CalTrader - Investing Insight

Euro Crisis

2010-11-26T15:52:00.002-04:00

I'm thinking the Euro will trail lower just as the current BlackRock Founder discusses in this video:
http://video.ft.com/v/685838134001/Blackrock-boss-Larry-Fink-defends-QE-

I'm still bullish on Gold, Silver, and Stocks, but I just need to see how all this Korea non-sense plays out and if this euro crisis is WORSE than it seems, or if it can be sugar-coated over.
With the VIX trailing up, I'm buying some Puts on the SPY for downside protection hedging, and also buying longterm Call LEAPS and selling some shorter dated calls against them.

Which Way This Week? Sell it, or Off to the Races!

2009-07-20T15:18:00.006-04:00

Seems as though we have significant resistance at the $950 Level on the S&P 500, this last week we've gone well up over 7% and there could very well be the possibility that the market was bought up to sell all of the Earnings News coming this week.

From my speculation, if we get some good earnings reports from a lot of major S&P 500 companies, then all the buying that was done in the previous week will not have been in vain and we could push through the $950 level! It seems as though this recession was priced in by knocking down great companies stock prices, and noone wanted to miss the bull run so a lot of institutional money came into the market never to look back at the $700 level on the S&P's. This week has already been positive with the Dow Jones currently up +100 points. You have to ask yourself one question, why would all of these companies have been bought up with rigorous buying if there was no catalyst to spark all of the buying. Was it the supposible, "Fakeout to Sell the News" or was it legitimate buying interest buy Institutions that are placing their money into companies that they believe to have better than expected prospects to beat the street earnings and get this market into gear, because there may be signs that the Economy is ticking up in sales across a vast array of different companies?

I'm very weary of Apple (AAPL) into earnings. The stock has gone from $135 to $155 per share in a matter of 1 month! Resistance lies at the $155 level and I'm almost thinking that there may be a large amount of selling after the news to take some of the well Earned Profits that have come from buying into the stock since mid-June. The largest Open Interest for Apple is in the August contract in the $130 Put options and then the $150 Call options, 19,000 & 23,300 contracts respectively. This may be indicative that people are buying protection for their stock in the form of Put Options in case we do get a sell off in the stock after earnings are released and the numbers don't blow out the estimate Wall Street has bestowed upon them, somewhere in the ballpark of 5 million iphones are expected to have been sold, and I have heard from various news sources rumors that Apple will blowout the Mac sales forecasts, so we will see.

How to Get the Most Out of Pumping Gas!

2008-03-30T19:33:00.001-04:00

This is short little article on how to save a few cents at the gas pump. The most important part of the article is near the end, where it talks about buyin gas from certain stations that dont import thier oil from middle eastern countries. Enjoy.

I don't know what you guys are paying for gasoline.... but in California we are also paying higher, up to $3.50 per gallon. But my line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money's worth for every gallon..

Here at the Kinder Morgan Pipeline where I work in San Jose, CA we deliver about 4 million gallons in a 24-hour period through the pipeline. One day is diesel the next day is jet fuel, and gasoline, regular and premium grades. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 gallons.

Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role.

A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature controls.
Compensation at the pumps.

When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3)stages: low, middle, and high. In slow mode you should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some other liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money.

One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL or HALF EMPTY. The reason for this is, the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every gallon is actually the exact amount.

Another reminder, if there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up--most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom. Hope this will help you get the most value for your money.

DO SHARE THESE TIPS WITH OTHERS!

WHERE TO BUY USA GAS, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW. READ ON

Gas rationing in the 80's worked even though we grumbled about it. It might even be good for us! The Saudis are boycotting American goods. We should return the favor.

An interesting thought is to boycott their GAS.

Every time you fill up the car, you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi Arabia. Just buy from gas companies that don't import their oil from the Saudis.

Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill-up the tank, I am sending my money to people who are trying to kill me, my family, and my friends.

I thought it might be interesting for you to know which oil companies are the best to buy gas from and which major companies import Middle Eastern oil.

These companies import Middle Eastern oil:

Shell........................... 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco......... 144,332,000 barrels
Exxon /Mobil............... 130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway... 117,740,000 barrels
Amoco............................62,231,000 barrels

Citgo gas is from South America, from a Dictator who hates Americans. If you do the math at $30/barrel, these imports amount to over $18 BILLION! (oil is now $90 - $100 a barrel)

Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil:

Sunoco...................0 barrels
Conoco...................0 barrels
Sinclair....................0 barrels
BP/Phillips..............0 barrels
Hess.......................0 barrels
ARC0......................0 barrels

If you go to Sunoco.com, you will get a list of the station locations near you.

All of this information is available from the Department of Energy and each is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas
buyers. It's really simple to do.

Chart Time!

2007-10-24T22:55:00.001-04:00

NTRI, Nutri-Systems took yet another tumble after the bell and already 50% of the 32 odd million shares outstanding are sold SHORT. Someone is making some bucks $$!

Look out for BIDU Earnings after the bell on the close of Thursday October, 25, 2007.

The financials have taken a serious beating, I mean you could have shorted any one of the brokerage houses and made a nice profit, Bear Stearns seems to be holding well down near the $109 level where all the big Billionaires are buying shares as a Value play. BSC, spiked up to the $130's on the rumor that Buffet was looking to invest and yet tumbled right back into a range bound trading area.

Here are some interesting charts I was reviewing:

Thanks,
More To Come,
Cal

Nice Plays and New Ideas!

2007-09-19T20:19:00.000-04:00

From my last post I shorted TIE & OGE at their 50SMA's. I covered for a couple hundred dollar profits on both stocks, no substantial movements downward, but a pullback nonetheless.

Since, BIDU has broken out on strong volume and taken off for the skies! As of right now the stock is looking ripe for a pullback, and that's exactly where I'll be buying Call Options when this occurs. The previous resistance of $220 will certainly hold as support if the stock will even dare trade that low. Here is the chart I last posted, compared to where it is now, and my recommendation was to watch for a high volume breakout or a bounce against resistance downward, although the former was achieved.

Also my favorite pick that I've been stalking for a SHORT is NutriSystems (NTRI). The stock just couldn't muster up enough buying power to push past it's 50SMA and try to fill an earnings GAP Down from a few months before, perfect to short with relatively low risk, with a great reward profile. Take a Look!

I was a buyer of the OCT $55 Put Options as well as the $45 strike for a more aggressive play. Today the stock was down huge, to the tune of 12%, with the options spiking up 150% and 95% respectively. My Virtual Trade transactions consisted of:

September 13, 2007:
Buy 50 NTRI OCTOBER $55 Puts for $2.65 per contract (.NSIVK)
Buy 50 NTRI OCTOBER $45 Puts for $0.85 per contract (.NSIVI)

Sell 25 NTRI OCT $55 Puts for $4.70 - Profit $5,125
Sell 10 NTRI OCT $55 Puts for $5.80 - Profit $3,150
Total Realized Profit: $8,275.00
P.S. Holding remainder 15 contracts currently priced at $6.15 (unrealized - $5,175.00)

Sell 25 NTRI OCT $45 Puts for $1.50 - Profit $1,625
Sell 10 NTRI OCT $45 Puts for $1.70 - Profit $850
Sell 10 NTRI OCT $45 Puts for $1.50 - Profit $650
Total Realized Profit: $3,125.00
P.S. Holding remainder 5 contracts currently priced at $1.55 (unrealized - $350.00)

I've been trading virtually a lot lately to test strategies and gain confidence in the ideas that I'm solidifying with my research. I use Virtual Stock Exchange, Virtual Stock Exchange to buy and short stocks in individual portfolios and also CBOE Virtual Trading Tool.The CBOE has a brand new trading tool which is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! It's powered by ThinkorSwim and also Prophet.net, Tim Knight's former website in which he developed and then sold.

Shorts, and Possible Breakouts

2007-09-05T01:48:00.000-04:00

I'm shorting Titanium Metals (TIE) on the basis of it tagging it's 50SMA (simple moving average). The stock itself has been weak, relatively dampened volume, and it crept up right to it's 50SMA to the penny. My observations are that it will decline from here on weakness. I'm buying the September $30 Put Options for $0.35 cents per contract.

