Question: I hear a lot about the value of a competitiveness in trading success. Analogies are made with the striving for peak performance seen in athletes and entrepreneurs. One thing about this puzzles me, and I’d appreciate the thoughts of others with more experience and success. When I trade I am trying to get better: to make good trades and, inhibit … Read More
I felt a rip coming
I caught a scalp for the first downmove in DSW. I caught the upmove from above 52.12 to near 53. And I caught the downmove from below 52.50 to 51.65. I looked at my PnL and I was barely positive. How is that possible? I was not trading DSW on the open with size as it was so early and … Read More
The Pro’s Process – Mike Bellafiore
Richard Chignell from Embrace the Trade on the fourth of his series of posts has been asking Pro Traders about their psychological processes. From Mr. Chignell: The fourth in my series of posts asking Pro Traders about their psychological processes. Delving a little into how it feels to them when trading. The good and the bad. How this has changed … Read More
Are you guilty of Negative Self Talk?
I received this Daily Trading Review from one of our traders. It highlights the importance of learning to combat Negative Self Talk. I am an (expletive deleted). I had a comeback going, at 2:20pm I was down $23 after being down all day.I was calm and selective and thoughtful all mid day and into the 2:30 hour. I lost $250 … Read More
One Good Trading Day
I received this Daily Review yesterday from one of our traders. I highlight in this blog because it represents One Good Trading day. If you get as much as this trader during each trading day you will grow as a trader. If you are not improving as much as this trader each trading then you have some work to get … Read More
Finding Repeatable Patterns
After the close we discussed some plays from Stocks In Play yesterday. When we look at a stock we search for patterns. Patterns that repeat. Patterns that make sense to us. Patterns that we can work at to master. So for these three stocks we are making risk/reward trades with the patterns we see. We have a full playbook of … Read More
A 2 Day VWAP Trade (CNC)
During a daily review an SMB Trader wrote this about his trading in CNC: CNC pulled back to 2 day VWAP and break out area from yesterday. Waited for break in intraday downtrend to get into this stock. When it began to hold above .70 I was up to 1,200 shares from .72. Was waiting for the push through .80 … Read More
Imprint These Images On Your Brain
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