The slow days of late summer. How to profit without the mental anguish (SPY, AIG)

A lot of being a trader involves patience more patience and the ability to mentally survive slow periods in the market. Being a trader one can become almost addicted to trading, you can not for the life of it tear yourself away from the computer even in the slowest times for fear you will miss "the special trade". I felt this way today, as AIG made another monster run i was away from my computer thinking, "if i was only at my computer i would have crushed it". I cannot dwell on this, every trader needs time off to refresh and regroup.

Sitting a computer for 6 hours a day sometimes churning 100 tickets can become maddening when things are not trading like you expect. As fall approaches more and more 5 star trading opportunities will present themselves, we will probably not see trading like last fall (in the back of my mind i hope we do), but any increase in volatility will help fire up the motivation to trade aggressively. Aggressive trading is where the money is made, knowing when to be aggressive is almost as key as knowing what to be aggressive in. The only trade i have really seen this summer which has paid to be aggressive in is AIG.

August Option Experation. How to profit. (IBM)

Today is option expiration, the 3rd Friday of every month IF you were not aware. Magical things can happen on days like today, you can buy up the cheapies with size, only to sell them out for huge gains as the underlying moves towards your speculative strike. For me option expiration is just that, low risk/high reward speculation. Another tricky cog in the wheel to profits is time value, which is zero, only intrinsic value and Vol are factors in price.

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Thursday's market outlook: July Jobless claims UP

Today looks like another day of nearly flat trading, nothing outperforming, nothing under performing. As some of you may read on twitter i am becoming more and more frustrated with price action and lack of volume after initial moves. What do i mean by this? Well, most moves in stocks make their move in the AM then slowly decay as volume drys up. In other words the bidder or seller steps out of the ring never to come back, so if your intra day trading this can be disastrous as price gaps in the book can wreak havoc on the trend you are trading. So you can say i am looking for some follow through, this probably will not happen until September, keep your ammo dry in the meantime. You never know when 5 star trading will present itself, when it does you do not want to be caught with the cookie jar empty. i.e. small losers big winners. Hedge Accordingly


July jobless claims were up 15,000 (bearish)


Sears missed (bearish for retail and real estate)

Par Pharmaceutical short squeeze. chart and commentary (PRX)

A classic short squeeze played out today in a thinly traded biopharm stock, ticker = PRX. Now what makes this price action worth highlighting is the fact it was moving on zero news. You might ask what on earth caused me to pull this stock up?

1. It was breaking highs (screener)

2. There was repetitive buying on the offer or a few cents over in the stock 100 shares at a time

3. This told me someone was hiding their true size (meaning big size)

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Pre market musings today: Google Weekly Chart (GOOG)

We had a decent sell off yesterday, though nothing to write home about. The accelerated selling increased near the end of the day in names like AAPL and GS. Both of these names blew through short term support on high volume without even the slightest bit of hesitation, this to me signals buy side programs have now switched to the sell side. The market is tired, traders are on vacation, i wish i was, this means anything can happen. 

Futures deflating on jobless claims numbers

This was expected, of course the US is still losing jobs. The futures were up 100+ in the early AM, which i though this was complete bunk. How can this market keep its bid? For one we are trading with computers, most big money traders are in the Hampton's, Thus it does not take much for ES_F to move(not many people on the other side of the trade). I'm guessing this market will open up a bit then trade negative, closing near flat. It's Thursday, one more day till Friday. Traders think about things like this, especially intra day traders, they can be just as lazy as anyone in the summer. My trade set up today is, long FAZ puts if we looking strong, FAZ calls if we look weak. This trade is merely a scalp, i could take the trade off 2 min after the open, just depends on the movement. I look to enter a trade only if i think i can make at least 40% on the trade. Hedge Accordingly

TradingRM Girl.

FOMC meeting today: What does Benny have up his sleeve?

Today at 2:15 est the fed concludes it's quarterly meeting, the chatter is the rates will be left the same. Today will be a slow day up until the announcement, though they could pull a fast one and jack the rates up. If this happens it will make for some great trading, the market will completely tank. I'm not saying i want the market to tank, i must want some higher volatility movement. This market has been stagnant for much to long, the rubber band is stretched, the energy must be released in some fashion. Now lets go crush some options. Hedge Accordingly

My eyes are on JAZZ pharmaceuticals

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Market showing signs of stalling? Dollar biding coming in..

The last week and a half of trading has been range bound. Specifically the S&P500 which has been in a 1o point range, stalling out at every major resistance point. This is not to say it has not blown through others, though volume has been decreasing with ever push higher. Again, remember "volume precedes price". Most of the action i have seen is in individual names under or outperforming the markets. Big names are not participating, such as GS, RIMM. These guys are bellwethers, GoldenSlachs had consistant selling pressure most of the day the last two days, rumor was insiders were selling. Maybe this is true, who knows? More evidence equities are going to puke is the shoring up of the dollar, remember long dollar short equities and commodities...What i do feel is the trade is coming to an end, if you are buying stocks up here you are playing with fire, you will get your chance to buy again. I know the tides are turning when the media starts stepping up the bearish tone. Also, they are having more contrarian guests on, heck even Bob Pisani thinks we are overbought. Hedge Accordingly

Anyone who trades options read this article

The article written by zerohedge, basically hits on flash trading in the options markets. I think they should leave the operation of the markets alone. Maybe get rid of the flashes which market makers see, but thats it. All this intervention is screwing with liquidity. These politicians do not now how to trade, they have never actively traded and know nothing about market liquidity. I wouldn't go into congress and start screwing with the protocol for passing a bill, so why the politicians come into my work and screwed with how i transact business?

New week, HFT & the market that only goes up

After a brief hiatus i am back on the reg, I had a bit of writers block. Now i am refreshed, ready to take on what the markets want to throw at me. As i type this the futures are down a bit, this is largely irrelevant lately because they do nothing but indicate which direction we will open. There has not been any follow through with moves from open to close, so you must be careful when using the futures as a direction indicator. I have my eyes on the financials,specifically theEFTS. I am liking these right now because they provide a bit more of a trend. The options in these names are wide, but you can capture very large percentage gains if you time your entry and exits correctly.

Bank of America pump & dump.. Cash for clunkers rally?

BAC has had quite the roller coaster today, from a trading standpoint i enjoyed the volatility pop. From a honesty standpoint i think the timing of the PR's were a bit suspect, first you get a SEC story stating they are suing BAC, then you get a Moody's upgrade as the thing is falling out of bed. Then to cap it off you get news the former CFO of C is now going to head up BAC private wealth management arm. All damage control? or collusion? Whatever it may be traders benefited from this but the home gamers might have puked their positions or got short based on the timing of the news. I got in and got out, others are less fortunate. Hedge Accordingly