Baidu.com (BIDU), one of the tech power-house stocks that is up there with Google, Apple, and Research in Motion (RIMM). This stock has been on a roll lately ramping up nice percentage gains and today it popped right up and tested it's resistance level of $219.25. It briefly touched $219.90 before coming back down to earth, but the volume was above normal which is a good sign of buyers in the market and it could quite possibly break-out to new levels. This is one I would definitely be watching for a false breakout, and/or test of resistance, or a full fledged breakout to new highs since the tech sector has been on fire.

I'm also shorting OGE Energy Corp.(OGE) as it tagged it's 50SMA and has been very weak as of late. The volume was sub-par which tells me this run won't last, the buyers aren't there, and it's going to fall, TIMBER!! I'm shorting the stock outright vs. buying PUT Options. The Open Interest for the September $30 Put Option is "11 contracts", wow talk about lack of liquidity.

New Post of Charts

2007-07-26T20:11:00.000-04:00

The 190 Level is holding as support for Goldman Sachs. Anything under $200 for this company is a great buy, so why not buy $3 up off major support as a long term play? If I were going to buy, I would stalk the OCT '07 $210 Call Options (.GPYJB) currently selling for $8.20 a contract ($820)and try to get them for even cheaper, if the bounce ensues
.

Get out of the energy sector! These stocks are still in sell off mode from their highs. I mean one day they're hitting year highs and a couple days later names like VLO, CHK, BTU, and XOM are being sold off.

A nice short canidate for a GAP Fill Play would be Citrix Systems (CTXS). In a weak market you can trade either of these 2 ways. Find the weakest stocks blowing past support and short them, or find the high fliers that have Gapped up on possible earnings news, and are trading right above the GAP, once it's broken there is almost a certainty it will be filled.

FoxHollow Technologies (FOXH)

Late Day APPLE Breakout..

2007-05-25T22:49:00.000-04:00

I've been finding out that when I do my daily activities and come home around 2:00 during the afternoon, I haven't been glued to my screen all day searching for trading opportunities and I don't really have a bias to to whether the market is going up or down. This past week I've made some very profitable trades coming in late and reading my charts and volume trends. I always notice there is a sell off before lunch usually because traders don't want open positions while they are stuffing their face with caviar and champagne. After the noon swoon, as Dr. J, from OptionMonster.com calls it buyers usually kick in and buy into the mid or late day session (usually, not counting every day).

There are great trading opportunities when you see a stock testing it's day high on good volume, and keeping up near the top. All you have to do is watch the major indexes and if they follow suit and break higher then your stock should immediately take off, no hesitations, because that means buyers aren't prevalent and sellers could take over considering it's at the day high, and all your longs are now green.

Todays trade:

I grossed $363 on the trade scaling in on 800 shares and scaling out for a quick trade. Remember watch that volume, it is key!!!

Quick Scalps

2007-05-23T16:01:00.000-04:00

The market sold off in the last Hours of Trading, so I decided to short the most volatile stocks as they would not hold up under market pressure.
In my observation the DOW Jones Industrials were leading the way today, as they sold off so did the other indicies.
The NASDAQ seemed to be down the most on a percentage basis, so I shorted Apple, and RIMM in the last half hour for quick scalps, in and out.

Today's Total: $500.00 even in 30 minutes, I'll take it.

Apple Short:

RIMM Short:

RIMM Hits New Highs

2007-05-22T22:14:00.000-04:00

courtesy of www.zacks.com

Original article can be found here.
5/22/07 2:44:25 PM
Research in Motion (RIMM) High on iPhone? -
Checking in on today's list of newly-tagged annual highs for Nasdaq-traded stocks, Research in Motion Limited stands out as the biggest point gainer. The Blackberry maker saw its shares peak at $159.57, though there aren't many headlines to explain today's jump. Over at BloggingStocks.com, Brent Archer suggests today's rise can be chalked up to a competitor's product offering - Apple's yet-to-be-released iPhone.

Archer suggests that RIMM's Blackberry is a cheaper version of the iPhone, and consumers seeking to upgrade their mobiles may favor the tried-and-true Blackberry name, and wallet-friendlier Blackberry price tag, over the pricey-and-unproven iPhone.

It's an interesting theory, especially in light of the fact that Apple also appears on the list of stocks hitting new annual highs today. (That terrible noise you hear is the sound of Mark Fightmaster's teeth grinding.) However, it's true that RIMM has strong technicals to back up today's surge. The shares received a boost upwards from a bullish cross of its 10-month and 20-month moving averages last August, and has maintained its position above those ascending trendlines since. Support at the 120 level has also held firm since late last year.

With 13 "hold" rankings from various brokerage firms, RIMM also has a lot to gain from potential upgrades. Look for RIMM to rise again if Apple's latest "i-" offering fails to captivate consumers.

WIRE Buy Point

2007-05-16T23:32:00.000-04:00

WIRE, sitting on 200 Moving Day Average, Resistance turned Support, Nice entry point.

Trading Apple Options

2007-05-09T18:20:00.000-04:00

Today I hit a double on the AAPLE MAY $105 CALLS, buying in at $1.42 and selling out at $2.85. what a ride it was! I knew the consolidation mid-day was just masking the ultimate breakout we received after the FOMC announcement. There was a pullback towards mid-day support and it didn't break that level, so I knew the buyers weren't panic selling.

100% Gain in 2 trading days
CalTrader

Chart Reading...

2007-05-08T22:28:00.000-04:00

Fed meeting is coming up and equity investors seem like they're in the duldrums. We sell off in the morning and catching a market hiccup only to head higher and close almost unchanged 3 points.

Let's look at some charts and see what they have to say...
What's been on my mind lately is Research in Motion (RIMM), this stock has been on a tear these last few days. I have a few theories from news events and market conditions. Initially I expected RIMM to tank and touch down on some serious support, but then the NASDAQ had been up 8 points here, 16 points there, so of course RIMM will follow suit and advance higher. First off the Canadian market has been up, and RIMM being a Canadian stock will be lead by the sentiment. Also, Motorola (MOT) failed to accept Mr. Billionaire Investor Carl Ichan as a board member who would try to turn things around for the best. This indirectly affects RIMM because it means less competition, and therefore more sales.

It is approaching 52 week high levels at this point, in which it has always turned down. I would wait to see if it breaks out above this $147.50 - $148.00 level. If it fails to breakout, it would make as a prime SHORT canidate, especially if the market gets a nice pullback. Add it to the watchlist.

OIL! Very weak, as of late, but of course the conspiracy behind Nigeria and the terrorist attacks driving the prices higher, hm now I wonder if they get long oil futures in a highly funded brokerage account before they hi-jack rigs, and set off bombs on oil fields? I guess we'll never know! But the world sure does know about the couple in Hong Kong that profited $8 million USD from the Dow Jones (DJ) Deal!! The SEC has frozen their accounts, big whoop, it's RED CHINA! Give up!

Here are some of the oil, and energy stocks I'm watching, look at which are hanging near their moving averages and which have pulled substantially higher!

Peabody Energy (BTU) has a short term chart which in my opinion you could short the pullback before you buy on weakness and put on a longer term position. One would be looking for BTU to take out that almighty $50 level in order to advance higher. Check it..

Back With A Bang!

2007-05-01T19:44:00.000-04:00

Today was a great full day of trading multiple contracts on different entities. First, I noticed the lack luster strength in the DOW this morning, and watched oil closely. One thing I notice with oil is that there are tremendous swings. It will go up and up and push higher than you ever thought oil would go, and then rapidly descend during the afternoon. I have heard of many fortunes being created through the trading of oil and it's counterparts.

Research in Motion (RIMM) was also being stalked by me today as the Upgrade this morning can cause a significant GAP UP, and any weakness will make it fall like a knife, as it did when it hit resistance twice today..

I originally decided to roll with the RIMM - $125 MAY Put option, but it wasn't responding enough to the price fluctuation, because it was so far out of the money and the delta was only a -18.0 vs -35.4 with the $130 MAY Put option. I bought the $130 Put option after realizing this and thus, created a Vertical Spread which I exited 1 leg at the end of the day for a 20%+ gain. Amatuer, I know, but I caught it, and was very profitable.

I love buying RIMM Puts, I've seen them double in 1 day in my portfolio. Who else in the world can show you how to double your money in 1 day? I don't know of very many sources. Hm, Las Vegas? Go for broke!

I also cashed in on my Chesapeak Energy Calls in which I bought nearly 4 months ago, mentioned here Long Term Oil Calls. I bought the JULY $30 CALLS @ $1.85 and today I sold them for $4.6, a 140+% gain in 109 Trading Days.

