I do not choose to be a common trader. It is my right to be uncommon. I seek opportunity, not security. I don’t wish to be a kept man, humbled and dulled by having the State or a company look after me. I want to take the calculated risks, to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of market to the guaranteed return of a CD. I will not exchange my freedom for beneficence, not my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master except god, nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, be proud and unafraid. I think and act for myself and enjoy the benefit of my trades and to face the world boldly and say, “I have done this with God’s help.” I am a trader.
Trader’s Creed
January 26th, 2009Good quote for 2009
January 4th, 2009The trick is to make sure you don’t die waiting for prospertiy to come. – Lee Iacocca
How many days is the stock market open in 2009
December 28th, 2008How many days is the stock market open in 2009 ?
Some people wonder how many days the stock market is open in the United States. This is a very useful number because many of the online day traders want to calculate how much money they need to make per day, to replace their current salary.
The numbers below represent standard stock market hours in 2009 which usually span from 9:30 to 16:00 Eastern Standard Time.
Some futures markets will trade up to 16:15 Eastern Standard time.
The markets are usually open for the normal trading session Monday Through Friday.
I have not included after hours trading, pre market trading, currency (FOREX) markets, international markets or GLOBEX.
So lets take a look at the number of trading days in 2009 by month:
January: 20 days
February: 19 Days
March: 22 Days
April: 21 Days
May: 20 Days
June: 22 Days
July: 22 Days
August: 21 Days
September: 21 Days
October: 22 Days
November: 19.5 Days (The 0.5 is because Nov. 27,2009 is a half day for the market)
December: 21.5 Days (The 0.5 is because Dec. 24,2009 is a half day for the market)
This brings the total number of trading days in 2009 to: 251 trading days in 2009.
So if you wanted to replace a salary of $100,000 per year before taxes, we could need to do the following math:
$100,000 divided by 251 trading days equals $398.41 dollars per day.
The trader would then need to have an average net profit of $398.41 dollars per day in 2009 (after commissions, software, data services, taxes and other overhead is factored into the picture.)
Many traders do not trade every single day for a wide variety of reasons, but at least you know the maximum numbers of days you could possible trade in 2009
Wolfe Wave Set Up Today
November 20th, 2008
Here is another Wolfe Wave Set up on the Russell 2000 E-mini.
Good article by Stephen Cox
September 26th, 2008NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–Shares of search-meister company Google (GOOG) and shares of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holding Inc. (CME) have virtually no fundamental connection – except being pricey. Perhaps that’s a virtue now that shares of almost any existing U.S. investment bank can be had for a song.
But a technical glance at a couple of lush stocks like the CME and Google shows that even the rich have their problems.
For example, shares of Google are trading near $451 as the result of a technical breakdown below $569.67 weekly support in January. Of course, an uptrend on the weekly chart would require a move above $569.67. Such a move may be in place if shares can take out $468.44 resistance.
If they can’t, then traders can reasonably anticipate a downtrend to initial support at $349.47.
Chicago Merc Gets Mercurial
Shares of the CME, similarly, broke down on the weekly chart in February when they took out $540.26 support. The resulting downtrend hit a low of $282.04 in last July. Current trading near $398 shows that shares are technically strong above $345.42 support. On the other hand, an uptrend on the weekly chart awaits a decisive move above $531.56, as it turns out.
The Baleful Stock Market
Whether or not the U.S. government bails out distressed institutions, or whether it simply bails, the market will have the last word in any case.
The Dow Industrial Average would be breaking out on the weekly chart if takes out 11839.60 resistance. The weekly breakout points for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite are 1286.68 and the 2391.30 to 2408.50 band, respectively.
(Stephen Cox, a chartered market technician, is chief technician for Dow Jones Newswires.)
-By Stephen Cox, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2064; stephen.cox@dowjones.com
Surviving in the Wilderness and Surviving in the Market are very similar
August 21st, 2008Dear Fellow Traders,
I don’t watch a lot of television. I don’t have anything against it, it’s just that between my responsibilities of trading and being a father, I don’t have a lot of time. But, there are two shows I try to watch whenever I can.
