Written 11/13/09 It is recruiting season for SMB again. That means some long trips, like the one I am on now, stuck on a train Friday night between Providence and New Haven. I actually got on the early train mistakenly and am in danger of getting booted off the train at New Haven. Seriously, the Amtrak ticket collector (that is … Read More
If It Ain’t Broke Don’t Fix It
A bunch of trader’s on our desk made nice chops shorting RIMM yesterday at the 65 level. The trade worked four times. Today the trade was highlighted in our AM Meeting and tweeted as our Best Morning Idea. I checked my risk monitor at 11:00AM to see how we did in RIMM on the Open. To my surprise we were … Read More
Buy the Tanking Futures Program
When trading we watch a stock’s corresponding futures or index. For MON the stock I was trading on the Open, SPY is my corresponding index. Generally when SPY trades higher MON should and when SPY trades lower then MON should follow. I say generally and this was not the case at one very important moment today. Again MON was very … Read More
How Would You Trade This Setup?
MON had been consolidating in a tight range for the past three days between 68.70 and 70.30. Today it finally moved. How would you have traded it? Take a look at the two charts below to better understand the context of the move. How will you trade it tomorrow? I will offer my thoughts in the AM…
Important Market and Stock Level Pattern
We have been waiting for GS to hold above 173.50. I quick check of the 5 day in GS will so confirm. 108.10 SPY is an important technical level. A hold above and our next important level is SPY 110. Before the open you should have had these thoughts as an intraday trader: Imagine if GS can hold above 173.50 … Read More
A Short Term and A Long Term
WFMI was In Play today. It gapped down in the premarket on disappointing earnings results. My first instinct was to look for a good level to get short as WFMI usually follows through on the direction of its gaps. I had a downside target of 27 based on a longer term level. What I needed was a safe entry point. … Read More
Sharing Information
When we started SMB Capital not even four years ago we set out to do four things: 1) provide the best intraday training on the Street. 2) offer a payout that was fairer than I had received to our traders. 3) create a culture of perpetual learning, where we all learned from each other. 4) share valuable trading information. Many … Read More
Taking Advantage of Choppy Fed Day Trading
Every time Bernanke and the Feds are set to make a rate announcement, we have a brief meeting within our firm to discussing how we are going to trade. Whereas last fall we saw some huge directional moves on rate decisions, on several of the recent Fed days we’ve experienced extremely choppy action. The market will appear to be breaking … Read More