More to Come!
-CalTrader

Easter Time

2007-04-03T00:08:00.000-04:00

Happy Easter to everyone. I haven't been posting a lot because I'm only holding a few positions for the long term. I have a Vertical Debit Spread on CHK with the 27.5 and 30 Call Options which have been behaving very nicely with this run up in oil & natural gas.
I've been working mostly on real estate to expand my general portfolio and outlook on life. More to come on this topic...Again thanks for visiting.....
-CalTrader

Hedge Time

2007-03-02T19:26:00.000-04:00

Make sure you hedge your portfolio if you're a trader of stocks. A trader would be defined as one who buys and sells stocks using a holding period of less than 6 months. Long term investors just see this as a healthy pullback and a suitable time to add to winning positions as fundies have not changed just fear in the market.

Ways to hedge your portfolio....
If trading an individual stock, you could always buy cheap put options which are out of the money dated out 3-5 months just to hedge the short term losses that will occur if the fear on Wall Street Continues to rise and stocks get temporarily knocked down.

One could buy Index options such as the S & P 500 Index, and use SPY Puts.

There is always the small cap route which seems to take more of a punishing while the market corrects, and this would constitute buying IWM, or Russell 2000 Put Options.

Correct my opinion if you disagree but when trading stocks outright, you're limited to the ways you can protect yourself from fall outs. For example, you buy stock XYZ and it's trotting along nicely in an upward trend, and yet you have no downside protection, so you decide to short sell the same stock.....you're counteracting the gains with losses, because when one goes up the other goes down on a 1:1 basis, with no leverage involved.

The whole point of using stock options is to provide cheap risk management, while simultaneously using leverage in a productive manner. It serves it's purpose well.

Of course there are inverse stock relations of certain sectors that you could use to hedge, such as buying gold if the dollar is weak, if the stock market is down you could always buy (LVLT) which is levered to the bond market which almost 90% of the time trades inversely to the market conditions.

Some people recommend playing the Futures market to hedge a portfolio. I would stray from this idea, I've learned from personal experience that the Futures market can be very volatile and cut-throat. It's trading a Ferrari paced financial vehicle where only the quick survive in the short term and only the patient survive in the longer term. I must say that you have to have a large threshold hold while trading Futures and what I mean by that is, with Global Futures there is a parameter you can set to where if you lose more than a certain amount in 1 day all of your positions will be liquidated, same goes for gains, but hey who would want to cash out if they were already up to their neck in green? One's portfolio with even 5-10 contracts could easily fluctuate $1,000's of dollars each day. Just something to ponder...

I've decided to take the plunge and buy the dip. I'm buying longer dated S&P SPY Calls. A proper hedge would be to sell short term out of the money call options, or even buy cheap March 2007 Put options to cover your butt in case of another massive sell off, who knows what this market will do....you can only be prepared....just like the hedge funds who had $VIX Call options and made $100,000's (hundreds of thousands of dollars) in 1 day while everyone else is bleeding like a fish...
More To Come,
CalTrader

Did someone flush the toilet?

2007-02-27T20:07:00.000-04:00

Did I do that!?

Well I'd hate to be a bullish cherry on a day like today's tree, so I'm surely glad I stuck to my shorts and bought puts, easily doubling them up to 100%+ on a day trade.
We've all heard this and that and, "oh the market needed a breather" but honestly could we just go straight up for 6 months? It's almost like every investor in the world has made money over the past 6 months nibbling here and there on positions to realize gains, but what about the trillions of dollars being poured into our market, hey someone had to take a flushing in order for someone else to take profits.

I feel sorry for all those poor saps who ran up RIMM yesterday to the tune of 5% just to get clobbered another 5.5%
And what about all those metals guys, sheesh TIE took a spanking outback by grandma to the tap of 8.5%

On the bright side of things, Cramer recommends buying Google around current levels. $440 to $448 based on growth and valuation, and boy did those call option holders get crushed today. I honestly don't know how a day-trader could lose money on a day like today where as soon as I turned on my tv this morning at 9am the Futures were showing a 98 point decline, while china had sold off over 8%. Hope you were on the right side of the trade.

Even if you were a long term investor you could have easily hedged your investment with stocks that trade inversely to the QQQQ (Nasdaq 100 ETF), it's called the QID (UltraShort QQQ ProShares)

My trade of the week was with the March $135 Put option on RIMM, which I purchased yesterday for $1.5 and sold today for $3 even. The put went all the way up to $4.40 and would have tripled if sold at that level, hey we can't get em' all and we certainly can't be greedy in this market, you'll chop off you're own hand, trust everyone with experience, take your money and run.

Market Bitch Slap..tbc..

Rimm Hits New Highs

2007-02-26T21:14:00.000-04:00

It seems as though RIMM finally made it's move, and busted to new highs today when it was upgraded by RBC Capital Firm, stating:
"Industry contacts suggest a spate of pent-up demand for the handheld device Research in Motion partnered with Qualcomm Inc. to make in the second quarter..."

The stock sure took off today tacking on 4.8% and only slightly dipping during the NASDAQ's slight sell off mid-day.

Stock that I am personally watching are all the energy and oils, and I am still holding calls dating out to July 2007.

Jim Cramer keeps raving over the fact that Iran and Iraq are running out of oil to dish out to America in the short term and so drilling and contracts will surge. He keeps recommending Halliburton, &Transocean Inc., stating: "Transocean (RIG) is a fabulous company that keeps beating numbers. Transocean can't get out of its own way."

Hey

2007-02-14T23:06:00.000-04:00

I haven't been trading much that's why there are a lack of post. I've got some good stuff coming up so stay tuned, this is only a short sabatical. I'm actually working on my own domain name and newly contructed website and blog.

Thanks
CalTrader

Read Away!

2007-02-09T19:11:00.000-04:00

I've been spending most of my time reading market books and studying different strategies that have been written on how to trade the markets. One I just finished is, Options Made Easy by Guy Cohen. He basically goes over a lot of option strategies, and tells you the ones in which the risk/reward ratio is unfavorable. He specifically state which strategies he wouldn't implement and I now see why. I personally am warming up to the collar strategy & spreads, I like the reducded risk profile without sacrificing potential reward.

One thing that is most vague when it comes to published articles is, arbitrage. You see the definition is, "a kind of hedged investment meant to capture slight differences in price; when there is a difference in the price of something on two different markets the arbitrageur simultaneously buys at the lower price and sells at the higher price."

The one thing you'll never find out is who is doing it and where because the secret and the profits lay in the exploit itself. Of course I published a post last week regarding 1Option's neat article about buying options and then shorting stock creating a risk free trade in which market making firms execute to make money.

But there is more to it....I realized that I had indeed participated in a type of arbitrage a few years ago while in college to make money. Arbitrage doesn't only apply to the stock market, it applies to any field in which you can exploit an inefficiency for profit with no risk. The entity in which I was the arbitrageur was, AOL Instant Messenger Screen Names....I small business trip that lasted for a while and offered about a $3,000 profit for 1 month's work.

While reading, Trade Your Way To Financial Freedom by Van K. Tharp, the book vaguely, and I mean by a hair of a kitten, barely mentions the topic & a brief interview with an "arb guy" named Ray Kelly. He spends his whole life researching and studying markets to try and find arbitrage, and he says time is of the essence and if you can't get both parties to agree to conform to your business objective the profits quickly dwindle away by the second, because that gap will close, and you'll be on to your next venture.

Check out Wikipedia's numerous examples of arbitrage, I especially like the one where you buy a PS3 for $600 and sell it for $30,000 on EBAY, shwing!

I made out nicely today in the futures market profiting from that nasty fall of which I was stalking all day...on the Dow Jones (YM)

A chart & stock I like is NYX:

Yesterday I purchased the RIMM FEB '07 $135 Puts for $1.20 a contract and sold half for a loss yesterday for $0.70 a contract and the other half for $3.50 today, a 191% gain on the latter.

Welcome Back I Say!

2007-02-01T21:15:00.000-04:00

Thank you for patiently awaiting the wonderful post I'm about to unveil for my day trading, option scavenging, investment guru audience! (ok so maybe some of you just started putting a couple bucks in the market like I did 2 years back...)

