A bottle of red, a bottle of white, Whatever kind of mood you’re in tonight I’ll meet you anytime you want In our Italian Restaurant. Billy Joel A twenty something professional trader enters Zagat’s highest rated Italian restaurant in Soho for a free dinner with a founding partner of his firm. It’s Soho so all this was preceded by four … 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
On the Wrong Side of These Health Care Trades
Just got back from a 5AM run. It occurred to me as I evaded a two foot rat, dodged the lightening, and got soaked with my morning run in Central Park that I am on the wrong side of a few health care trades. Picked up a Passion Iced Tea at SBUX after my run. How come Stevia is not … 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
Listening and Trusting Other Traders on a Prop Floor (MoneyShow)
This article by SMB was published at the MoneyShow.com. Some really nice video interviews of Bella are attached to this publication.
Book Review of One Good Trade from CrossHairsTrader
CrossHairsTrader wrote this thorough review of One Good Trade: Inside the Highly Competitive World of Proprietary Trading (Wiley Trading): When I assess the quality of a book I ask myself four questions: 1. Did the author teach me something I did not already know? 2. Did the author reinforce much of what I already know? 3. Did the author leave … Read More
Overthinking Yourself to Underperformance
Before the open BHI was identified as one of our Top Five trading opportunities. Many of our traders focused on BHI on the open. Here’s why: a) BHI had earnings b) BHI gapped down c) BHI was below an important longer term technical level of 46 d) the buyers at 46 lost in the premarket I am sure some traders … Read More
One Good Trade: The Prequel
“You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea.” Pablo Picasso SMB Capital started as just an idea. “Hey what if we focused on building an elite training program for new traders. The markets are much more complicated than when we began,” pitched a future co-founder. Then two experienced … Read More