What to do when your stop is hit?
This could, perhaps, be the shortest blog post ever. I could simply answer the question with: follow your rules. Get out. But let's dig a little deeper. Before we really…
The most important thing you need to know about commodities
The marketplace is constantly evolving. One of the biggest changes over the past decade is the proliferation of Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) that allow stock traders to trade commodities (and…
5 ways to improve your trading today
Markets are complicated. Market analysis is complicated. Developing a trading system certainly can be complicated. But trading cannot be complicated. The act of placing trades and evaluating results must be…
The Trader’s Journey: The Hero’s Journey
This post was originally published on See It Market as part of the Market Masters series. The original post can be found here.] I am a quantitative-discretionary trader. I have…
Discretionary and consistent? How?
I've been asked a few variations of the same interesting question recently. Here are a few examples: The one thing I keep struggling with is finding an edge I can…
Technical tools for everyone
If you read much of my work, you will begin to see that applying technical tools takes work; it takes a lot of time and experience to know how to…
Why should you be able to make money?
This is an obvious issue, but one that is often ignored. The argument of many academics is that you can’t make money trading; your best bet is to put your…
Where the wild things are? No, where the open is.
The open, in many ways, is the most important price of the day; action off the open can often define the character of the entire session and even have implications…
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…
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…
Where is the Art?
[dc]M[/dc]uch of my writing here has focused on quantitative tools and ways to look at data. I have called for higher standards and have questioned many of the established tools…
Charts can be hazardous to your health
[dc]I[/dc]'ve seen a lot of charts floating around talking about the "big reversal" in grains, and specifically corn. I think there are a few important lessons here, so allow me…
And this little piggie… had an exit plan.
[dc]M[/dc]any years ago, a friend of mine shared an encounter he had with a successful investing club. This club was not like many of the others—they didn’t pool their money…
Keys to Mastery
[dc]I[/dc]n a post last week, I talked a little bit about the kind of commitment and emotional charge that I believe it takes to truly excel in any field. Whether…