I've been doing some serious soul searching lately and I'm going to make this the personal part of this post. I've been trying to be the best trader I can be, a scavenger of information as soon as it hits the wire, an alert....all out hacker of the market, no limit hold em....die till I win with the money in my account and not yours mindset. I've been searching, testing, studying, reading, and taking on the most challenging battle I've ever fought. I believe this to be the best and most informing venture I've ever ridden. When I got into this mindset, I knew I wanted to form an all out blitzkrieg on the market...a self fulfilling adventure to turn my mind into a stone wall of psychological strength.

Now on to market stuff....
My Caterpillar Inc. (Public, NYSE:CAT) call on January 12th, 2007 is now up 231% on the FEB $60 Call Option. Remember Me? I called for long term support, and it bounced nicely. Seems as though cyclicals are definately back in the groove..

My long term Energy & Oil positions are boding well. In this post Here I said it would be a great idea to start buying up energy stocks as we all know oil wouldn't go any lower than $50 a barrel, come on Saudi Arabia loses billions each day oil goes down $1 buck..

Some random quips that have been on my mind lately:
The Metals sector is hot! (one of my first daytrade fetishes, Titanium Metals.

Corn which is eventually made into Ethanol has been on a tear, scalp! (ADM, ANDE, PEIX)

Stay away from Apple Inc., at this point in time you will get burned like a hot day in Miami while wearing baby oil..

RIMM options are a daytraders dream come true..30% a day is my forte

QQQQ options move slower than your grandmother's driving..

Follow oil & gas inventories, they make for easy money on the stock trading side...(BTU, CHK, DVN, CNX)

Make the best $69 a month investment of your life and follow Phil over at, Phils Stock World, he teaches me about trading the markets, how oil really works, and even manipulation in the market is easy to catch when you know what to look for..He only trades options, and always hedges them to even out the risk/reward, plays on momentum and sells into the rallies...don't we wish we all traded like that..?
*-Some of my favorite insights are:
"If I own $100Bn worth of energy stocks in my fund, what do I care if my energy trader loses 10% buying $1Bn worth of NYMEX barrels this month if it boosts my portfolio 5%? There are hundreds of funds with the motive means and opportunity to do this - all it takes is one dishonest fund manager - thank goodness there are none of those!"

"Don’t forget when I sell a contract, I buy it back when I feel like it (in a virtual sense). So If I sold 1,000,000 shares of $500 calls (10K contracts) for $22 yesterday to pick up an extra $22M against my $500M position, all I have to do is sell off 10 or 20,000 shares here and there to drive the price down so I can buy you out for $7, a $15M gain for me. If I shave $10 off Googles price in the process, what does that really cost me? At most $10M. And if I know the sell-off is BS because I’m causing it, all I have to do is wait for the other suckers to panic and then buy back my shares and cause a buying frenzy the other way.

Not that anyone would ever actually manipulated the markets for personal gain of course…"

I would like to say that this is one of the toughest businesses in the world. You fight for every dollar. Anyone who ever says playing the stock market is easy and money just flows like wine should be smacked. Wall Street is vicious, and there are hungry hedge fund managers ready to eat you alive. A great story of success goes to Steve Cohen, ever heard of SAC Capital? Baidu.com? Yea well he owns a large percentage of the companies shares for himself. A self made billionaire. His first day as a junior options trader in the Arbitrage Dept. he made an $8,000 profit, and eventually was making around $100,000 a day for the company.

Well if you want to know what arbitrage is, it's one of the greatest things one can ever get involved with...why you ask? No RISK! No way, a no risk trade in the stock market you say, yes well you have to be set up to do it, like a firm on Wall Street. 1 Option gives a great example of what Market Making Firms do in ARBITRAGE Plays. I found it to be very very informative & interesting...because it's for the big boys.

Trades today included scalping RIMM & QQQQ options, and buying the dips in the Dow Jones Futures (YM), and boy did that pay off today, whew!! New All Time High!

I shorted TIE near the top for 2500 shares and covered for a couple of nickels as it came down....
More to Come...
CalTrader

Trades & Ivanka

2007-01-24T23:25:00.000-04:00

Had a nice morning on the Dow Futures (YM).....took a shower and decided to draw my fib lines and test some retracements, well I gave back all the morning gains and switched over to the S&P 500 Futures (ES), needless to say, I was down in my Futures account today but up in my Options Account by a considerable amount. I could have done a lot more right today with the Indicies hitting all time highs today, but hey one can only live & learn, and then make his fortune.

I bought the morning dip on Research In Motion Limited (USA) (Public, NASDAQ:RIMM) on the FEB '07 $140 Calls and ended up 50% on the day with that trade.

Got an idea from Trader Tim over at Perma Bears R Us, for an idea on a possible Double Top on Martin Marietta Materials, Inc (Public, NYSE:MLM). His article and analysis can be found Here.

I won't be trading much tomorrow because I'll be attending a meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, on investing in stocks, real estate and tax liens. Special Guest Speaker Ivanka Trump, whew! Knockout!

My long term Energy Plays on BTU & CHK are doing quite nicely sitting with respectable gains of 50% & 35%, dabbling In-The-Money.

I've got some GREAT LINKS to Trading Videos, You all will absolutely LOVE THESE!
Movies on the Stock Market
Option Trading Video
Software For A Visual on Stock Options
Buying PUTS, CALLS & LEAPS:
Option Trading Strategies by 888options.com
The CBOE Weekly Option Trade(Very Informative)
One of my favorite Weekly Market Recap Video Commentators

Nice Entry on NYX

2007-01-19T13:46:00.000-04:00

Here is the classic Cramer run up on news, and steady pullback to the rising 50dma. Very nice entry for a longer term bullish view on this stock.

78.6% Retracement & 50DMA Support

Straddle Up!

2007-01-17T19:45:00.000-04:00

I'm going to focus on a stock option strategy called a "straddle play". You see, the entire point of a straddle is to allow you to remain in the market, with limited risk, when you aren't sure which way a stock is going.

Take earnings, for example. Most people, even analysts, can't accurately predict corporate earnings on a regular basis. And, even if you could predict them, sometimes Wall Street can react in a completely bizarre manor. A stock can have blowout numbers and still go down. What the heck was wrong with Apple after-hours? Up 4%, then down 2%? Then up 1%!

An options straddle is a simple solution to a complicated problem. By definition, a straddle is created when an investor buys or sells the same number of puts and calls, with the same expiration, and same strike price. One would usually want to buy At-The-Money options, with the strike price being nearest to the current trading price.

The key to an effective straddle is knowing that the stock is setting up to make a "large move." Think FDA approval, merger or earnings - big events. In these instances, options straddles can help reduce risk, while allowing you to participate in an event that will likely trigger a substantial sell-off, or breakout! Options straddles are most effective when a stock has been traveling sideways, in a very tight range, ahead of a significant news event.

Credit to By Steve McDonald
Advisory Panelist, Mt. Vernon Research
Options Straddle

Let's take for example Rackable Systems, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:RACK). Their earnings come out on February 7th, 2007. Info provided via Briefing.com. Reuters Research estimate: 0.27 cents per share.

One would usually want to buy the options out 1 month in advance to get into the trade before the Implied Volatility starts to ramp up, and the options premium become more expensive.

Rackable Systems, Inc. was trading at $32.42 on the close of January 16th, 2007.
The $30 Call Option was Priced at: $2.45 per contract, or $245 to purchase each one.
The $30 Put Option was Priced at: $0.10 per contract, or $10 to purchase each one.

So one would purchase 1 Call option contract at $245, and 1 Put option contract at $10, for a net debit of $250 for the trade.

Today news was released and Rackable Systems announced the company's warning that it expects to miss Wall Street's fourth-quarter expectations. The stock price plummeted 38%, from $32.42 to $19.98, a loss of 12.44 points.

The call options lost 98% of their value, and the put options gained 9,700%, yes that 97 times whatever amount you invested into the put option contracts, almost 100 Fold!

After the WARNING:
The $30 Call Option was Priced at: $0.05 per contract, or $5 to purchase each one.
The $30 Put Option was Priced at: $9.80 per contract, or $980 to purchase each one.