I am sure you think I am going to say, Fast Money or Mad Money or CNBC or Squawk Box or Bloomberg TV, but you are incorrect. No, it’s Man Vs. Wild and Survivorman that I love to watch because they relate to trading.
Man Vs. Wild and Survivorman both demonstrate and narrate techniques for wilderness survival in regions around the globe. The shows document efforts to survive and find a way back to civilization requiring an overnight shelter.
They also tell about successful and failed survivals in the particular areas. The reason these shows relate to trading is very simple. Surviving in the Wilderness and Surviving in the Market are very similar.
Read the survival skills below and see if you can relate them to the market:
1. Stay Alert, Keep Calm, think clearly and act decisively.
2. Turn Fear into focus
3. No risk, no reward, no life
4. Laugh at the situation, you will need a sense of humor
5. Practice active passiveness : It’s the ability to accept the situation without giving into it.
6. Listen to you inner voice, it is the rational side of the brain
7. Take action, minimize risk, get the information, go forward with the knowledge that you have done everything in your power.
8. Going in is optional, getting back out alive is mandatory
Enjoy,
Michael MeAngelo
Mean Street: Five Lessons for Financial Panics Great WSJ BLOG POST
July 2nd, 2008This is a great post from the WSJ. Enjoy
You can view the post at:
http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2008/06/30/mean-street-five-lessons-for-financial-panics/
June 30, 2008, 4:41 pm
Mean Street: Five Lessons for Financial Panics
Posted by Deal Journal
Baron Rothschild’s adage was to “Buy when there’s blood in the streets.” Mine is “buy when CNBC starts telling you to short the market.”
Last Tuesday, CNBC exhorted its viewers to consider shorting stocks. Jim Cramer followed up a few days later by urging his followers to “sell everything” except commodities stocks.
My gut says these are classic stock market “tells” that signal a contrarian buying opportunity, but I could be wrong. And that is the beauty of a financial panic–and our first lesson.
Lesson #1: Nobody knows where the market bottom is.
It may be hard to believe, but your guess on the stock market bottom is as good as anyone’s. That anyone includes Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Bill Gross, George Soros, Warren Buffett, Lloyd Blankfein and even Jim Cramer.
In six months, the media will dig up some lucky market analyst who made a “remarkably prescient” call and turn them into a hero, a la Elaine Garzarelli, the analyst credited with predicting the Crash of 1987.
Lesson #2: Do not sell into a panic.
Anyone who sold their stocks on Black Monday, Oct. 19, 1987, came to almost immediately regret it. I know I did. I was a junior banker in London and watched the meltdown on our lone department Quotron.
My brain said, “Hang on, hang on.” My wallet said, “Run for your life.” With one phone call, I sold every Fidelity stock fund I had and promptly lost a quarter of my net worth.
The temptation to panic is primal. Be a man, not a monkey.
Lesson #3: Look forward, not backward.
Does anybody remember how negative sentiment was in October 2002? The S&P 500 was down almost 50% from its record of 2000. The Nasdaq Composite Index was off 75%. I had just returned from 10 years in Europe to run the UBS tech banking group.
What struck me when I first visited Silicon Valley was how negative everyone was. That was because my colleagues and clients saw the world through the distorted prism of the Internet boom. They couldn’t see the tech market getting better in the future, because the tech market couldn’t be any better than it had just been.
The market looks forward, but people like to look backward. A Cisco Systems shareholder that owned the stock at $77 has trouble forgetting that $77 price when the stock falls to $15. In time, it doubled to $30.
Is Citigroup at today’s closing price of $16.76 so different? Wall Street in 2008 is Silicon Valley in 2002. It will get better in time.
Lesson #4: It’s investing, not gambling.
Why do we obsess over our ability to pick the bottom or top of a stock price or the market? Statistically, it is a total crap shoot.
As Bernard Baruch said, “Don’t try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. It can’t be done except by liars.”
Financial panics bring out the worst in these tendencies. All this weekend, I was chewing over whether or not it was the right time to buy the XLF, the financial sector ETF that is trading at nearly half its record high.
