In the summer of 2010, I traveled to Manhattan from my home in Philadelphia to meet with Roy Davis of SMB Capital for the purpose of checking out SMB’s intraday equities training program. While I am an income options spread trader myself, my premise was that intraday equities trading and options income trading were not at all mutually exclusive … Read More
Bias Shmias!
One of the most frequent confessions I hear from developing traders is that they couldn’t change their bias when the price action warranted such a change. They develop a bias as to which direction a stock will trade and hold on to their viewpoint despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I have even heard there are many experienced traders who deal … Read More
The Back Nine- You First
On the couch, wife out of town, a full container of perfectly ripe cantaloupe, what is a young man to do? I found a killer documentary, not via NFLX, The Back Nine that has left me with a day full of thoughts on trader performance. First should we teach traders to work through their psychological hurdles before we talk set ups? … Read More
Sometimes Nothing’s A Real Cool Hand
For those of you who are movie buffs like me, you’ll know that one of the truly greatest films of all time is Cool Hand Luke, the titlecharacter having been played by Paul Newman in one of his finest roles. If you haven’t seen it, see it. What a great flick. The Paul Newman character is a prisoner on a … Read More
Exploring Trading Education: Why Aren’t Universities Teaching Trading?
I just returned from Penn State for a talk with some future traders (perhaps). Some serious college traders inside of an investment club reached out for my visit. My charge? Discuss what it’s really like to be a profes-sional trader so that some might better understand what we do. In a recent New York Times article the rise of trading labs … Read More
The Right Way to Adopt a New Options Strategy for Your Playbook
In our last blog post we discussed the reasons that options traders should take it slowly when adopting a new income strategy. Here are some simple steps you can take to assure that your adoption of a new options strategy is sound: Communicate with the developer of the strategy and see if he or she is still actively trading the … Read More
SMB At The NYC Traders Expo
Mike Bellafiore The Traders Expo is on its way to New York City, February 20 – 23. Mike Bellafiore, SMB co-founder and author of One Good Trade: Inside the Highly Competitive World of Proprietrary Trading, will be attending the expo. Mike will be speaking on the following topics: Why Can’t You Become the Next Great Trader on the Street? – Monday … Read More
Beware of the Fad: Five Reasons to Take it Easy with a New Options Strategy
In the options universe, there are plenty of traders who are happy to share a new strategy that has either worked well for them in the recent past, or has backtested splendidly over an extended period of time. Regardless of whether these strategies have been developed by competent veteran traders or newer traders who have not experienced every type of … Read More