I am not sure why but too often traders fade moves like yesterday into the Close. The market bounced over 800 points during the last two hours of trading. I was talking with an experienced trader after the Close and came up with a theory. Traders tend to miss the beginning of bounces. The market has been weak. The market … Read More
Last 15 Minutes
Large movements generally start more than 15 minutes before the Close. The last four trading days we have seen very explosive moves in the last 15 minutes of the trading day. Today we tanked right before the Close. The last two trading days we have seen significant downmoves. The two trading before that we saw significant upmoves. Today in the … Read More
More on Expectations
Expectations can be harmful to your trading. We ask all of our prop traders to set goals for themselves. I do for myself. Whether its for my trading or our trading firm. As John Wooden says,”make each day your masterpiece.” But goals often for the new trader are incorrectly results based and not process based. And I want to take … Read More
Answering A Couple of Questions
Stock Selection: Over the last few weeks I’ve been sticking mostly to trading AAPL, SPY, and almost any financial that i felt comfortable trading. Stocks that I have also been looking are S&P 500 stocks trading near 52 week lows. I’ve been focusing on trading them on the short side, since I want to short the weakest stocks in a … Read More
AAPL Earnings—Oy Vey!
As you gain more experience traders develop biases about stocks and where they should be priced. Often this is helpful. At times it can lead to potential rips. As an experienced trader I have learned that my biases must be verified by the Box, the price action in the stock. Who am I to decide where a stock ought to … 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
Reversals, Reversals, Reversals
Friday was a very difficult trading day because the market reversed so many times. Into the Close the market reversed four times. I usually get caught in one reversal a week. I got caught in eight yesterday. I would make a bunch of profitable trades and then a stock would reverse. I got caught in the SPY upmove midday from … Read More
Fear Establishes Bottoms
One thing that I realized a long time ago was that emotions/psychology are what determine prices of stocks in the short term. The average stock on the NYSE fluctuates 50% in any given year. Does anyone really believe that the fundamentals of each company gyrate to the extent necessary to justify that level of volatility? (maybe in this environment but … Read More