Initial Investment:
(Call Option: $2.45) + (Put Option: $0.10) = $2.50

Final Profit/Loss:
(Call Option: $0.05 ) + (Put Option: $9.80) = $9.85

$9.85 - $2.50 = $7.35 profit, or $735 per contract on a 1:1 ratio(put to calls)

A nice 194% return on your money.
Calls:

Puts:

News and Ramps

2007-01-17T03:38:00.000-04:00

A great article collection about almost every possible thing you want to know about investing, to include: volume reading, stock options, ETF's, technical analysis, market research, & stock charts. Here!

Jack Steiman from thestreet.com wrote an article, "NYSE Group Setting Up to Run" with a annotated chart found Here. I find it very interesting that everyone thinks that the NYSE Group is poised for a huge run up, remember Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME)?

Also check out Carl Futia, and his very knowledgeable blog on the market. I loved his annotated graphs of his index predictions, most of which are very very close to what actually happens in the market.
His synopsis of the NYSE Group (NYX) can be found here, with a price target of $152! Don't forget Cramer's recommendation as the top 3 growth picks for 2007 either, sheesh, I should jump on board.

Learn how to trade indexes using MACD signals.

Stock Scans via, StockCharts brought up an interesting chart of IAAC Corp, which is about to touch down on it's 200MA. This could certainly hold as a nice support level, I'll be watching.

Long Term Oil

2007-01-12T14:28:00.000-04:00

Let's talk about the oil sector for a moment. As of right now I'd consider buying oil as a contrarian play, and I'm buying Out Of The Money Calls, dated out to July 2007. OPEC will cut, weather should get a little colder for a bit, and then of course summer driving season! Here are some great ideas that I would have you consider playing. Disclaimer: I'm not a financial advisor.

Chesapeake Energy Corporation (Public, NYSE:CHK)

Peabody Energy Corporation (Public, NYSE:BTU)

Caterpillar Inc. (Public, NYSE:CAT)

Stock Exchanges

2007-01-10T16:50:00.000-04:00

I sure hope you had at least one of these bad boys on your watch list today:
IntercontinentalExchange, Inc. (Public, NYSE:ICE) up 9%
NYSE Group, Inc. (Public, NYSE:NYX) up 3.5%
NYMEX Holdings, Inc. (Public, NYSE:NMX) up 5%

Remember those Nymex Call Options I mentioned 2 days ago? Oh yes..up almost 50%

All of these stock & futures exchanges were up big today on news of high volume contract trading. ..

Nymex volume hits record in 2006. NYMEX Holdings, (NMX), set an annual total volume record of 276,152,326 contracts in 2006, crushing the previous record of 204,610,365 contracts set in 2005. Article can be found here.

IntercontinentalExchange, Inc., Exchange-wide volume at ICE Futures reached a record 801,714 contracts on January 9, 2007, surpassing by 15.1% the record 696,700 contracts traded on January 8. Article can be found here.

Of course NYSE Group, Inc. (NYX) was on MAD Money TV, one of Cramer's top growth picks for 2007. He currently slapped a $240 price target which is 122% higher than it's current closing price of $108. Load up on LEAPS! Article can be found here.

Goldman Sachs & NYSE Group(NYX) both decided to purchase a 5% Equity Interest in National Stock Exchange, India's Largest Financial Marketplace. "Our investment in India's National Stock Exchange complements our global growth strategy," said John A. Thain, Chief Executive Officer, NYSE Group. Cramer is right, Global domination!

On to the real interesting stuff.....money!
Sold AAPL calls today for a staggering 429% (my first 4 bagger, say cheese!)
Sold RIMM calls up 44%
Holding Nymex (NMX) Calls, up 47% today! Whoo!

The only thing I missed out on were those pesky ICE calls, up 700% sheesh, that's a new house if you put a decent sum of money into it!

More trades, insight, and exciting news to come,
CalTrader

Sweet Apples!

2007-01-09T15:46:00.000-04:00

Over the past 3 weeks, I've had some incredible options trades with Apple Computer, or now named, Apple Inc. I started on December 27th, 2006, and here are some of the trades I made.

12/27/2006 - Apple JAN '07 $80 Call - Bought $3.80 - Sold $4.90 = 26% Gain
12/27/2006 - Apple FEB '07 $80 Call - Bought $5.40 - Sold $9.00 = 66% Gain
1/3/2007 - Apple JAN '07 $100 Call - Bought $0.41 - Sold $0.70 = 70% Gain

As of right now I'm still holding some of the Jan '07 $100 Calls at an average price of $0.41 cents per contract. Today they were up over 100%. I'm trying to devise a strategy to hold them into earnings. I'm looking for some advise on which strategy to employ to reduce risk. Any ideas options traders? Thanks

Today the buyers surely came out in Apple after the release of their new iPhone, iTV (Apple TV), Widescreen iPod, etc. I did what I've heard as being called, "feeding the ducks". These buyers were so strong they kept bidding up these options to 200% at one point, so I kept selling some of my position right at the top to feed these guys, and sure enough, they picked up my orders with a 116% gain. Take a look...

Nymex Holdings

2007-01-05T18:52:00.000-04:00

My synopsis of NYMEX Holdings, Inc. (Public, NYSE:NMX) is that it's been coming down off it's recent high of $132.99 in a steady pullback. Today that short term pullback may have seen it's last breath. It printed a textbook Hammer Candle and firmly reversed on a 30 min time frame. I'll be keeping an eye out to add to a longer term position I've started.

Position: NMX June 2007 $150 Call
Purchase Price: $2.45 per contract
Objective: I put on a small position to add to later, if it pulls back to $115 support, or trends higher to $120.

Near Term Solid Support: $115.00
Current Closing Price: $118.86

Today's Chart:

Since IPO:

More Techy Analysis Coming..

GROW - Technical Analysis

2007-01-04T22:08:00.000-04:00

Here I'm going to highlight a possible short play on U.S. Global Investors, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:GROW).

BBY Call -UPDATED-

2007-01-04T18:03:00.000-04:00

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Best Buy Co. (BBY), the nation's largest electronics retailer, Friday said December same-store sales rose 7%, boosted by heavily discounted sales of flat-panel television sets and sales of digital music players.
Revenue for the five weeks ended Dec. 30 rose 15% to $6.6 billion, compared with $5.7 billion for the fiscal month ended Dec. 31, 2005, the Minneapolis company said.
Best Buy projects fiscal 2007 per-share earnings of $2.70 to $2.80.
The mean estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call is for 2007 earnings of $2.75 a share.
In premarket trading, Best Buy shares were up 4.3% to $52.

I'm currently in the FEB '07 $47.50 Calls...
Up 6%

My Futures Trading will resume very shortly...I'm excited!

More to Come.

Options Trades

2007-01-03T22:19:00.000-04:00

Today I picked up some The Home Depot, Inc. (Public, NYSE:HD) - HD JAN '07 42.50 Calls for $0.40 cents a piece.

I also wanted to hold a longer term bullish position on the Home Retailer so I decided to pick up some of the HD MAY '07 45's for $1.20 a piece.

Oil was down big today and I saw this as a long term bullish play on oil. Let's face it $50 a barrell oil is just soo 1990's and there's no way Iran is going to let us have cheap oil anymore. On that note I decided to pick up some of the Peabody Energy Corporation (Public, NYSE:BTU) JUN 45 '07 Calls for $1.85 per contract.

Apple Computer, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:AAPL) - I wanted to throw in some speculative money today. Apple pulled back a bit and of course I saw this as a buying opportunity. I bought some Out of the Money Call Options. My choice was the $100 Strike, JAN '07 Calls, for $0.45 cents per contract. We'll see how this one plays out in the upcoming weeks.

A possibly Google-Apple alliance? MacWorld Buzz. Very interesting!

My Rambus Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:RMBS) FEB '07 $20 Calls took a jump to the tune of 6% on news of using a license they hold in the Playstation 3.Rambus' XDR memory technology. Briefing.com puts Rambus in In Play.

My IBM FEB '07 $95 Puts are down 5%.

Monsanto (NYSE:MON - News) reports quarterly earnings Thursday morning; look for $0.10 EPS.

Interested in Learning how to Trade Options? Here's a great article on The Relationship Between Volatility And Time by John Knott. An options trader who turned $300 into $220,000 while in college, and went on to trade on the CBOE, and Wall Street.

More to Come,
CalTrader

Upcoming Week

2007-01-02T21:49:00.000-04:00

7 Stocks You Need To Know For Wednesday, earnings, news and stocks to keep on the radar. Good Stuff.

Could this be a week of profit taking, or will new money continue you flood the markets? Check here for one floor traders view. Floor Traders View of the Upcoming Week's Numbers and Forecast of Market Breadth.

