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I have always wondered what it is like to being a trader. As my first week comes to an end, I don’t own a Ferrari or a huge mansion. Is that not what Wall Street is? My first week has given me great exposure to the business and what a difficult one it is. There is a lot of pain that comes along with this job. You have to be able to stomach huge losses, but also not be greedy when things swing in your favor. I also learned that being prepared helps tremendously. The energy on the desk really gets you going and excited to be here.
I also realized that although I am a trader, there are other tasks that need to be done to help the business. The concept behind this site is truly remarkable. Some may say I am drinking the “kool aid”, but in all honestly, think about it- a fully transparent hedge fund, really? One of the biggest complaints about hedge funds is, how do I know what they are doing? Is this another Madoff scheme? What are they investing in? Well folks, here you have it! On top of that, the content that we can provide to viewers can help investors be successful traders from home.
There is still a lot for me to learn, but I am excited and can’t wait to share my success with you and hear about yours.
Have a Great Weekend!
-Justin Valle
Having gotten Lightspeed up and running, we are very excited about making our first trades. As a health care focused desk, we are attempting to create a portfolio that will take advantage of the health care expertise on the team. We are taking several factors into account when constructing the portfolio. First, since most of us are in this initiative to learn, we want to be active in the market meaning that we don’t want to set up a portfolio at the beginning and just check in again when we are about to graduate. Second, since we are also students, we don’t have time to trade hour by hour. Ideally, we would be looking to rebalance the portfolio weekly or biweekly.
So what does this mean for the portfolio strategy? Since, we are just starting out, we may play it safe with some health care sector specific ETFs, especially for those sectors where we might not have as much knowledge from the team. For those health care sectors where we feel we have more knowledge, we may construct a selection that we feel may do better than that sector’s ETF, thus overall outperforming the overall health care industry ETF.
Choices that will have to be made going forward will be allocation by sectors, for example, a larger allocation to mid-cap biotech or med device vs providers. We are also looking into making bets based on events such as which way the FDA may rule on approvals of certain drugs or outcomes of certain drug studies. Of course there will be higher risks, but there will also be higher rewards. We will plan to keep everyone posted.
As of this writing the S&P emini’s are on an S4 breakdown sell signal meaning it is ok to initiate short positions but of course that is betting against the general trend. Friday’s are reversal days in the market meaning the trend of the week is often reversed and with this week being a positive week so far it would not surprise me to see the S4 work.
I will look to start short positions against S3 1279. Steel and commodity names have felt weak recently so those are names I may look to get short exposure in, X, FCX and I think KO, MCD and PG are big cap names that I am going to look to short.
Following up on the no P&L look: yesterday was another good day without looking at the P&L so I will keep the “blind fold” on.
Happy Trading!
“I am what I am” a quote from perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time, Popeye. The quote is great because it is so simple yet so powerful, Popeye knows who he is and is comfortable with that. Is there any better way to go through life than that?
I say this because I have truly become a scalper an intraday trader, “I am what I am”. My “thesis” trades which are trades that are based upon a theory of how the market may trade in a particular day as of late have provided me with pain. It feels as though trades I am in for longer than an hour don’t work for me, “I am what I am”.
If I am successful at being a scalper, then why am I concerned with being a position trader and the answer really is that I am not, anymore. Stick to what you are most proficient and avoid what hurts the most. My plan going forward is to scalp throughout the day and then my thesis trades will be implemented in the last hour as a swing trade.
Identify who you are, and be that to the best of your ability. That is why I journal everyday, it tells me who I am and what I am best at doing.
Happy Trading!
I don’t tweak much with my style, but I am going to try something new in my page setup. I am going to remove my current P&L from my watch list. In thinking through yesterday and how it played out, I sold at the wrong time as a direct result of looking at my P&L and booked the loss for no other reason than loss.
As cruel as this market is of course had I swung trade everything I would be up strongly today and feeling pretty good. I don’t add or in this case subtract very often so I must feel that I am on to something important. I tried a trade already in AAPL today and it was very strange not knowing where my P&L was on the trade. I was in and out a few times and it got confusing as to what my cost was. The stock started to move in my favor and I sold based on the technicals and was happy to see that I made money in the trade.
I will keep statistics on this and keep you posted.
Happy Trading!
I did not look at the futures this morning at home so when I came in this morning I was surprised to see the futures up 6 handles. This strong move has placed the S&P on an R4 breakout signal early in the morning which very often means that the signal will maintain all day and provide upside movement for this index.
I do not buy breakouts so I will be waiting for a move back into R3 as my chance to get long. It is still early and a lot can happen between now and the open but I will look to see if my names have all made R4 breakouts as well on the open. I will use the stocks I trade as a confirmation for the index.
I love to trade, anyone who has listened to me speak on the topic or sat next to me on a desk knows this fact. I have also learned that I love to teach trading and my passion for teaching is equal to trading.
I don’t understand why this has surfaced later in my life, but there is something rewarding about sharing information, helping people to better themselves and seeing the results of our collective hard work. This is most likely the reason that I am back at Day Trade Well and doing my own thing as opposed to being at a prop firm.
So I am very excited to be back in this role and if you have watched me the last two days I am excited to fill up this empty room with traders. Please feel free to send in trade chats or you can email directly [email protected] if you have any questions about my trades or my teaching.
I look forward to helping you all improve in your trading.
Prepare The Bear For The Rug He Will Become
The Inflation trade is still on. Buy Gold and take huge advantage of this sell off in the financials. It is a holiday gift. Europe has the blueprint for its bailouts; they are always months behind us in resolving these issues. But they always wind up taking care of their own. There is no threat to the euro. This is a very different world than the vacuum we existed in when Greek citizens were rioting in the street and we were experiencing the flash crash. At the beginning of every great bull market, there is the death of the bear. It takes months. He doesn’t give up easily. He dies slowly. Each dip that is bought is a pitchfork plunged into his gut. Each short squeeze is a knife jabbed in his back, and finally a massive rally slices the bear open and prepares him for the rug he will be in the bull’s lair.
The Greeks killed the Bear
....and Burt killed the bear
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