High Frequency Trading

BellaGeneral Comments, Mike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs4 Comments

In light of all the recent commotion about high frequency trading (HFT), we have decided to compile a list of articles that depict the advantages, disadvantages, as well as arguments for and against HFT. The list follows below: Stock Traders Find Speed Pays, in Milliseconds: This is the original exposé by Charles Duhigg in the New York Times What’s Behind … Read More

A Bad Day

BellaGeneral Comments, Mike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs6 Comments

As traders some days we just won’t have it. During the last two training classes at SMB our best students have been female. For some reason only about two percent of the resumes sent to us originate from women (how do we get more?). A leading female student in our present class finally had a negative trading day in her … Read More

HFT and AMZN

BellaGeneral Comments, Mike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs6 Comments

HFT (high frequency trading) has dominated the financial media of late.  @zerohedge, Charlie Gasparino and CNBC, the StockTwits nation, @steenbab, GMan from @smbcapital, and many other talented bloggers have all weighed in.  And then came Senator Schumer: (from Bloomberg courtesy of @zerohedge):  Senator Charles Schumer asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to ban “flash orders,” saying the transactions give … Read More

Confirmation Bias

BellaGeneral Comments, Mike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs9 Comments

Today I fought confirmation bias.  Confirmation bias is processing information in the market so that it fits your preconceived opinions.  You overvalue all the information that backs your preconceived thoughts.  You ignore all the information that counters your belief.   @steenbab (Twitter handle) and @thekirkreport have written about confirmation bias in their blogs previously.  I wanted to share how I had … Read More

Reading the Tape

BellaMike Bellafiore's (Bella's) Blogs14 Comments

In a recent blog Dr. Steenbarger talked about a vital skill for the intraday trader, reading the tape.  Dr. Steenbarger, aka the godfather of modern trading psychology, wrote: “My experience is that an understanding of (and ability to read) order flow is one important factor that separates the older, successful generation of daytraders from the newbies who only know simple … Read More