Risk Management
Some trades are obviously simple on the surface: if we think the S&P 500 is going up, we buy the S&P 500. Yes, there are questions to be answered: how much? How do we know we are wrong? Where are we getting out if we'
Pullback
Effective trading patterns are usually simple. The more complicated an idea is, the more likely it is the result of trying to fit very random data (i.e., the market) into a preconceived mold. I think many of the patterns and ratios of traditional technical analysis are the result of
Podcast
Over the course of the next two or three podcasts, I want to share some tools and techniques I've been using to supercharge my learning. In my case, I've focused these tools on learning a spoken language (French), but these are powerful, raw techniques that you
Individual Traders
I received a lengthy question for a reader who has put in a lot of time learning to trade, and has not yet left the trading simulator. I thought his questions were insightful, and they mesh well with a topic I'm considering covering in some depth: how to
Pullback
I initiated a short in crude oil back in July, and an astute reader sent me a good question. For many weeks/months I had been operating with the assumption that crude oil was probably putting in a long-term bottom based on the action back in March/April of 2015;
General Comments
I thought I'd kick the week off with a short, and maybe uncharacteristically personal post. As you've noticed, I haven't posted much (umm... at all) over the past few weeks. I was on a little "vacation" eating my way through part of
General Comments
Just a quick (semi) post here to apologize for the lack of new posts here! I have some good stuff for you soon, but also a few things sucking up all available time. Think of a week or two here as me taking a mini vacation from blogging... though you
Climax
This podcast episode looks at trading around market extremes, Acts of God, and very large market moves. From market history, some examples might be 9/11, 1987, Fukushima, Katrina, etc. Today, Greece has the potential to lead to these types of moves and extremes. Technical traders need to understand these
Trader Development
I received a question from Alex, which appears to be a simple question. Digging deeper, it actually drives straight to the essence of intraday trading: If I am wanting to trade intraday on the ES, are there some high probability ways to determine whether the day is likely to be
Technical Patterns
If you could hear anything beyond the screaming this morning over Greece, you probably also heard the news that China is now officially--yes, that's right officially--in a bear market as the major index has slipped 20% from its highs. This makes for a good headline (and I'
Pullback
The EUR/USD provides a good example of how we can use higher timeframe context to motivate an entry based on a lower timeframe breakout. First, the big(ger) picture, from the weekly chart: Reading market structure is important, and it's not that hard to do, with only
Individual Traders
There are a few practices that consistently separate winning traders from the losers. True, there is an incredible diversity of winning strategies, approaches, and personalities, and winning traders do and act in very different ways. However, we when look at and talk to consistently profitable traders, we start to see