SMB is proud to introduce a Rick Martin as a primary blogger for the SMB Blog. Rick is the lead developer for SMB Systems Trading, LLC. His career on Wall Street has spanned over 25 years and has included stints as director of research for Ryan Beck, Tucker Anthony, Swiss Bank, and The Chicago Corporation. Beginning in 1999 his focus moved … Read More
How Framing Impacts Our Trading
How do you decide what stock to buy? How do you determine the best time to buy? And once we have made the decision to buy when do we sell? These questions, and how we answer them, are a direct result of how we frame the questions, thus directly impacting our trading performance. Framing determines the viewpoint from which we … Read More
Follow Up on Microchip
Earlier today, around 10:15am EST, we posted a snap shot of the Strong and Weak Today lists on the SMB Radar. These are just 2 of 10 outputs that the algo gives us, but are extremely powerful for intraday swings. We saw MCHP on the top of the Weak Today list. It was also holding below 34.00 support, with room … Read More
Avoiding Indicatoritis
Would-be traders all tend to focus on indicators. The sense, I suppose, is that if there’s just some magic indicator to be added to the chart, then trading becomes easy. They’re way off. Personally, I don’t rely on indicators. I am price-and-volume based when making decisions on trades, and although I might occasionally glance at a moving average or something, … Read More
FE Trade Review – Maintaining Risk
My play today in FE was to short against 43.80 for a move to 43.00, then ultimately 42.30 if it held lower and really worked. Here is my review. What was working in my favor: – Hard down move on the open on volume – Very In Play on the Radar – Top 5 Weak Today name for most of … Read More
Free Options Webinar: SMB’s Options Tribe: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 5pm EDT: Broken Wing Butterflies
Tuesday October 18, 2011 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 outstanding veteran options traders and experts in the world of … Read More
So You Want To Fade This Market?
Over the years I have seen a very strong tendency with traders wanting to be short the market at the first signs of any strength after they have just observed major weakness. It feels like yesterday a former trader I worked with was shorting SPY at 76 one or two days after we had put in the March 09 bottom. … Read More
SMB Radar – Price Spike Readings
As we have mentioned in the past, Price Spike readings below 7.00 are usually not anything to be very excited about. Above 7.00 catches our interest (also the level an audio alert kicks in on the SMB Radar). Readings below 7.00 could always develop into more – but are not yet ready to play momentum. This screen shot was taken … Read More