General Comments
“While you are walking on the road, if you happen to meet the Buddha, you must kill him.” So reads one of the more enigmatic teachings in Zen Buddhism (attributed to Linji Yixuan (fl. ca. 850 CE) from a turbulent and most interesting period in Chinese history, if you want
Psychology
I’ve been doing some exciting and challenging work recently, and want to share some of it with you. A quick biographical sketch, for those of you who don’t know me: I’ve been trading full time more or less continuously since the late 1990s. I found my first
General Comments
One of the critical questions traders must answer is how to reconcile conflicting information. If we are seeing markets clearly, there are always factors and arguments to be made for both directions. In the current market, we've seen enough selling pressure in recent weeks to break key support
Markets Unlocked
All eyes will be on the FOMC mid-week, and we expect that markets will react, perhaps with extreme volatility, to any comments. This environment should underscore the futility of trading on the news--traders who do so will continually find themselves a step behind. Recent weeks have seen markets diverge sharply,
Markets Unlocked
One of the things that has surprised me over the years (in a good way!) is that macro shocks align with technical, more often than not, when technical patterns are strong. For instance: it's extremely unusual to see a very bullish pattern in a market torpedoed by bad
Markets Unlocked
The last few weeks have seen stocks under moderate pressure. Though bullish patterns have degraded on daily charts, our read of market conditions has been that this has not been the type of weakness that leads to further, significant selling. So, for intermediate-term swing traders, we've argued the
General Comments
Stocks were once again weak last week. While it's easy to extrapolate whatever the market is doing into infinity, it's important to put the move in context. This, in fact, is one of the common mistakes--to assume that strength will continue, or that weakness will lead
General Comments
It’s been a while since I’ve written here. You’ve probably seen the weekly updates, under the Markets Unlocked tag—these have been useful, high-level summaries of market conditions and things we’re watching for the week ahead—as useful for me to write them as, I hope,
Markets Unlocked
Last week saw several rounds of strong selling pressure in stock indexes, including a classic downtrend day on Thursday. (See chart below, just for the illustration of a textbook-perfect downtrend!) However, this weakness may take on a different significance when put in longer-term context. A look at the chart at
General Comments
Last week saw some fireworks in stock indexes. Moved mostly by a handful of tech earnings and announcements with a solid dose of FOMC magic, US indexes chiseled out some solid gains for the week. We think there's a very good chance that any moderate decline or pause
Markets Unlocked
As we head into the end of January, technical conditions in major stock indexes are showing a lot of strength. We see solid justification for short-term (< 2 week) swing longs, with the potential to extend those trades into further swings if supported by market action. In the chart at
Markets Unlocked
The week ahead will feature some potentially market-moving datapoints. Watch, especially, GDP on Thursday and PCE on Friday. Current technical position The past week saw some of the strongest selling pressure in over a month, but buyers stepped in at the end of the week to arrest the decline, painting