Trader's Corner
03:28:22 AM EDT | 08/26/2009
Test TC Password Access
By Jim Brown | TEST TEST TEST
Trader's Corner
09:53:01 PM EDT | 08/25/2009
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By Jurijs Girtakovskis | some text
Trader's Corner
09:01:48 PM EDT | 06/14/2009
Test Traders Corner 6/14 Ver 2 (title change)
By Jim Brown | The Dow came to a dead stop at the 200-day resistance at 8751 but failed to give back any ground. Test update of blurb.
Trader's Corner
Sunday, June 14, 2009 9:01:48 PM
Test Traders Corner 6/14 Ver 2 (title change)
By Jim Brown | The Dow came to a dead stop at the 200-day resistance at 8751 but failed to give back any ground. Test update of blurb.
Trader's Corner
Friday, June 12, 2009 2:25:53 AM
oin-education-traders
By Jurijs Girtakovskis | oin-education-traders
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Trader's Corner
Fanning the Flames
By Linda Piazza |
From time to time, I return to a market principle that helps me determine where the markets might be in a trend and when that trend might end. If you've read my articles for any stretch of time, you already may know what principle I'm going to discuss: the corrective fan principle.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Trader's Corner
Moving Averages: types, use and 'length'
By Leigh Stevens |
Moving averages are only or usually only an 'aid' to determining if the recent trend remains intact or whether the trend may have reversed. They are also very useful frequently in identifying areas of support or resistance.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Trader's Corner
Putting All Your Eggs in One Basket
By Linda Piazza |
In a recent Steve Lentz webinar for the CBOE, Lentz commented that if you have only one strategy in your arsenal, then there are times you shouldn't be trading. No one strategy can be right for all times. Don't put all your eggs in one basket when trading options.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Trader's Corner
Chart Gaps: From Beginning to 'End' (of Trends)
By Leigh Stevens |
Price 'gaps' that occur between one day's trading and the next can tell traders who know what to look for quite a bit about where we are in a trend. Like all cyclical phenomena trends have a beginning middle and end and different types of chart gaps appear in each stage.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Trader's Corner
Am I Seeing What I Wanted to See?
By Linda Piazza |
In a March 13 Trader's Corner article, I outlined the three developments I wanted to see before I believed that the rally that was underway was anything more than a bear-market rally. It's time to check on those three developments and see if I'm seeing what I wanted to see.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Trader's Corner
Chart Gaps: Trend beginnings & 'continuations'
By Leigh Stevens |
A price gap is formed when any traded item has a low that is the above the prior days high, an upside gap, or when a stock or index high is below the previous day’s low, creating a downside gap.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Trader's Corner
Where's the Stop?
By Linda Piazza |
Unfortunately, we haven't been in the kind of market lately where we always have trendline-plus-moving-average or chart-formation guidelines as to where our stops should be placed. Nice, simple and clean trendlines often don't exist.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Trader's Corner
Practical 'Wave' analysis: Conclusion, Part 4
By Leigh Stevens |
In my concluding article in my series on Elliott Wave analysis of market trends, I'll finish on how wave theory has some different ways of defining long-term price trends, how to use wave analysis along with OTHER technical analysis tools and also describe general characteristics of the different component waves or stages of trends.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Trader's Corner
An Easy Exit Strategy
By Linda Piazza |
When is a profitable trade working on borrowed time? Charles LeBeau offers a suggested "exit on strength" for profitable trades.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Trader's Corner
Practical 'Wave' analysis for profit; Part 3
By Leigh Stevens |
Elliott wave basics suggest that a bull market trend breaks down into 3 advancing impulse waves, with 2 intervening counter-trend corrections and labeled 1-5. Bear market trends are 3-part affairs: a decline, a rebound and another, usually longer, decline and are labeled abc/ABC; that's the EASY part!
Friday, March 27, 2009
Trader's Corner
Repairing a Loss in a Stock Position
By Linda Piazza |
An options tactic known as the stock-repair strategy can help traders recoup losses if a moderate bounce is expected. Moreover, the stock-repair strategy does this without increasing risk or incurring much, if any, additional cost.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Trader's Corner
Practical 'Wave' analysis for profit; Part 2
By Leigh Stevens |
The Elliott wave principle is better known today than it ever was in R.N. Elliott’s lifetime. Which is not to say that Elliott didn’t attract significant notice among some important market advisers and professional money managers due to some amazingly prescient market predictions.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Trader's Corner
Take a Vacation
By Linda Piazza |
We traders have had some relief from the dire news this week, but we are in danger of being swept along by a tide of gloom and doom. Such gloom and doom impacts our trading in concrete ways.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Trader's Corner
Practical 'Wave' analysis for profit; Part 1
By Leigh Stevens |
I'm going to bite the bullet and write a bit about Elliott Wave patterns and theory. There aren't many technical topics that does more to cause the average trader and investor's eyes to glaze over than to go into an extensive (Elliott) wave pattern analysis for a stock or index.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Trader's Corner
What I Want to See
By Linda Piazza |
All week, I have been thinking about what I'd like to see before I give credence to any rally's sustainability.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Trader's Corner
Technical Check List for Reversals
By Leigh Stevens |
There is a kind of check list or weighting I give to possible reversals and price patterns weigh the most, followed by whether extremes occurred in my 'sentiment' indicator and whether extremes have occurred in the 13-day Relative Strength Index (RSI). The weighting is something like giving a 5 to price (patterns) and 2.5 each to Sentiment and RSI, equaling at most a perfect 10.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Trader's Corner
Forward to the Past
By Linda Piazza |
Instead of going "Back to the Future," we're going forward to the past in this article. In the period going forward, why should we pay particular attention to what happened the week of October 6, 2008?
