Our Country’s Biggest Problem
I was very fortunate to get a ticket to the Second Presidential Debate on October 16, 2012. While waiting in line to get in, I started talking to 2 Hofstra University students (1 male, 1 female) who won tickets to the event through the student lottery. For 30 minutes, we were laughing our asses off! I felt like a stand-up comedian and the 2 students were in tears laughing during our conversation...until the most horrible [...]
What Slash Taught Me About Stock Trading
My good friend Brent Fitz is an amazing drummer. He's currently touring with Slash & Myles Kennedy. Before their recent performance in New York, we got together to catch up on his busy touring life. Frank Sidoris also joined us (who by the way is one of the best young guitar talents out there). Here are a few things I learned during our dinner conversation: 1) Hard work. Once we sat down, I asked them [...]
Tips For Trading Potential Bottoms
It was nice to see some subtle signs of strength in the market today (11/1/12). By no means are we out of the woods, but I did notice a Day 6 Follow Through Day (FTD) on the S&P 400 Mid-Cap Index ($MDY). For those of you not familiar with the FTD concept, I suggest reading Chapter 9 in William O'Neil's book: How To Make Money in Stocks. If this is a potential near-term bottom, here are [...]
The Market is a Beast of its Own, Respect it!
In the fall of 1987, there were 11 days of distribution (heavy volume selling) BEFORE the October 1987 crash. In September 2001, the market was looking horrible, no stocks were setting up, and out of nowhere...9/11 happened. Fast forward to today. In late September/early October the market experienced heavy distribution. I went to 100% cash on October 9th and discussed my reasons in this blog post. Since then, I was very tempted to slowly get [...]
A Few Trading Lessons
I recently had the opportunity to hear Scott O'Neil speak to a group of stock traders and investors. Scott is the President of MarketSmith and one of the sharpest portfolio managers in the business. Over the 2-hour talk, he covered many topics. Here are a few lessons that should serve as great reminders to all traders. 1) Entry point is critical. Scott described his entries as "laser focused." You should enter a position when it [...]
Stay Focused on the Leaders
I haven't updated my blog in a while because I have been neck deep trading this market. Back on Sunday, August 19th, I sent the following email to the people who attended my seminar earlier this year. Rather than typing up a new blog post, I simply copied and pasted the email because my stance hasn't changed since I wrote it 3 weeks ago: Dear Seminar Attendees, I hope all is well. My last email [...]