Three great ways to lose money
There must be a thousand ways to lose money trading, and most of them are bad ways. Many traders, especially newer traders, are paralyzed by fear of loss. Many traders…
Europe is vulnerable
We are seeing a potential divergence in the performance of US and European stocks. European stocks are showing overtly bearish patterns, lead by clean breakdowns out of weekly bear flags…
Small cap underperformance?
A lot of people are focusing on the recent small cap underperformance today. Let's take a look at a little bit of history; here is a chart of the Russell…
The one thing I am paying attention to in the S&P 500 right now
We are awash in opinion and speculation. Every trader is writing blog posts or tweets about why the market will go up or down, and citing any number of factors.…
Followthrough matters: using subjective analysis in the S&P 500
I've focused quite a bit here on quantitative aspects of trading and market analysis, and I've also just scratched the surface of the thorny subject of intuition. Today, I want…
Watch the S&P 500 index tomorrow
US Stocks stand at an important potential inflection. Structurally, we have seen much support for US stocks to emerge as the global relative strength leader, should stocks break out into…
Death and golden crosses: a deeper look
Last week, I wrote a post looking at the (apparently) impending Death Cross in the Russell 2000 index. In that post and the data examined, I found an interesting and…
Death cross: omen or not?
One of the recurring themes in my work is that most of the technical tools most people use do not show an actual edge in the market--in other words, as…
Reader question: regrets in trading?
Reader Thomas asks: have you ever written about regrets in trading? They seem to dominate mine...missing an entry, not taking the exit, etc Good question, Thomas, and, no, this isn't…
An important question about risk/reward
So, in doing my weekend work, I found what looks like a decent long trade in NYSE: STT. There are a number of supporting factors on this chart, but it…
Five ways to awaken intuition in trading
This post continues the discussion on finding the Art in technical analysis. Read that first, and also this post, on bringing broad intuition into your experience. For quantitatively-inclined traders (such…
Current market overview: weekly webinar
This is an important time in global markets. Equities are at a potentially important inflection, and short term noise may be misleading many players. Currencies have had some fantastic moves,…
Reader question: why do patterns work?
A really interesting discussion developed in the comments to this post on pullbacks. Since you're capable of clicking the link and reading the comments, I won't copy the whole discussion…
The pullback: a trade that works
I've written quite a bit lately on things that don't work, and tried to point out some errors in common practical technical analysis. Yes, I'll do more of that in…
Tracking intraday risk and opportunity
I spend a lot of time writing about volatility and even more time thinking about volatility, correlations, and the implications for risk. I want to share a quick look at…
Beware of markets bearing gifts… but take them!
Today's topic might appear to be a fun one, but, for the unprepared trader, there is actually serious danger here. What do we do when a trade results in a…