Friday, February 27, 2009
Trader's Corner
Following Up Last Week's Article with Another Study
By Linda Piazza |
Another study on the best type of collars for hedging reinforces the one discussed in last week's article.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Trader's Corner
Option Volume Indicators in Trading Decisions
By Leigh Stevens |
Market 'sentiment' is an important technical indicator, especially to alert us to a possible future trend reversals. There's been a movement toward using an equities only model and I've been talking about this for years, from the time I was Technical Analyst at UBS.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Trader's Corner
From Extreme to Extreme
By Leigh Stevens |
The major market indexes tend to go from 'extreme' to 'extreme' in terms of certain key indicators, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) being one of them. How you use them is to adopt bullish strategies on trendline breakouts AFTER a low RSI extreme and adopt bearish strategies after a HIGH reading that's considered 'extreme'.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Trader's Corner
What Could Go Wrong?
By Linda Piazza |
What could go wrong that will ruin our style of options trades, forcing us to change tactics? Let's take a Chicken-Little look at volume of options trades that may itself be all wrong.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Trader's Corner
Rectangle bottom chart patterns
By Leigh Stevens |
Happy President's Day to those who have it off and the same to those that don't. I'm using this off Market day to look at my charts and to explore any patterns that might suggest where the heck the Market is headed next.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Trader's Corner
Somewhere over the Rainbow
By Linda Piazza |
If you are a buy-and-holder or if tax or other considerations force you to be, it's time to start deciding you'll protect your accounts and lock in some of the gains that might be produced by a strong rally that's waiting somewhere over the rainbow.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Trader's Corner
Position Greeks
By Linda Piazza |
Some options traders might not have thought of how the Greeks of option's pricing apply to a combination trade or even to their own portfolios. Position Greeks tell traders how a combination trade or their total portfolios will function when prices changes, time passes or volatility fluctuates.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Trader's Corner
My Sentiment Indicator
By Leigh Stevens |
I haven't written about my sentiment indicator for some time and I'll briefly go over it as it's a key one for me. I especially look for the occasional 'extremes' in the market, where investors and traders take stocks further up or down than is warranted by a current and/or future outlook.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Trader's Corner
Superbowl of Indicators
By Leigh Stevens |
The two Dow averages now have both made new closing weekly lows for the current decline dating from last summer, but the original Dow Theory sell 'signal' for this current bear market goes back much further. The Averages are 'confirming' each other however.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Trader's Corner
Following Up: Feeling Disorganized?
By Linda Piazza |
On Saturday, November 11, 2008, I wrote an article titled "Feeling Disorganized?" for the Trader's Corner column. It's time to check up on the conclusions reached in that article.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Trader's Corner
Selling Two-Month Spreads Versus One-Month Spreads
By Linda Piazza |
In an excerpt from his newest book, Trading Options as a Professional, James Bittman says "that under certain circumstances, selling a two-month option, covering it one month before expiration, and then selling the next two-month option can bring in more time premium than selling one-month options every month." My experiences lead me to agree.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Trader's Corner
More on Trendlines
By Leigh Stevens |
There are rules of drawing trendlines such as I give in detail in my (Essential Technical Analysis) book, but there I had a lot of pages to give basic step by step construction instructions. It is a bit of an art to know how to re-draw trendlines as trading goes on but here goes on a condensed primer.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Trader's Corner
Collinearity
By Linda Piazza |
While it's not necessary for all options traders to be mathematicians, it is necessary that they reach back into their memory banks and think about one concept: collinearity.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Trader's Corner
Trendlines are your 'best friend'
By Leigh Stevens |
You know the old saying that 'the trend is your friend'? Well, trendlines are your BEST friend!
Friday, January 9, 2009
Trader's Corner
The VIX's New Normal Range
By Linda Piazza |
My November 21 Trader's Corner article introduced the idea that the VIX might establish a new normal range. It's time for an update.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Trader's Corner
Exploring Adjustment and Exit Strategies for High-Probability Credit Spreads and Iron Condors: Part 4
By Linda Piazza |
This article concludes a four-part series listing ideas for adjustment and exit strategies for high-probability credit spreads and iron condors.
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