Category: strategy
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Applying the Strategic Elements of Sports to Trading
Trading psychologist Brett Steenbarger wrote an excellent post relating sports psychology to trading. I highly recommend it to anybody in the trading game. This paragraph struck a cord with me: “The finding that experts in a particular sport are better than novices, not merely at physical skills but also on…
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Strategic Flexibility is a Key to Trading Success
Your strategy has to be flexible enough to change when the environment changes. The mistake most people make is they keep the same strategy all the time. They say, “Damn, the market didn’t behave the way I thought it would.” Why should it? Life and the markets just don’twork that…
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Revisiting Building A Better Watchlist
Ever since the “Beat the Market by Building a Better Watchlist” post, I’ve received a number of e-mails asking for more detail about how I build the watchlists that I post on the site. It takes a complex, organic process that takes many factors into account to narrow a list…
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Boone Pickens on Oil
No surprise here, oil tycoon Boone Pickens is an oil bull. According to Mr. Pickens, we are not near a top, although there could be a short term correction. I’m looking to buy on a pullback to the mid 70 range. MT TradeBuilding a Better Watchlist
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Beat the Market by Building a Better Watchlist
I attribute my modest success as a trader to preparation and building strong watch lists. Entering and exiting trades is the easy part. Most of my time and energy is focused on narrowing thousands of stocks down to a strong, manageable list of stocks that will beat the market. This…
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A Reader Criticizes My Non-Technical Impulsive Trading
A reader seemed disappointed with Friday’s “not-so-technical” trades. In that post, I said I was annoyed and pissed off by a market making non-sensical knee jerk moves. To take advantage of an emerging pattern (market is up one day and down the next), I went long the indexes on extreme…
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Indicators are not the be-all and end-all!
Lately I’ve received many e-mails and comments asking me why I made a trade when so-and-so indicator was divergent or not giving a buy or sell signal. This comment left by Rey is a good example: “It looks like I don’t see eye to eye with you sometimes regarding going…
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Today’s Trades: LFC and SDS
Missing the moves in BCSI and CROX this past week allowed me to come to a conclusion about current market conditions: the small list of realy strong momentum stocks are not pulling back much in this market. My best guess as to the reasoning for this phenomena is that there…
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Today’s Trades: NOV (and Steel comment)
I bought 300 shares of NOV at $114.35. Buying this stock on pullbacks has become a go to move for me, like Allen Iverson’s crossover. This is one of those “keep doing it until it ceases to work” trades, akin to feeding a hot three point shooter. Okay, that’s it…
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Five Things You Need to Know About the Market
I often get asked by my readers where I think the market is headed. To the surprise of many, I never make a prediction, and quite frankly, am not good at making arbitrary market calls. However, once I get the correct signals, I have a good feel for when it…
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Another Strong Stock: CROX
One of my loyal readers asked me why I keep spotlighting strong stocks when I am more apt to go short right now. Fair question. The reason is, at the moment, it is easy to find stocks to short. If I were to throw darts at a board with the…
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EWZ Entry Strategy
One of my favorite buy the dip plays, EWZ (Brazilian ETF), has pulled back to the 50 day moving average. There are two ways I am looking to enter this stock. I’m going to make a very small buy now, right around the support area, with a stop around $59-60.…
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What if your pullback play goes against the overall market?
I recevied the following question from a reader. It’s a tough one to answer, as I have no hard and fast rule on the topic. I wanted to know if you will enter pullbacks that look good even if the market was strong during the pullback? Basically say the DOW…
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Trade: RIO and Entry Point Precision
I bought 500 shares of RIO at $44.65. This is a simple “trend pullback” trade. The stock has been on a steady trend that has bounced off of every pullback to the 50 day moving average. I am a bit concerned about the heavy volume on this pullback, so I…
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ILMN Revisited and a Video Question
Two nights ago, I mentioned ILMN as a “short float” breakout candidate. The stock had broke out over resistance and had a low float coupled with high short interest. These conditions lead me to believe we could be setting up for a parabolic move higher. Take a look at how…
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Today’s Trade: STLD, and SPX
I went short 500 shares of STLD at $45.70. I had a short set just under the 50 day MA, which of course triggered today. I was also stopped out of my 300 share long position in STLD at $45.90 (entry at $47.70) for a 540 loss (-3.7 %). Note…
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"Short Float" Breakout Setup: ILMN
ILMN made a 4 % gain today over established resistance. However, that’s not what put it on my watchlist. Stocks in a downtrend do not usually make the cut. What makes this stock special is that it is a low float stock with a high short interest ratio. The stock’s…
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The Right Side of the Market
“There is only one side to the stock market;….not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side. It took me longer to get that general principle fixed firmly in my mind than it did most of the more technical phases of the game of stock market speculation.”…
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Trades, Watchlist and Earnings Observation
I’m in a hurry today, so I’ll have to outline today’s trades tomorrow. In the meantime, here is my breakout-pullback candidate list. USU: pb-20-21RSH: pb 30EXM: pb 23-23.50CRY: pb 11AWC: pb 25.50DRSY: pb 35-36LXU: pb 17MCY: pb 56 NILE is moving after hours based on a well liked earnings report.…
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Today’s Trade: AAPL and ADM
I bought 200 shares of AAPL at $100.25. I went over the chart on Friday. ADM (Archer Daniels Midland Co.) reports earnings tomorrow. I will likely place a buystop at $39.75-40.10, depending on how the stock looks at the close today. If the stock clears this level (which is an…
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Trade: Playing the Lehman bounce
Investment banking stocks such as LEH and MS have been crushed over the past couple of weeks. It’s always risky to go counter to a strong downtrend, but I think LEH is a low risk bounce setup right now. LEH almost broke down below to strong areas of support: the…
Paul J Singh 