Today I fought confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is processing information in the market so that it fits your preconceived opinions. You overvalue all the information that backs your preconceived thoughts. You ignore all the information that counters your belief. @steenbab (Twitter handle) and @thekirkreport have written about confirmation bias in their blogs previously. I wanted to share how I had … Read More
AMZN Tomorrow
AMZN has been one of my favorite stocks to trade for the past three years. It usually offers excellent price action for a few days before and after its quarterly earnings report. I have found that watching it trade in the after market once it releases its numbers is very instructive for the next trading day. Immediately following the release … Read More
Weekend Review: July 13 – 19, 2009
We were there. On the edge of cracking the 88 level on the SPY Monday morning, when we had a strong rally to begin the week. Then Intel reported to put some fire into this move. We closed the week slightly below 94.50, which puts us within striking distance of our 6 month highs at 95.50. We’ll see how that … Read More
Brick by Brick
After I leave the office Friday around 7PM I generally grab some dinner (last night at Pomodoro on the UWS….delicious!) and then shut things down for the day. So I missed an important email sent to me last night. An email that a new and developing trader can learn from. One that we should all write to someone who we … Read More
MOS into the Close
It is the third day live for our new class and no one has finished over $100 as of yet. Punks. Basically during the midday I spend much of my time kidding with and harassing the guys who are close to this hurdle. When one reaches $100 then many more will. And one new trader was at $180 into the … Read More
Wednesday Evening Quarterback
A few points….. 1) Today SMB tweeted: Best Morning Idea: Buy $GS @ 150.60-150.90, TGT: high 150s#mktabout 9 hours ago from Twitterlicious That was all GMan. We were asked a follow up question as to how we picked that level, which I will share. Yesterday GS could not hold above 150.50. Also on the longer term chart 150.50 has been a … Read More
A Quick Mistake
Lets talk about spreading yourself too thin. Today I traded RIMM and GS. I came in with an overnight position in JPM and made a negligible amount of money on that when the market opened. I had a bearish bias on today’s open. If we did not sell off then my plan was to re-evaluate. I thought that based on … Read More
Stick With It
Internally SMB shares intraday alerts for all major intraday levels that our desk discovers. Our desk is taught to share important intraday levels verbally through our audio feeds. None of this works without trading skills. None of this works without the trader sticking with a trade. Let’s discuss. Today I was trading OSIP. It was In Play, had gapped up, … Read More