Archive for October 2012

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Greed Is Bad. Just Ask My Sanity.

Oct 31st, 2012 | By | Category: General Comments
One of the most iconic images people have of Wall Street is the scene from the first Wall Street film where Gordon Gecko delivers his infamous monologue that begins like this, “Greed, for the lack of a better word, is Good”. Since greed and it’s first cousin fear still drive markets, it does serve a purpose in terms of creating opportunities for those who understand its nature. When it comes to short term speculation on the other hand, it can be very counterproductive to your performance. How many of you can relate to the following situation? You enter a trade based on your plan. Everything has lined up. It is an intraday momentum trade. Your stop is 10 pips and your target happens Read more [...]

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My Worst Trade

Oct 29th, 2012 | By | Category: General Comments
By marcp | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon Recently I was going through my trading notes and I happened to come across a trade that I documented a while back. And after looking it over, I realized it can serve as a good lesson to present to newer traders who may not realize that they are also making this costly mistake. Somewhere in our learning curve, we have all done the old “let’s move the stop away from the market because I know this market is going to bounce as soon as I get stopped out” trade. Or worse, we have done the “I will use a mental stop, so I don’t get shaken out all the time” trade. My worst trade, as it turns out, is actually a three-pip Read more [...]

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Broken Wing Butterflies Are Back

Oct 29th, 2012 | By | Category: General Comments
This post is another in a series that we will be publishing which track the hypothetical performance of broken wing butterfly trades selected by Greg Loehr of Optionsbuzz.com. After taking a break from blogging, I'm now back to continue contributing to the understanding of what I believe is among the best strategies that a trader can have in his (or her) arsenal:  the broken wing butterfly.  But just because I've been away from this blog doesn't mean that I haven't been in touch with my students.  Quite the opposite in fact. And after speaking with various SMB followers over the past month or so I've learned that there is one common misperception about the broken wing butterfly strategy. Read more [...]

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IF I Develop A Trading Plan THEN My Results Will Improve – EXPE 10.26.12

Oct 26th, 2012 | By | Category: General Comments, Steven Spencer (Steve's) Blogs, Trader Development
I tweeted this week that trading is about having a series of If/Then statements and not about making predictions. In practical terms this means that traders are game planning for every stock on their watch list. They are making decisions on how to trade each name based on price action, market conditions and news catalysts. For every stock I look at each day I have an understanding of what conditions would lead me to make a long trade, short trade or no trade. By developing these ideas in advance it makes it easier to execute in real time as additional data is being presented. Let's take a look at EXPE from today. This is a stock in a longer term uptrend that has had a series of news catalysts Read more [...]

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SMB Forex Trading Room Recap 10.25.12

Oct 26th, 2012 | By | Category: General Comments
In this segment, Marc Principato, CMT explains the importance of a trading plan and specifically about how many different elements must come together in order to have a robust plan. A trading plan is not about execution alone. -- Marc Principato, CMT Risk Disclaimer *No Relevant Positions Forex Swing Trader 6 week online program - LearnSMB's unique price pattern setups Read more [...]

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Yesterday’s Option tribe: The Seven Fundamentals of One Good Trade – Mike Bellafiore

Oct 24th, 2012 | By | Category: General Comments, Options Education, Seth Freudberg's Blogs
SMB’s Options Tribe is an online community of options traders dedicated to sharing successful options trading ideas with all of our members worldwide. Each week the community will meet online for the primary purpose of watching live presentations made by veteran options traders and experts in the world of options trading. This week, Mike Bellafiore, author and founding partner of SMB Capital and SMBU made a presentation on the principles of "One Good Trade" to the Options Tribe community. If you couldn't make it to the live webinar, here's your chance to watch the recording. To view the recording: Click Here Make sure to look out for the invitation to next week's Tribe meeting. Read more [...]

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Forex Trading: Less Fighting More Fishing

Oct 24th, 2012 | By | Category: General Comments
Much of the time when you read about trading, many use metaphors that refer to competition or war. You will often hear phrases like, “the forex arena”, “bulls battling the bears”, “you compete with the best and brightest minds in the world”. This is convenient and filled to the brim with conflict (we love drama just watch the news). What the general perception of market speculation tends to ignore is the passive and perhaps less entertaining side of the trading equation: the waiting game. As newer traders enter the market and begin to “inform” themselves as to the inner workings of their particular instrument, be it equities, options, futures or forex, they begin to learn about Read more [...]

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SMB Forex Trading Room Recap 10.23.12

Oct 23rd, 2012 | By | Category: General Comments
In this segment, Marc Principato, CMT explains the the difference between the two kinds of patience a short term trader must have in order operate effectively. There is the patience of waiting to get in and the patience of waiting for a target. -- Marc Principato, CMT Risk Disclaimer *No Relevant Positions Forex Swing Trader 6 week online program - LearnSMB's unique price pattern setups Read more [...]

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Free Options Webinar: Tuesday October 30 at 5pm EDT: Randall Liss—Three Dimensional Options Trading

Oct 23rd, 2012 | By | Category: General Comments, Options Education, Seth Freudberg's Blogs
Tuesday October 30, 2012 at 5:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time SMB’s Options Tribe is an online community of options traders dedicated to sharing successful options trading ideas with all of our members worldwide. Each week the community will meet online for the primary purpose of watching live presentations made by veteran options traders and experts in the world of options trading.This week Randall Liss discusses his “Three Dimensional Options Trading” concept. Register for this FREE Webinar: Here Seth Freudberg Director, SMB Options Training Program The SMB Options Training Program is a twelve month program designed for novice and intermediate level options traders who are Read more [...]

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The Chicken or the Egg?

Oct 22nd, 2012 | By | Category: Mike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs
Hi Mike,  First of all, I want to thank you for being such a great mentor. I've learned so much by reading SMB Capital blogs. I'm currently working a full time job as a Mechanical engineer and have taken trading four years ago, fascinated by this machine we call Mr Market. Obviously due to my day time job, I consider myself more of a swing trader. I'm a big believer of process, and I have come to learn the hard way that without my journal I will never become the trader I envision to be one day. I look back to when I started trading and I remember the countless hours I spent reading books, trying to find that "Holy Grail", looking for that delusional quickest path to success. The other day Read more [...]

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