Archive for the 'Tools' Category

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Apologies

Published on May 6, 2010, 7:38 am in Opinions, Tools and Trading. Closed

Apologies all around to anyone who could not get to the site last night. My hosting company had a problem so I couldn’t even make a new entry (I’ll try to catch up today). Looks like it may be resolved this morning. Again thanks for following.

Just some thoughts from yesterday’s notes:

  • Imagine what would happen in the US if the govt told all welfare and other subsidy recipients that they had to work for it or god forbid, they would not get their subsidy anymore! Greek riots!
  • Wow! The euro is still collapsing
  • Characteristics of this market are changing and it may dawn on the bulls that the party may be over. It may be time to sell rallies and not buy the dips :-(

Today (Thursday) is looking for a bounce and maybe some good reports on unemployment may be the catalyst. So keep on your toes and prepare to go both ways. See you on the playing field. Happy trading :!:

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One Day Wonder

Published on April 29, 2010, 10:00 pm in Opinions, Tools and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

It looks like the bears only have enough energy for one day. Every once in a while, like yesterday, the bears come up with enough energy to drive the market down. But they soon exhaust themselves and give the field back to the bulls, like today. I think it just may be a dance in this whole topping process, or part of the correction process, but these swings can make sausage out of your portfolio….so you better find a bun to put it into. :mrgreen:

I tried to have another great ES trading day, but I traded 2 out of 3 losers…and my one winner could not make up for my 2 losers. I did clear out some of my short positions, but the way the indexes closed up strong, was to me a signal that it may be time to short again.

After hours today had some interesting mews. A Federal criminal probe opens into Goldman Sachs and staff over possible securities fraud in mortgage trading. That will not sit very well with the gang down on Wall Street. SEC sends Goldman case to prosecutors. Remember what happened two weeks ago when GS had some bad news? Uh oh.

Some strange happenings today…did you notice how the goveernment jobless claims every week raises the previous weeks numbers so that this weeks numbers look like they dropped a whole lot more than it should? Are we really that dumb? Did you notice that this is about the 10th time that Greece has had a report that it is being bailed out? And that the other Euro loser countries will need to help out…like Portugal, Spain and Italy? Did you notice how GOOG has been having a tough time lately? Did you notice the VIX is back to its lacksidasical self? Did you notice that these up moves continue to go up on lousy volume?

Ok, here’s a postscript: I’ve been working on explaining how I use different indicators and tools. It’s a work in progress, but I would appreciate any notes or comments you may have. Check out How?, or Moving Averages or Stochastics….and keep checking. Thanks.

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The show has started

Published on April 12, 2010, 10:14 pm in Tools and Trading. Closed Tags: , , , .

Earnings season had its opening pitch today from AA…and boy did it suck. Not really that bad, but the hype and anticipation had traders looking for more….and they’ve just got to be disappointed in the morning. Tuesday will bring more reports to light including CSX and INTC among others.

Monday continues its pattern of being a green day… it’s been an up day 28 of last 32 Mondays!

The S&P 500 has risen on Monday 80 percent the time during the past six months, compared with 52 percent for Friday, Bespoke said. It averaged gains of 0.17 percent and 0.05 percent on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, and a loss of 0.04 percent on Thursday.

Read the whole story at Bloomberg.

And speaking of patterns, VIX now below the 2008 intraday low, which was the start of a 15% correction. The last time it closed this low was July 2007 which was the top before a 9% correction to the S&P. Just a little nudge for you to be careful out there. Here’s more info on the VIX from TraderFeed and the Daily Options Report.

I misspoke in my Saturday entry when I stated I was long/short at 35/65%. It is true but it looked like I was 100% invested. I should have pointed out I was 55% in cash. So a truer picture would have been a cash/long/short positions of 55/15/30%.

Either way I’ve been waiting for even a slight correction to cash the shorts, but now I’m thinking it may be a bit more than slight. Will AA earnings start the ball rolling down? Maybe INTC gives it another nudge down? I’m thinking even good reports, unless they’re blowout great, markets will sell the news. Wait and see.

Futures this evening are heading down, as are Asian markets. You can check the futures market here. So for now I’m content to have cash as my largest position. It would be good to have some resolution with a big volume move…in either direction. Volume continues to make new record lows. Sure would be nice to have more traders around. :D

P.S. I haven’t been updating the old blog over the weekend, mainly because this cold keeps me drowsy and lazy. So make sure this URL: http://wtftrading.com is your main link! And update your RSS feeds.

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Working on some new stuff

Published on April 3, 2010, 4:35 pm in Tools. Closed

I’m working on a new website, this one, just moving the old subdomain to its own domain name: WTFtrading.com. Right now it’s sitting as a subdomain on my consulting company website, trading.ValueManagementPartners.com. Besides being a very long domain name, I’m paying more and more attention to What the $%@&* Trading! and I wanted to give it its own domain name and set it up for some new things, like video and more interaction with you guys. I also want to get into more details with my trading such as scans, indicators and all the particular things I look at for making a trade…that’s why I’m working on the “How” page.

It will take a while, I’m trying to clean it up and put some useful info and services onto the site. For now I’m posting duplicate entries so that you don’t have to change anything. But if you have any ideas and thoughts I would sure appreciate hearing from you.

I’m looking to make a switchover within the month, but you’ll be the first to know right here. And I’ll keep you updated as I work on it. If you want to keep tabs on me, you can just stay right here What the $%@&* Trading!. If you are already following at the old site, I’m still updating it first until I’m not.

Thanks for your support, comments and ideas. :!:

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Oh No, I’m a Geek!

Published on February 15, 2010, 4:06 pm in Tools. Closed Tags: , .

I spent the weekend learning some new software tricks rather than flipping through charts. One of the best revelations in a while has been finding AutoHotKey this weekend, a free software that lets you write scripts to automate anything you do with your keyboard and mouse. I’ve been experimenting with AHK changing fonts in OneNote. I keep my trader’s journal using OneNote, and I like to italicize and change the color of all my timestamps so they stand out. But the more entries I make in my journal, the more time I spend italicizing and changing colors. But now, one keystroke and it’s done. And…Now I can use the same keystroke to do the same thing in any software….cool. I’m working on one that will automatically export my watchlist from StockFinder, and move it into Tradestation….even cooler! Then I’ll see if the same hotkeys work with TCnet and FreeStockCharts. I’m just like a nerdy geek in a Best Buy store with an ten dollars off coupon. 8O

I’m also working with Camtasia Studio to create videos. I like the software, but so far I’m trashing every video I make. :oops: Practice makes perfect. Look for a video coming soon at this blog!

And one more tool note: How Twitter is Changing the Way We Invest. I use StockTwits desktop to help me keep an eye on the markets. You can follow me, “WhatTheTrading”, on Stocktwits and/or Twitter.

Oh well….time to get back to scans, building the watchlists and looking at charts…. Oh yeah, and using my new software tools!
 

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