Here’s the close of the day’s market breadth:
A couple of interesting things to note. The markets today were extremely choppy and the volumes showed it. Every time the markets decided to switch direction, the volumes from the exchanges showed it. The bears kept their teeth in the NASDAQ and the final result was another down day with a 5 point loss for the index. The NYSE faired better and as a result the S&P and DJIA ended up slightly higher. What concerns me are the TRIN readings for each exchange. The TRIN readings barely rose above the 1.2 oversold reading for both exchanges. While we’re due for a healthy bounce soon, I don’t think it’ll be tomorrow.
On Friday, I assumed Monday would bring some sort of relief bounce and as a result I sold off quite a bit of my put positions. While I made nice profits on my positions, there’s one position I knew I didn’t need to close but closed anyways for some reason, especially after explaining my thoughts about it to the folks at thinkorswim. The stock? The graph below will explain it. Have a great evening and I’ll see you tomorrow!
This is taken directly from the Option Addict:
Speaking of which, it might sound corny…but I am a big believer in setting personal goals and resolutions each year. If you haven’t done this already, spend a small amount of time over the weekend thinking it over. Make sure that you dedicate at least 5 specific trading goals. Don’t create a bunch of generic crap like…
I want to make as much money as possible…
I want to read two books that will make me a better trader…
I want to create better trading rules…
Be specific. Challenge yourself. More importantly; be realistic.
Since I found his blog back in November, I’ve become much more focused and have actually made some headway into profiting from the markets. In the three days I’ve traded this year, I’m up $250 on what started as an $1800 for the year. That’s approximately 15% so far in just three days. But in any event, here’s what I’ve come up so far in terms of resolutions and goals for the new year:
- I’d like to try and double my current account balance ($1800). The current account balance is small so I don’t think it will be too much of an issue. I may have to take an extra risk here or there but I think it’s achievable.
- Grow my deposited balance to $10,000. As much as I’d want to think I could turn a 500% profit in a year, I won’t have $10,000 in my account solely by trading (now if I do, I’m quitting school tomorrow and doing this full time!). I would like to save up enough money during the year to bring my account balance to $10,000 if possible.
- This may sound generic, but I need to stick to my rules and become more disciplined. I didn’t have a great start to the year with this resolution and it did cost me. A few days ago I posted a nasty downturn in Mastercard (MA). Had I closed the position when it fell below my line in the sand, not only would I have not taken a $300 hit on Friday’s horrible action, but I would have had more funds available to short other positions which were profitable and perhaps be up more than 15% so far on my account. My puts on Friday brought in $400. Add that to the $300 UNNECESSARY loss I took, and yesterday would have been the single biggest gain since my lucky strike with EMC Corp. (EMC) back in September 2007.
- Finish my reading resources! I really need to finish Murphy’s Technical Analysis text as soon as possible. Too many nuggets of information in there to pass up on. I’d also like to read Trading Rules that Work: The 28 Lessons Every Trader Must Master, by J. Jankovsky. The folks at Shadowtrader dot net have been reading excerpts from the book over the past few days and it appears to be a good and interesting read.
- Involve my fiancee in our finances and investments. This will be the hardest task to complete only because she’s so adverse to having any sort of money in an investment. She’s had a bad experience with family attempting to invest and seeing it backfire. I’m sure I can get her to begin accepting the markets as a way to bring in extra income, and perhaps make it a way of life one day, but for now we’ll take baby steps.
- Improve my blogging habits. I know I’ve been on a posting tear the past few days but you always find time when you have days off from work. I know starting tomorrow my postings will become more spaced out since we start back to our routines but I’ll try my hardest to have at least 4 to 5 posts a week although I am enjoying throwing up 2, 3, or even 4 posts a day.
Have you made your goals and resolutions for the new year? If so, I’d like to hear about it! Drop me a line or a comment with some of your resolutions. Have a great rest of your weekend and hopefully we’ll see the markets recover tomorrow (not like I care since I’m 80% cash, hah).
I don’t know about you, but I’m been making a transition from Jim Cramer’s Mad Money to the Fast Money traders. For some reason, I’m not sure if it’s because they’re more down to earth, less annoying, or my fiancee actually can watch them, I enjoy watching that
Fast Money TV show much more than I do Mad Money. There’s a few Mad Money recap sites out there but until now I hadn’t found one that covered Fast Money (it could also be that I just haven’t had time!). It looks like the folks over at Fast Money Stock Picks take on a similar format to those of the Mad Money recappers. Each Fast Money trader’s listed with his (or hers) recommendations for the episode, along with some short notes on some of the picks. Yes, a recap of Pops and Drops is also on their site. What’d I’d like to see more of are links to the Trade School sessions for Fast Money, even if the links send you back to CNBC. The Trade School sessions are usually pretty good, even though I tend to only watch the ones relating to options (I’m biased, I know).
In any event, if you need a quick single post read on the day’s picks and pops/drops, head over to the Fast Money Stock Recap. I know CNBC only links the videos and not summaries of the videos so it’s nice to have a place where you can skim over what was said with the ability to come back later on and watch the videos for yourself.
I recently found from a few other blogs a website called Qassia. What is it? It’s a credit driven system which rewards its users with free traffic for bits of intelligence as they put it. They also have an ad sharing program available. It’s currently in closed beta but if you’re interested, click on myQassia which contains a sign up button. Afterwards, anyone you sign up receives a $500 Qassia credit! What that brings remains to be seen but any traffic has to be good traffic, right? Let me know how it works out for you!
First reading list of the new year! Keep your chin up. It’s been a rough start to the new year but there’s always a silver lining somewhere, right? Enjoy!
Have a great first weekend in 2008!
