I got a text today from a trader friend who is short the market saying: "This market is NEVER going down!" About 10 minutes later, I got a text from a different friend who is long the market saying: "I HATE this market!" It got me thinking about a few things. Many traders and professional [...]
About 5 years ago, I had the pleasure of sitting down with one of the top 10 traders in the country. Any time I have the chance to learn from success, I jump on the opportunity. (Out of respect for his request, this portfolio manager asked to remain anonymous because he is a very private [...]
There are so many different strategies and ways to trade the market. The key is to know when the time is right for your strategy. When it's right, get aggressive. When it's not, scale back. The biggest challenge for many traders is to ACCEPT the times when the market environment is not favorable for your [...]
I discussed the following in a Market Video over the weekend. Here is a summary of the important points: 1) In my 18 years of trading, there have been 4 years where the market grinded higher for almost the entire year: 1999, 2003, 2009 and 2013. It's important to look at what happened the FOLLOWING [...]
Last weekend, I wrote a post about the lack of "New Ideas" in this market. On Tuesday night, I posted a video saying I was "short-term cautious." I know it hasn't paid to say ANYTHING bearish over the past 18 months because EVERY DIP has been bought, but this pullback feels different. I'm noticing that [...]
1) On Monday afternoon, I heard the financial media say there was too much risk in holding stocks overnight. If you listened to them, then you probably got scared and sold some of your stocks. 2) If you watched or listened to the price action, you would have seen that volume was light and many [...]
Back in July 2013, I wrote a blog post titled The Main Reason The Stock Market Keeps Going Higher. Back then, I stated the main reason driving the market higher is "A Complete Change in Investor Psychology." Basically, the majority of people HATE the stock market...and that still hasn't changed. 1) Of course Quantitative Easing [...]
When humans stress, we all have the need to reach for something. For some it's food, a cigarette, alcohol, coffee, drugs, gambling or anything else that might put us in a different state of mind so we don't have to deal with our problems. This isn't an article about psychology because I am not a [...]
This is in no particular order, as they are ALL important. 1) Strategy - There are so many different strategies: value, growth, momentum, short selling, etc. Find one that fits your personality and do your best to master it. The fastest way to learn is to study success. In other words, find someone who is [...]
I am writing this blog post to offer words of encouragement and to hopefully help people learn from my past mistakes. Most people don't like to admit their mistakes because we all want to pound our chest and let the world know how great we're doing. I have no problem admitting that I used to [...]