This AM I tweeted that VMW was a long if it was holding above 80. VMW got on my radar last night when I saw an article on the WSJ site that it was investing in the “cloud”. For those of you who aren’t aware of the “cloud” it is the buzz word du jour with respect to technology firms. … Read More
My Book is Sold Out: A Social Media Tale
My book One Good Trade is sold out. This took three weeks. A rush reprint will be underway soon. Save a few exceptions, it is now only available on the Kindle. I was told, “This has never happened before with a trading book.” This is a social media tale. I considered hiring a PR firm to rep my book before … Read More
An Exercise 2 Help U Improve as a Trader (RIG)
Today RIG was the easiest of stocks to trade. 55 was the level. RIG dipped below there. And it trended in the most beautiful downtrend. Were you in this trade? I wasn’t. This level was discussed during our AM meeting. Again I wasn’t in this trade. We have discussed this RIG level on our desk for days. Oil was weak. … Read More
A Conversation on a Prop Desk
Trader Casey,”Bella what do you think of my OCR short at 22.50 today?” “What was your plan?” I asked. “I wanted to catch the move from 22.50 to 22.10, the next level.” “What was your stop?” “Bella it was 22.52.” “You probably would have needed a stop of 22.66 for that play to work consistently. So you would have had … Read More
DNDN- A Replay
Before the Open I asked SMB Trader CST, “What are you looking at?” “I am thinking of trading DNDN Bella. I am looking for an opening drive.” I checked briefing.com: Dendreon: Provenge launch is on track The market reacted positively to this news as DNDN was gapping up. On our long term charts 37.50 and 40 were the next important … Read More
A ? 4 the Trading Community- Specialize or Well-Rounded
Dr. Steenbarger helped SMB recognize one of the improvements we could make at our firm awhile ago. The partners and Senior Traders must be responsible for a great deal of teaching and mentoring. But if traders are not leveraging the talent of all firm members then that firm is not offering the best learning environment. Traders learn from other traders … Read More
A Small Rip Can Lead To A Big Chop?
I foolishly decided that buying NTRS on a pullback to 48.50 this morning was a great risk/reward trade. NTRS had broken its recent downtrend yesterday and closed at the high of the day on good relative volume. In my many years of trading this has proven to be a high percentage play. BUT during the past three weeks I have … Read More
A Trade Idea For Tomorrow
POT has been a pretty good trading stock recently. After putting a double bottom in place on June 8 it traded up about 10% before establishing a fairly wide trading range between 98 and 101.60. Today it close below 98. I will look for more downside tomorrow using 98 as my initial short price in the morning. I’m looking for … Read More