Dick Arms, from www.TheStreet.com, has some market commentary on buys and sells, using his Equivolume Software (Metastock), eResearch Technology, Inc (Public, NASDAQ:ERES), Leucadia National Corp. (Public, NYSE:LUK), Redback Networks Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:RBAK), Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:BBBY).

IBM Shooting star pattern. We'll see how this pony plays out. Note: I have purchased the $95 FEB '07 Puts.

Would you like to sign up for a free trial of an Options Newsletter? I sure did. www.schaeffersresearch.com. They post monthly newsletters with trades you should be a part of. Also very detailed reasons with specifics on buying prices, targets, etc.

Apple cleared, up 4%

2006-12-29T09:29:00.000-04:00

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Apple Computer Inc. said its investigation of stock-option grants found no misconduct by current management, but it did find that Chief Executive Steve Jobs recommended or was aware of the selection of some favorable grant dates.

Currently Trading up 4%

**UPDATE**
I sold my $80 AAPL FEB '07Calls this morning for a quick 60% Gain in 2 Trading Days. Now I have covered almost my whole cost of the initial buy-in, and I am essentially in the trade for free. I have until February 16th, 2007 until expiration, so I think I'll hold on to the remainder until earnings. Apple always delivers.

Short Stop

2006-12-28T20:47:00.000-04:00

I'm short IBM as of right now holding Puts. I have a stop in place, just in case IBM blows through the 52 week high of $97.40. It closed near it's low of the day, and could resume on more weakness. It's had a nice run since $83, and has been firmly in an uptrend after it's stellar earnings report on October 18th, 2006.

I can't explain it, but I'm starting to lean towards the bearish side....we've had this huge run up, barely any profit taking days, and there's just something that has to give. The S & P 500 is sitting at the top of it's channel, compliments of Trader TIM. As you can see from the graph, there is always a pullback, nothing goes up forever, only taxes...oh yea, and the price of marriage.

I'm just looking for some awaited profit taking until we resume our uptrend for 2007 if we even do. I'll be watching the S&P 500 closely for a swing short via Futures Indexes. There could quite possibly be an extreme amount of money to be made on this pull back...Futures provide the leverage needed to pull off such a task, and I'll be on the side with the large numbers of green.

Let's be sure to take notice of Apple's Official Filing this Friday about it's option practices and more information. There is certainly something very fishy going on, as it seems they're trying to alleviate all of the bad news before MAC World, and the possible release of the "iPhone" ? Apple releases it's earnings on January 17th, 2007.

Trade of Interest: Check out Day Trade Teams AKAM Analysis and further watch it's movement for possible leap forward after touching down on support. Great Call.
Out,
CalTrader

Trading on Apple Options News

2006-12-27T18:36:00.000-04:00

As you know by now, every blog has mentioned the huge GAP down on Apple Computer ,Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:AAPL) on the stock options probe. What I'm concerned with is the strength in this stock. Investors that sold off in the pre-market only got out to make sure they didn't get hit with a huge crash in the regular market hours. When the market opened, there was immediate buying, and to my knowledge it seems as though every investor in the universe could care less about the news, and saw the buying opportunity.

Trader Jamie over at Wall St. Warrior seems to have caught the GAP Fade as well, as posted on Trader Mike's Comments.

I saw the up-trending pattern, and good volume and decided to take a look at how the options were trading. I thought the most practical trade would be to fade the Gap and go for the $80 strike price in January & February.

I tried to enter a limit order and hit the Bid to get in at the best possible price but what I realized is that I was getting over-cut every time and out bid on the price. The "ask" price kept shooting higher and higher and profits were just being blown out of the window.

I enter in a limit order and hit the "ask" price for $3.80 per contract on the $80, JAN '07 Apple Calls. I'm immediately filled and ready to ride the train up. I exited a few hours later for $1.10 profit, and sold for $4.90 per contract. That's a 29% gain.

I also picked up some of the $80 FEB '07 Apple Calls for a longer term perspective on the stocks release of new highly anticipated products, and cheap price at the time, since Apple's price was knocked down so much. My entry price was, $5.40 per contract, and now they're sitting at $6.40. An unrealized paper profit of $1.00 per contract, or 18.5% percent return on your money.

I'm going to have to watch this trade closely as Apple could turn on a dime with bad news currently plaguing the headlines.
-CalTrader

Fishing For Points

2006-12-26T18:01:00.000-04:00

Today was a day for scalping the Russell 2000 E-mini. Objective was to get in quick and get out. We're still in the post-holiday volume, so I knew I should decrease my contract size to 5, instead of 10. Today's volume was approximately. 58,728 contracts traded, and the average daily volume 187,000 contracts according to CME.

I had a net gain of 3.58 points.

Nothing too exciting today. When I'm not trading in the Futures market I tend to take a glance at my old 50 stock trade screen I used to trade from each day, and I just think to myself, that is seems much easier to watch 1 chart, with MACD, Exponential Moving Average, and Stochastic.

Check out the panic selling in Telik, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:TELK) down 70% today. Does this bother anyone to know that someone might have to 2nd mortgage their house to cover the losses in this stock for missing Phase III clinical trials on a lack of evidence to help cancer patients? Sheesh. I hope I never have to worry about a market I'm in, crashing 70% of my investment.

Also, I'm taking a 1 month test drive of Phil's Stock World & Options Recommendations. I've been reading his blog for quite some time now, and he's very knowledgeable, legit, and I love his market commentary. He had a average gain of around 80% gains in his realized option gains. He also had a 1400% winner in one option. I will keep an update of the progress and success I'm having with his website. It's $40 a month, and with winners like those, I couldn't refuse.

Can't Wait For the New Year & All that the Future Holds,
-CalTrader

Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T00:51:00.000-04:00

Merry Christmas Everyone.
Set your goals for this New Year, hopefully it will be a profitable & happy one :-)
Study Up!
-CalTrader

Hustlin' and Bustlin'

2006-12-22T00:36:00.000-04:00

So what's the controversey over? Everyone seems to have been reading my blog about my futures trading, and seems to be quite un-informed. First of all, I've been studying the Russell, and the S & P 500 intra-day e-mini contracts for about 6 months now. I paper traded them everyday along with day trading stocks. I've watched videos, I've gotten in on webinars, listened to conference calls, read articles, forums, blogs, books, speakers, etc. If you're considering trading the Futures markets you need to do your research, you need to learn how the Futures trade, and you need to limit your risk by taking, HIGH PROBABILITY SETUPS!

Okay, I'm sure the main question you'd like answered is, "What's a high probabilty trade set-up with the Futures Indexes?"

Here is a typical trade I ALWAYS take. It's a high probabilty trade in which the direction is extremely strong, either up or down, rally, or sell off, either go long or short. I NEVER, EVER trade futures just to be trading. That is the best way to lose money, waste time, and make someone else's pockets bigger. Futures is cut throat, hard core, I'll kill your momma for the next tick extreme.

Here's the Process:

1.) Step one. Wake up at 6am EST and find out what news has been released, see if the Futures are indeed trading strong in one direction.

2.) Step two. Go to www.briefing.com and go to "Free Content", then click "ECONOMIC CALENDER". Find out what news is coming out today! Major major news would be FOMC meetings, Corporate Profits, CPI, Inflation Data, etc.

3.) Step three. Do not enter any trades until the specified news you're awaiting has been released. Compare the numbers "Actual" vs "Consensus" and mentally figure out if it beat, missed or matched the "actual". I've stressed on this blog already the importance of my main style is based on NEWS Trading. I don't always trade spreads, or tick extreme's, or pivot points, or retracements, or Fib's. I like to trade NEWS. One shot kill on a 99% chance the market will turn in a strong direction.

4.) Step Four. Look at your charts, see if any Key Support/Resistance Levels have been surpassed or breached.

Let's take a look how today played out.

1.) 6am, http://www.briefing.com I found my news, The Philadelphia Fed is going to speak today at 12pm.

2.) I awaited the news. It was released. Here's what happened:

December Philadelphia manufacturing index at -4.3 (-9.4 pts), this means that -> The weakness in orders from the auto and housing sectors now add to stalled business investment from a break neck pace just a few months ago. Risk is that the weaker business confidence which is driving investment may weaken further if the manufacturing sector falls in to decline.

