I picked up a copy of the new Malcolm Gladwell book Outliers this weekend and read something that caught my attention. Gladwell points out that a typical airline accident involves seven consecutive errors. The errors by themselves rarely have an impact on the overall safety of a flight, yet the combination of them consecutively usually lead to disaster. I started … Read More
Plays Not to Be In
Yesterday I got pretty heated at some guys on our desk for being in what I call “a good play in a sucker stock” in the middle of the day. Every day for the past 2 weeks I have noticed that some guys get in plays where the risk appears to be 1 cent and the reward about 5-10 cents, … Read More
So Weak. So Weak!!
Yesterday we had a ridiculous sell off. Three days worth of gains got completely eliminated. Yes, we were expecting a pullback because the market had been walked up on light/moderate volume during the holiday, but yesterday’s price action shows there is fear in the market again.The price action yesterday put us today in an uncomfortable position. You could argue that … Read More
Patiently Waiting in the Wrong Stock
Yesterday was a hard day for me. I performed well, though I traded lightly and found it difficult to trade the market in the middle of the day. I am normally the type of trader that can sit there and trade profitably all day long. I make my adjustments so I can trade profitably during the middle of the day … Read More
Letting Go
I was trading HPQ this morning on the good guidance they provided. I traded the stock pretty well in premarket and was able to build a pretty good cushion for the open. I normally do not trade this stock as it is too thick and doesn’t have enough volatility. Today however it was up almost $4 on the open and … Read More
Reviewing Your Work
I was out on the West Coast interviewing some candidates at UC Berkeley last Friday. It sure was nice out there! Mid 70s in the middle of November, really? Oh boy do I miss that awesome weather!. One of the interviewees with a bit of experience in trading his own account asked me a question that I thought was interesting. … Read More
What to Trade These Days
As Bella pointed out, last Friday was difficult. There were so many reversals that it was frustrating to trade any stock. Market stocks overreacted to moves in their corresponding futures and levels were not respected. I lost on so many fade trades in which I would buy a stock that quickly retraced to a support level and continued going lower … Read More
Next Support on the Dow @ 0
I wrote a couple of weeks back about the market putting in a bottom. Oh boy I was only off by about 4000 points in the Dow :). Yes I was very wrong but the beauty of it is that as a trader I have learned that the market has to confirm my bias. The price action wasn’t there so … Read More