I tweeted the following this afternoon: there is “easy money” and “hard money” in trading. your longevity is determined by which one you choose to pursue…$$ I had quite a few responses. Some traders pointed out trading is not easy. And of course I agree with this. Trading successfully requires thousands of hours of practice and skill development. But once … Read More
Learn to Process the “Noise” to Improve as a Trader
I received this email from a prop trader: I’m very disappointed with the way I traded today. I had two more paragraphs written here explaining some potential causes for my under performance. When I started to write the third I realized how simple it all is. To summarize those thoughts, I get worked up and anxious when trading on the … Read More
The myth of the pain threshold
An SMB Trader during his daily review wrote: Today was definitely a day to really pick your spots for initiating trades. I think for the most part I selected the right stocks today but just had trouble managing some of the trades namely in FB and FAST. Something I thought about today after getting stopped out of a FB short … Read More
Facebook is not Google
Steve Spencer talked to Fox Business about the impact the Facebook IPO has had on investor psychology. * No relevant positions
Credit or debit? And the Art of Position Sizing
This post is another in a series tracking the hypothetical performance of broken wing butterfly trades selected by Greg Loehr of Optionsbuzz.com. Throughout this blog I’ve been tracking various hypothetical positions on AAPL, SPX and most recently the SPXPM, using time frames lasting from one week to three weeks. And each time the strategy has been the same: a broken … Read More
Is bad really bad? (Part II)
Yesterday I wrote Is bad ready bad? Today we follow up on this idea by looking at the work of legendary traders/investors. Over the past few years I have noticed some good coming out of what I first thought was all bad. When I lost my mom there was at first only loss, but then I recognized some good. When … Read More
Is bad really bad?
Over the past few years I have noticed some good coming out of what I first thought was all bad. When I lost my mom there was at first only loss, but then I recognized some good. When my dad had a stroke it was at first so horrible, but then some good. When we lost a mess of traders … Read More
Why FB was a long
I stress for our traders to trade with the trend. We teach generally that if a stock is in a clear downtrend to follow that trend. There are exceptions. FB today was one such exception. After the close I pinged to our traders: Why would it have been correct to get long FB today even though it has been in … Read More