A Great Time To Be Patriotic
I was very pleased to see the stock market make new highs today, but I still can't believe the misery I keep hearing. Instead of finding people encouraged by this rally, this seems to be the most depressing celebration of new highs I have ever seen in my 18 years of trading. I have a bunch of thoughts, so I'll just rattle them off: 1) For the first time in history, the majority of Americans [...]
Jesse Livermore’s Trading Rules Written in 1940
Jesse Livermore was one of the greatest traders who ever lived. You can read more about him here. Here are his trading rules written in 1940. You will find that many of them still apply today, proving that very little changes in the market over time. 1. Nothing new ever occurs in the business of speculating or investing in securities and commodities. 2. Money cannot consistently be made trading every day or every week during [...]
Icahn’s Influence
Carl Icahn is affecting the stock market in ways he might not realize. Let me explain. Icahn is an activist investor. The basic premise behind activist investing is that the shareholder takes an equity stake in a company and uses it to put pressure on its management. The objective is to get management to increase shareholder value through many possible ways (stock buybacks, increasing dividends, restructuring, cost cutting, spinoffs, etc.). Here is the part I [...]
Trade Idea of the Week: Tesla Motors
I continue to like $TSLA for the following reasons: 1) Fundamentals - The company has strong sales growth and its earnings are projected to grow +53% in 2014 and +166% in 2015. I wouldn't be surprised to see these estimates raised as they continue to expand internationally and add new models. 2) Technicals - The chart is showing VERY strong technicals on multiple timeframes, with many key areas of institutional support. Also, it looks like [...]
The Market Tends To Fool The Majority
In early May, the monthly Jobs report came out strong. Paul Tudor Jones said you had all the data you wanted for fixed income to get killed. In other words, a strong jobs report means the economy is improving, thus higher rates down the road. Instead, the opposite happened! Bonds closed up that day and rates fell. Jones astonishingly said: How can anyone predict/think that bonds would close up that day??? PIMCO's Tony Crescenzi was [...]
Notes From David Tepper’s SALT Conference Interview
Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the 6th Annual SALT Conference. Thanks to the leadership and vision of Anthony Scaramucci, this event has evolved "from a financial conference to one of the world's leading thought leadership forums." There were many phenomenal speakers who presented during the week, but as a trader, I was most interested in David Tepper's one-on-one interview with Anthony Scaramucci. It is pretty powerful when someone introduces you by saying "$1 [...]