I haven’t pulled the trigger yet, but I know that picking a bottom is a mugs game. Admittedly, an awfully tempting one. Better to use common sense. Set price and allocation targets, space out investments over time.
Since the beginning of this year, I have made fund purchases on about 20 different dates with an average cost base equivalent to an S&P 500 level of 1346. On that money, I am down about 5%. There are mutual funds that charge that much for an up-front load. Investing like this won’t make you rich, but you won’t gamble yourself into the poorhouse either.
Lesson #5: It’s only money.
There is no point in fighting the tape or your emotions as the market is gripped by panic. Next time the Dow industrials are down 300 and heading down further, do what you make your children do: take a time out. Turn off CNBC, your computer and BlackBerry and leave the office. (Wall Street professionals, unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to you. You will get fired.)
I am a believer in the equity markets and have most of my net worth tied up in the stock market. So every panic over the past two decades has cost me, albeit temporarily, big chunks of my net worth.
Does it hurt? Of course. Do I lose sleep over it? Occasionally. But I always keep in mind that it is only money.
I think of my dad, who would inspect my weary face after my exhausting banker trips to Japan, India, and Hong Kong. As he put it: “There’s no point in being the richest man in the cemetery.”
Trading with Peak Performance
June 6th, 2008Have you ever had one of those moments where you notice that you no longer notice something? In a sport, it usually happens when you find yourself in the zone, performing at your peak, seemingly without effort – and then you realize that you don’t have to think about what you’re doing. You just do it. Sorry, I couldn’t resist the Nike quote.
In trading, you’re in the zone when your money management, trade entries and exits are so automatic that you don’t even think about it. After the trade, you might not even remember specifically adjusting your position (this is why you should keep a trading journal).
This level of trading marks a skilled trader. It makes trading easier, more efficient, more rewarding and more fun.
This level of trading also benefits you when stress rises a bit.. Pilots learn that whether everything’s going fine or there’s a problem, the order of priority is to fly the plane (aviate), then figure out where you are (navigate) and finally talk to the ground (communicate). It’s true for traders, too. Our first priority is to “aviate” – that is, to trade well making sure all of our stops are in place and in line with our trading plan. Then we have to figure out where we are in our trade (navigate) and adjust it according. “Aviate and Navigate” are very important, but paying attention to your trading first helps avoid problems and prevents them from escalating if they occur.
Like any skill, trading becomes polished and refined with experience. But also like any skill, you can accelerate the process through directed efforts and actually trading. So get out there, develop a trading plan with money management that gives you and, edge, and start trading the plan. Practice makes perfect.
Day Trading with Short Term Price Patterns and Opening Range Breakouts By Toby Crabel
May 12th, 2008This is another book that I was fortunate to pick up on EBay for $500 dollars. Most of the trading books never give you the, “Science” and the back testing results. This book gives you the results over many different markets testing each one of Toby’s trade set ups.
This book is out of print and is a collection of works and studies from his Market Analytics Service.
The price patterns in this book are priceless as well as his studies on, “in between days” and Opening Range Breakouts.
If you can get a copy of this book, I would highly recommend it.
Please be careful because I found many web pages claiming that you could download a copy of this book. All of the pages that I found had a virus or some key stoke logger embedded in the download. No good.
Education of a Speculator By Victor Niederhoffer
April 29th, 2008I just finished this well written and very entertaining book. There are a lot of lessons to be learned but the following quotes stuck with me the most:
The following is from page iX in the Preface:
” If I did hold an ” open sesame ” to the markets, I would not share it. ”
The following is from page X in the Preface:
” … it is inconceivable that anyone will divulge a truly effective get-rich scheme for the price of a book ”
” Most of the knowledge for sale has no science behind it ”
The following is from page 402:
” Does it never occur to these seminar participants that anyone who truly had a system to beat the markets would never waste time and money in marketing such a wonder ? ”
The chapter on Deception and Charts , especially lesson 5 : Deceptive Technical Patterns is worth the time to read this book.
Candlestick Analysis Punishment is also an eye opener.