Immediately at 12:01 markets turned, Wall Street was discouraged by this data, and markets sold off.
Russell 2000

S&P 500 Index, right at 12:01pm

These are very sizeable moves and could have been very profitable had a trader realized that news was coming out today.

I don't see why other sites are bashing my number, my methods and my name. If you can't trade the Futures, then stick to stocks. Whatever is profitable for you and works is wonderful. We all have niches in the market, and once you've found it and make money then stick to it. My purpose is trying to provide insight to other traders in the world that there are ways to use leverage in a positive manner, which you can reap rewards from.

If you'd like to hear a great broadcast from another Russell Futures Trader, Lee_Leibfarth, Click Here. He is based more on technical trading, and even uses a fully automated bot for trades, this is something I'm currently looking into.
Out,
Cal

Learn How to Cuss While Learning to Trade the Russells

2006-12-21T02:21:00.001-04:00

This is a Russell 2000 Trader giving insight as to only using the Bid/Offer screen. See if bids are real, get in, and get out fast. I prefer the charts myself..

New Portfolio Idea! Motivation For All!

2006-12-20T01:20:00.001-04:00

I've got plans to open another brand new futures trading account. This time there will be a twist involved.

Here are the Details:
1.) I'm going to make a deposit of $5,000 dollars into the account.

2.) I'm going to day trade the RUSSELL 2000 E-mini with this account along side of my larger account trade for trade of proportional contract size. This means if I'm trading $15,000 dollars in one account with 30 contracts, I'll trade 10 contracts with the $5,000 account.

3.) My goal of this project is to show all of the viewers, investors, not-yet-started Futures Traders that it is possible to first of all, make money with little start-up capital, successfully day-trade futures using 1 point scalps, and start a goal to double your portfolio.

4.) I've recieved criticism for posting my big days and not focusing more on losers. I've been called a newbie and that I'm going to fall flat on my face. Well this trading demonstration is to prove that this blog is serious, and that with hard work, dedication, and a search for more knowledge & experience in the financial world anyone can make some extrordinary money to pay necessary bills or even make a small fortune. Strict guidelines in trading the futures markets will be employed.

5.) Okay, you start with $5,000.00. The goal is to sucessfully scalp 1 net point each day, while simultaneously increasing your contract size for every $500 earned by one contract. (each Russell 2000 Emini contract cost $500 to trade).

Here's how things could thoeretically play out if one could trade flawlessly:
Day 1.) $5,000 (capital) x 10 (contracts traded) = $1,000 (1 net point for the day)

Day 2.) $6000 (initial capital + net profit from previous day) x 12 (contracts propotionate to capital amount) = $1,200 (1 net point earned)

Day 3.) $7,200 (initial capital + profits from previous days) x 14 (contracts) = $1,400 (1 net point profit)

Day. 4) $8,600 (initial capital + profits from all days) x 17 (Contracts) = $1,700 (profit on 1 net point)

4 Days to Double the Portfolio,Total Capital (profits included) = $10,300 -> Done!
(excluding commissions, but with $0.75 cents per contract this is minimal)

Obviously no one can trade perfectly, markets do fluctuate a vast amount of points on different days, and some days will not net a full point for the trader (possibly even a loss). If this sounds to good to be true, it isn't, and is totally achievable and if everything goes according to planned the results are posted. My recommendation to anyone wanting to get into the Futures markets is to set up a "virtual trading" account. This will allow for some time to monitor how rapidly the Futures trade and get some insight as to what it would be like. On another note, some traders might not be comfortable with maxing out their capital to trade the most amount of contracts (very level-headed trader). You could decrease your contract size to offset the risk you're taking, and granted it would take longer to achieve the ultimate goal, you wouldn't be risking as much per trade, and gains would be slow and steady.

I've stated my goals, and I'm motivated to help other traders get started with setting goals, making profitable trades, and providing to be a good example of a disciplined trader.

To open an account with only $0.75 cent commissions on trades go to
IB Direct Futures Trading, $0.75 cent commissions
More to Come,
-CalTrader

Russell Me Up

2006-12-19T01:17:00.000-04:00

Today was a great day to trade the Russell 2000. There was a large, True Range, of how many points it fluctuated from the opening high to the closing low. There was a gap up this morning on good news, yadda yadda, but I started to see weakness when there was no follow through on the GAP up. Most major indicies started to pull back and fill in the GAP from the "over-buying". This is one of my favorite plays as most of you know, the Opening Range Breakdown.

Each Russell 2000 E-Mini contract (ERT) costs $500.
If you got short 1 contract after the opening range breakdown, which was very clear today, and had little risk involved, you would have netted anywhere from 5-8 points depending on your tolerance for holding onto a winning position, and letting it run.
With the $500 initial capital for the contract you could have made $500-$800, which is a 100-140% return on your money (stand up and dance if you like these).
Most people still can't grasp the concept of these types of gains. There is leverage involved, yes, but imagine using one's keen day-trading skills to harness even more profit using the same principles, this isn't about GREED, it's about pure EFFICIENCY!

Hey we can't expect to walk into a huge house and see all the rooms at one time, right? Well the same applies to the Financial Markets and all the Derivatives, aka "trading vehicles", available to us traders.

I consider today, easy money.
I consider day-trading stocks harder earned money.
Your Pick, Your Time,
Just Stay In The Green,
CalTrader

New Day To Day Published E-Mini Portfolio Coming..

2006-12-18T22:46:00.000-04:00

I've got a new investment portfolio idea in my head. All this week I've been taking the necessary steps to complete my idea and have ready by next week to publish for all my viewers/readers. It will be strictly a E-mini Futures portfolio focusing on the Russell 2000. The account will start with a specified sum of money and there will be a goal to double it based on the guidelines given coming in the next week.

Stay tuned because this is going to be interesting.
For those who have commented positively on my blog, thank you. For those of you who have not, your taste of my reality is coming soon enough, and you shall see the light.

Until Then,
-Caltrader

When It All Goes Horribly Wrong - Day Trader

2006-12-17T04:18:00.001-04:00

Glenn getting stressed at www.dehtrader.com.
Come on we all lose a little money!

1 Hour of Work, Biggest Day Yet..

2006-12-13T11:39:00.000-04:00

Today is my 2nd day trading futures.
My focus today was on the RUSSELL 2000 E-mini Futures (ER).
I traded for 1 hour....
Net P/L: $8,272.50

The Chart on the left is the Russell 2000, and the chart on the right is the S&P 500 (ES).

Remember, for every point you earn on the Russell 2000 E-mini, that's $100. So If I'm trading 10 contracts like in this case, that would be a profit of $1,000.

Now also keep in mind, that the R2k E-mini, has a nice intra-day fluctuation, there are waves that travel through it, and it goes up and down, ideally you would like to profit from these waves, and sell out. It's peak was at 792.88 and it's bottom was held by the 787.84 level. That's a net fluctuation of 5 points. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange just enacted a new rule allowing a person/institution to trade a maximum of 10,000 contracts. If you scalped 1 point on 10,000 contracts, that's a profit of $1,000,000.

How I traded it:
The market was moved up nicely by lower oil, better than expected Retail Sales (up 1%), and I was on the long side of it.
The Crude Inventories came out, and the market turned, and I was on the short side of that trade as well.

In this case there was no technical trading involved, only news trading, this is not rare, but cannot be sustained everyday as there is market stagnation some days.

And you thought the NYMEX scalp was noteworthy?
Hah!

I used exactly $50,000 to make $8,272.50. That's a hefty 16.54% return on your money.
But don't take my word for it, listen to why everyone else loves to scalp the E-Mini Futures:

-It's generally liquid enough. Market orders are instant..
-The spreads are never going to be huge like they can get on stocks.
-One can day trade without needing $25,000+ as a min. requirement
-Most people dont like having to list out every single trade on their taxes. With futures you don't have to.
-Focusing on one instrument day in and day out is less complicated and more productive, than scanning 50 stocks
-I can sleep in! As I dont have to wake up at 6am and scan for stocks to trade
-Share size allocation is easier. I trade from 3-8 contracts depending on the setup
-Some people said they held a stock that plunged 20 pts due to random company event. While economy reports move the futures. You can hop on the train at any point after good/bad news for a scalp.
-You will pay less taxes..
-You can bet directionally with the news..
-There are always shorts avilable!
-Comissions are reasonable (I pay around $4.10/round trip)
-No uptick rule, meaning you can short on a downtick instantly...whereas stocks you have to wait for an uptick (someone's buy order) to short the market

Check out my inspiration. Austin Passamonte from Coiled Markets E-Mini Trading. He consistently makes $15,000 a day trading the futures markets. He is up 500% this year alone. Way to Go!
His free series of day trading futures videos can be found HERE

More to come and thanks for reading.
-CalTrader

Hedging your positions..

