Mr. Padre is a senior trader trying to hit home runs with his trading. It was not working for him, both psychologically and with his PnL.The more famous “Mr. Padre” was the late Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres, who built a hall-of-fame career slapping singles. He consistently hit above .300 and got on base at a clip of … Read More
How Big Dog sized down to progress
Big Dog started to learn Futures to capitalize on this market with elevated volatility. He is a fast study. Big Dog is also an accomplished trader, in the 500k-1m a-year range. Let me share an anecdote working with him on our desk to improve his sizing. Big Dog noticed something about his stops when he started to size up … Read More
7 observations from a guest lecture on trading at Rutgers
Last night I gave a visiting lecture at Rutgers. I thought I would share some of my observations. 1) Rutgers is doing a masterful job of promotion. The deep red logo stands out. I even bought a shirt for myself I liked the logo and colors so much. Signs on the highway blast out their Top 10 ROI. Did they … Read More
Three Ideas to Help You Catch Your Best Trade Ideas
@mikebellafiore One thing I do before the open is develop a game plan. What stocks do I want to trade first? What prices do I want to enter positions? This helps a trader to not get overwhelmed when the market opens. There is all this data flashing buy on multiple screens in nanoseconds. Sorting out your best stocks and best … Read More
Why this trader got sent home
Yesterday we sent home a trader. Why? To cement a small win from him which he can build. The trader is just passing over his Year1 mark into Year2. This is the year where there are PnL expectations. At our firm our data suggests most traders experience significant improvement in Year2. Yesterday he was having one of his best days. … Read More
Future of Trading: Insights from My Columbia U Guest Lecture
I was invited to lecture at Columbia University this week to talk with their students most interested in the markets. I have been guest lecturing at colleges since the start of our proprietary trading firm, ten years ago. While walking home to my apartment a few blocks south after this lecture, it struck me that so much has changed with … Read More
Sprinkle 4 Ingredients onto Your Smart Trade Ideas: Boost Your Trading Intelligence
Here’s what I see from my seat as the managing partner of a proprietary trading desk in NYC with underperforming experienced traders. Add four ingredients to your trades. They do a wonderful job of developing trading ideas. They have many of them and many of them work. But too many of them do not work. And they mostly just trade … Read More
A Tale of Two DOWs
Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined over 250 points while DOW chemical rose over 5%. This was a textbook “stock in-play”. It was gapping higher, the desk identified clear levels to buy from (as mentioned in Trader90 AM meeting and Big Picture Game Plan), and the potential trade back to resistance was greater than the potential risk below support. … Read More