day" and the things traders need to do each and every day to become successful. Click here to watch the clip. Mike appears on StocktwitsTV every Sunday at 8:30pm so be sure to tune each week to watch the show.
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Posted in General Comments |
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Sep 19th, 2009 |
By Bella |
Category: Mike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs
IEL sits at his trading station staring at his screens ready to pounce. GMan sits at his much larger trading station (he is the Head Trader) watching every tick in the market, with his hands on his keyboard. Scuba sits patiently processing every bid and offer in ARNA (even though he is a Partner). And then some others trade AND answer emails or trade AND play their new favorite video game. Those others are under-performing and there is no secret why.
Being an elite intraday trader requires doing the thousands of little things. Things that have nothing to do with creating a brilliant new trading strategy, or predicting whether ARNA will trade higher on a slow Friday before the Jewish holiday.
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Tags: ARNA, prop trading, smb capital Posted in Mike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs |
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Sep 18th, 2009 |
By Bella |
Category: General Comments, Mike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs
Last night I went out long DNDN. At 8:30 AM I was down a cool $80 on my position. Not exactly something for which to put down my breakfast Cliff protein bar.
DNDN had cleared an important resistance level on Thursday at 27.50. It closed still in an intraday uptrend and 80c from its intraday high at 28.75. Stocks like DNDN offer the possibility of gapping up after a day like Thursday. So I went out long.
Steve started our AM Call and mentioned DNDN as a stock to watch today. During the call DNDN went high bid 29.25. Hmmm. Then DNDN went high bid 29.33. Hmmm. I sold 100 shares. Then DNDN went high bid again 29.47. Hmmm. I sold another hundred shares.
I mentioned
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Tags: DNDN, premarket trading, smb capital Posted in General Comments, Mike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs |
2 comments
Sep 17th, 2009 |
By sspencer |
Category: General Comments, Steven Spencer (Steve's) Blogs, Trading Theory
LVS has been on SMB's radar for the past couple of weeks. It made a nice run from 15 to 20. Yesterday, it showed signs that it was going to give back some of its recent gains. It sold off hard from 20 to 18.50. Gman, our head trader, was short it for most of the afternoon. He identified some unusual selling at 19.70 before it made its final down move to 18.50. We highlighted LVS on our Stocks In Play call this morning and tweeted it as our best trade idea.
Then why did less than 10% of our desk capitalize on this great trading opportunity? Perhaps they were looking at the triple leveraged ETFs or some of the other In Play names for the day? This certainly partially explains
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Posted in General Comments, Steven Spencer (Steve's) Blogs, Trading Theory |
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Sep 17th, 2009 |
By ajames |
Category: General Comments
Dr. Brett Steenbarger, respected market psychologist, recently wrote on TraderFeed about the importance of Reading the Tape for short-term traders. In his post, he says that "Reading the tape is key to getting in and out at good prices." And, "For experienced tape readers, knowing prices where large orders have come into and out of the market can also be useful in market near-term support and resistance."
In his post Dr. Steenbarger also highlights SMB's new tape reading program. You can read the full post here.
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Posted in General Comments |
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Sep 16th, 2009 |
By Bella |
Category: General Comments
Recently I received this question from Reader Stephen:
I am 53 yo guy been trading for 30+ years. I love your videos and your traders that give intraday information,
I have a simple question. What is an example of Goal for the day?
I have enclosed an example of my monthly goals which I do daily to keep me focused. With these plans I have improved my life in so many ways except in my trading. I improved my health, lost weight, got faster and stronger on the bike, better relationship with my sons, and more organized in the house. But these things I could break down into daily tasks. This is where I think I am getting stuck in my trading. Your idea of daily goals is
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Tags: goal setting, smb capital, trading goals Posted in General Comments |
10 comments
Sep 15th, 2009 |
By sspencer |
Category: General Comments, Steven Spencer (Steve's) Blogs
One of the greatest hurdles a new trader faces is that of consistency. Consistency on SMB's desk is defined as being profitable a minimum of 80 percent of the trading days each month. The majority of our desk achieved this level of consistency in the month of August. This was mainly a result of the opportunities in the leveraged financial ETFs and the crazy volatility we saw in AIG. These opportunities played into the strengths of many of our better young traders. I would describe this group as risk averse momentum scalp traders. They love it when a stock is In Play from the Open straight into the Close. They will risk 10-20 cents to make 50 cents to a dollar all day.
The question is what
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Tags: consistency, search Posted in General Comments, Steven Spencer (Steve's) Blogs |
6 comments
Sep 14th, 2009 |
By Bella |
Category: General Comments, Mike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs
Into the Close I recognized that one of the stocks I was long was stronger than all the others. That was DNDN, which will now be the first stock I consider to trade as I prepare before the Open tomorrow. Let's discuss.
Into the Close I was long LVS, DRYS, AIG, and DNDN. SPY broke from its tight range and started an upmove into the last 45 minutes of the trading day. LVS did not trade higher, though it had cleared important technical levels. DRYS did not trade higher though above 7 was significant. AIG in a nice intraday uptrend was stopped in its tracks at 41.30. Not a strong upmove into the Close. But then there was DNDN.
DNDN closed strongly into the Close.
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Tags: AIG, day trading, DNDN, prop trading Posted in General Comments, Mike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs |
2 comments
Sep 14th, 2009 |
By gman |
Category: Gilbert Mendez's (Gman's) Blogs, Reading the Tape
SMB Training now proudly presents our Reading the Tape training program for new and developing traders. After two months of arduous work we have finally put together an intensive 2 day program available to you for 30 days on our training website.
Reading the Tape allows intraday traders to determine the next move in a stock just by examining the bids, offers and prints. Reading the Tape (RTT) is an important skill that all intraday traders must develop. Most new and developing traders just learn technical analysis, a little fundamental analysis and then start their trading career. Consequently, they are trading without fully developed trading skills and this is a mistake. Reading the Tape:
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Tags: Reading the Tape, smbtraining Posted in Gilbert Mendez's (Gman's) Blogs, Reading the Tape |
7 comments
