Good Morning traders, World markets are mixed this morning. Asia sharply higher 1.2% to 2.7%. Europe is a little soft this morning, down an average of about 0.8% (broad European index -0.5%). We do have some decent sized moves in currencies to start the week: the Euro is weak (EURUSD EURJPY EURCAD all down) and NZD is weak. With the … Read More
Irrational Pessimism
While being irrationally exuberant over a short winning streak of options trades leads many traders to recklessly ramp up their capital levels leading to devastating, or even fatal, losses, there is an opposite problem, which is not necessarily fatal, but certainly leads to futility. “Irrational pessimism” is when you lose confidence in your trading strategy when there is no good reason to … Read More
Traders Ask: What’s the Best Setup for Newer Traders?
Adam answers a reader’s question about the best trade setups for new traders to start with.
An Opening Dive, a Pullback and a Breakout (RL)
We had excellent news from RL this AM: Here are some trades you might consider making your own: 1) Opening Drive. If RL doesn’t tick down on the open and their is protection on the bid, then pay the offer and play the momentum. 2) The Pullback. So you missed the opening drive and still want in with this RL. … Read More
Are you REALLY willing to get back on the horse?
In Friday’s options post, we talked about the tendency of options traders to become enamored of a particular strategy simply because the trader is on a brief winning streak with that specific strategy. This propensity is particularly dangerous because market neutral income options strategies typically are entered monthly. So even a mere four month winning streak—only four successful trades in a row–allows … Read More
Morning thoughts 2/8/11
Good morning traders, Rather than clouding the picture with a lot of potentially superfluous information this morning, let’s focus on the key divergence in the US market. The chart below shows the divergence between large caps and mid caps in the US market, illustrated here via S&P 500 and Russell 2000 cash indexes, though the exact choice of index is … Read More
Free Webinar – Pre-Market Trading
If you missed Steve in his 4th and last free webinar of 2011 discussing pre-market trading, a very important skill set for professional short term traders, please click here to watch the recording.
Morning thoughts 2/7/11
Good Morning Traders, I will be in and out of the office this week, so keeping today’s comments a little shorter than usual. In general, there are 4 macro themes I am watching this week. Interest rate futures (10 and 30 year) have a pretty good longer-term sell setup. This is an outright directional play, but also has implications for … Read More