Trading Stocks & Personal Development: Making the Complex Simple.
I recently engaged in an interesting chat with a novice trader this weekend. It got me thinking about the fallacy of backtesting and why I don't rely on past statistics. You heard me correctly. My take on backtesting is controversial and puts me in the minority. Some have called me an idiot for this view and... Continue Reading →
Most full-time traders have a basket of "goto" setups that they trade repeatedly. Some do so mindlessly, irrespective of market conditions. You can make money this way, but you will not become wealthy. The best traders optimize their trading by deploying the right setup for the right market. For instance, a "trading range" setup is... Continue Reading →
One of my mantras is to "set it and forget it" after making a trade. Once a trade is made, I set my stop and target, then forget about the trade until one of the price objectives is hit. At least I usually do . . .My recent GS trade is a good example of... Continue Reading →
Is it time to take profits in the STEC short? Entry was made back on September 24th at $30.75., so we are looking at a 15-20 percent gain.My general approach to exits is to set a target based on support/resistance levels and take a partial profit at that level. As you can see from the... Continue Reading →
To see the report with charts, click hereAugust 24, 2009Market Notes:In the law there is a term called "de novo", which means to consider a matter anew. It's commonly used when an appeals court reviews a lower court decision. The appeals court can review the case with a fresh pair of eyes. I like to... Continue Reading →
If it were any other stock, I'd take a stab at shorting AAPL right here, right now. Technically, it shows signs of losing steam and is a good "pioneer short trade."We see negative divergences in both RSI and Stochastics. Price is making new highs while the two indicators are not. On top of that, volume... Continue Reading →
This is the second in a series of tips for the part-time trader who trades around a full-time job. As a part-time trader, time management is as vital to success as picking stocks or managing my portfolio. Over the years I have developed tricks to streamline what used to take me up to 4 hours... Continue Reading →
On Friday I went short AMZN and long RIMM. This is a "pair trade" trade using the folling strategy:1- enter one stock long and one stock short from similar fields.2- the short stock should exhibit a very bearish pattern, while the long stock a very bullish pattern.The idea behind this trade is that if the... Continue Reading →
Since joining Twitter, I've had a number of conversations with Trade Report members who also use twitter. I've found a common mistake between twitter users, and that is over-trading and not understanding time frames.Yesterday, a member told me he had entered one of my focus list stocks. I asked him why, since it was not... Continue Reading →
The second most important aspect of my trading strategy (behind support and resistance) is using volume to classify stocks that are under accumulation and distribution. Distribution is under way when, over a period of time, stocks show higher volume on down days and lower volume on up days. In a bullish trend, this predicts the... Continue Reading →
