We all take a different road toward trading success. The way has unlimited branches, twists, turns and potholes. Once in a while we stumble upon a path of gold, only to find that the road has been washed out, and we fall, head first, over a cliff, and into an abyss with little or no warning, […]
I started creating trading systems in the “good old days”, before personal computers were common. The first Apple computer was sold as a kit in 1976, and the IBM PC was introduced in 1981. In those days if you wanted to test a trading idea, or even calculate a simple moving average, you had to […]
In the early 1980’s I subscribed to a number of stock market newsletters. My favorite was Investors Intelligence, and to their credit they are still in business. I loved receiving their letter. It contained a summary of other newsletters and introduced me to the concept of sentiment and “point and figure” charting. If you have […]
First, let me define “micro-trading”. This is a term I use to describe trading bar intervals shorter than one day in length. For example. one could format symbol settings to intra-day then in the minutes category any number less than 390. Why 390? Because, there are 390 minutes in a normal trading day. A common […]
Let’s go back to October 27 (2008). On that day the SPY closed at 83.95. Today, it closed at 83.66. Net change in three and a half months has been -.3%. The range, from high to low, over that period of time has been 25.81 points, or 30.9% based on today’s close. So, we have […]
The year was 1983. I had been trading stocks for about three years, and had co-traded several futures accounts for clients during the previous year (see my previous post “Other People’s Money”). I have also mentiioned here that I had a background in forecasting – weather forecasting to be specific. I have always been very […]
In May of 1982 the NYSE began trading stock index futures on its index. That year futures began trading on the Value Line Index and the S&P 500. At the time I had never traded futures. Back then everyone referred to them as “commodities”, with corn and hogs and soybeans and gold coming to mind. […]
Having discovered that Mutual Funds were just too boring for me, I went to Charles Schwab & Co. and opened two accounts. I rolled over my money from the funds to a Schwab IRA, and opened a second, margin account, and funded it with a few thousand dollars that I really couldn’t afford to lose. […]
About 30 years ago the company I was working for handed us checks – our retirement money, and told us we were on our own. We were told we could cash the checks and pay taxes, or roll the money over into a a tax deferred retirement investment of some sort. We were given information […]
My first stock trade didn’t go well. I ‘m sure you have had similar experiences. Here’s what happened. The year was 1960. I was in my teens. I had never purchased a stock before, but along came this incredible company (or so I thought) that was going to revolutionize the way we watched TV. The […]
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