2006-12-12T20:36:00.000-04:00

When the market turned today, unfortunately my Call stock options did turn down in price as the volatility kicked up and the strike prices became further away. Some are still in the green, longer term options stayed the same and the other 50% of the Call options lost value. I was ready for the downturn in the options value and decided to hedge my positions by Shorting the NASDAQ 100 Futures.

What I didn't realize at the time was that I would be making even more money than I had planned, by planning ahead. A good rule of thumb is to Plan your Work, and Work your Plan. I thought I would just go ahead and try and protect the gains I had already made, and hedge my positions. Instead of betting against the Stock Options I had in place which would require MUCH more effort, research, and let's not forget commissions cost, I decided to short the Nasdaq 100 Futures Contracts (ERT). Here's how you calculate what you can make day-trading the Nasdaq 100 Futures contracts, $0.10 scalp is worth $10 for E-Mini Nasdaq.

My Call Options were down about a total of (-$5,000) today, the Best Buy Calls killed me.

I ended up making out nicely on the hedging position with the Nasdaq Futures trade in which I scalped 9.45 points. Worth a total of $3,213.00

Trading E-minis

2006-12-12T20:24:00.001-04:00

Jason from www.hindsighttrading.com, turned $5k into $8.3k by trading 10 contracts of the Mini Russell.

Stock Traders

2006-12-12T02:06:00.001-04:00

Breaking News: Short Sellers Sniped!

2006-12-11T21:26:00.000-04:00

As posted from this morning, I had my Call Stock Options already in place from last week. Call Options are an agreement that gives an investor the right (but not the obligation) to buy a stock at a specified price (strike price) within a specific time period (expiration date). It may help you to remember that a call option gives you the right to "call in" (buy) an asset. You profit on a call option when the underlying asset, or stock, increases in price. All my Calls behaved very nicely today, in order to help snipe some short sellers, running up a total Net Profit of: $2,570.00

Thank You, Simply Options Trader, from Simply Options Trading for mentioning that Best Buy is reporting earnings tommorow.

On a side note, as far as being long on these Call Options, I saw a very very interesting chart today. It is one of my regular stocks to watch on my watchlist and it behaved in a very abnormal way today. As we all know the market was lead higher this morning by Merger and Aquistion News (M & A), but for some reason this stock traded in the entire opposite way, and commenced what I call a "blood bath sell off".

NutriSystem Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:NTRI)

After testing yesterday's low, and printing a Bearish Engulfing Candle, a chart pattern that consists of a small white candlestick with short shadows or tails followed by a large black candlestick that eclipses or "engulfs" the small white one, I decided to short this stock with good risk management, and a tight stop in place.

Bearish Engulfing Candle:

Locked & Loaded

2006-12-11T02:25:00.000-04:00

This week we're going to have "21 new IPO's coming to the market next week that will raise $3.2 billion" as per Day Shark's link to Minyanville.com who was recently a part of Wall Strip's interview.

You can check out the interview Here if you'd like to see Todd Harrison's interview sitting down with Lindsey Campbell of WallStrip.com to discuss Minyanville and the markets.

As for those who are wanting to buy a new High Speed Desktop computer......WAIT!! I'm getting antsy about the prices of the Blazing Fast Intel Core 2 Duo CPU Chip coming down, and I'm ready to purchase a Desktop, but after doing some homework and finding out the NEW Intel QUAD CORE Chip is already out and ready to be shipped I'm waiting till around or after christmas, because a recent article from Marketwatch indicated that, "Microsoft has set aside $1 billion for coupons designed to convince holiday-season computer buyers to choose machines from Dell and H-P as they await Microsoft's new Vista operating system, which is due in January."

I've got my call options locked and loaded coming into the week. I'm going to try and see if I can damage as many short sellers accounts as possible.

Call Options List:
Oracle Corporation (Public, NASDAQ:ORCL)
NVIDIA Corporation (Public, NASDAQ:NVDA)
Google Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:GOOG)
Apple Computer, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:AAPL)
Best Buy Co., Inc. (Public, NYSE:BBY)
Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Public, NASDAQ:AKAM)

After a big week, I plan on relaxing and going to check out the new Movie "Blood Diamond" released by Time Warner starring Leonardo DiCaprio & Djimon Hounsou. You can read a great review from Market Watch.com here

Ninjas of the Screen

2006-12-10T01:13:00.000-04:00

Let's face it. Almost everyone who reads this blog is a trader or investor in the market. Obviously, we aren't floor traders for private firms, and don't have a seat on the NYSE, which may I remind you cost $6 million dollars per seat. Make that, then anything over that is just your profit. Yikes!

I want to point out a great analogy, informative insight, and also a great site that you should mark on your regulars to visit for market information.

Trader Feed's Dr. Brett Steenbarger. Yes, this man has written his own book, and is the author of The Psychology of Trading.

I would like for you to read how us screen traders have a great disadvantage to trading from home or the office compared to the floor traders. There is a way, however, to try and help gain a better edge through one of this methods.

Click HERE to find out more.

Have a Nice Weekend,
CalTrader

What a Head Fake Day!

2006-12-08T23:13:00.000-04:00

Don't get screwed by going short, this market is strong, and I'm glad to be a part of clear reversal patterns. For some reason I'm always drawn to trading the same stock, Apple Computer. Yay! Here's my only trade for the day.

1.) The first chart is on a 15 minute time frame, the hammer reversal is not as clear as it was on the 10 minute time frame in which I was watching for the trade.

2.)The Hammer is a bullish reversal pattern that forms after a decline. In addition to a potential trend reversal, hammers can mark bottoms or support levels. After a decline, hammers signal a bullish revival. The low of the long lower shadow implies that sellers drove prices lower during the session. However, the strong finish indicates that buyers regained their footing to end the session on a strong note.

3.) The second chart clearly indicates the specificity of the hammer reversal. Take a glance..

*UPDATE*
I've had a lot of commentary by fellow traders and viewers of this blog. I'm going to expand on the issue of me calling the candle a wrong name. What we have is mearly a Long-legged Doji candlestick that has two very long shadows. Long-legged Doji's are often signs of market tops. If the open and the close are in the center of the session's trading range, the signal is referred to as a Rickshaw Man. . The Japanese believe these signals to mean that the trend has "lost it's sense of direction."

*On a side note, as stated by Jamie, over at Wall St. Warrior, there was support back from the GAP on November 21st, 2006. I was aware of this support, and was looking for the reversal after it had some selling pressure. That candle signaled to me that I should be looking to get long after it did not break support. I chose this candle to get long and named it wrong. You guys rock, thanks for your Insight! -Cal

*The Fourth candle stick prints the Hammer Reversal, and you even had the chance to get long on the 5th Bar for the trade. Risk was $0.15 cents, and the trade netted 1.85 points. (12R)

Sorry for being so short with this post. I'll be looking for more great ideas this weekend, and I'll post some great blog articles I've come across.

Stay Tuned!
-CalTrader

Investment Ideas - Long Term & Swing

2006-12-08T02:26:00.000-04:00

A great swing trade Idea! The last few days ORCL has felt very bearish given the move down and the increase in volume, but when you look at the big picuture, the trend is still clearly up. Right now ORCL is sitting on the top of a $1 dollar gap which is from 16.50 to 17.50. This area should provide some support or short covering from the fall it's had. ORCL also has it's 200 day moving average which is rising rather nicely. So in my opinion the trend is still up and we need to wait for some kind of buy signal in this gap area if we are going to be a buyer. What would be a buy signal? I'd like to see a bullish reversal day closing on it's high with volume... Maybe some bad news comes out but ORCL closes on it's high...etc.. Right now I'd be on the sidelines waiting patiently to buy...but there is no buy signal as of yet.

Chart:

Also check out Level 3 Communications. I know not everyone is a Jim Cramer fan, but I bought some LVLT a while back based on his recommendation, and made $1,000 on the trade, so I'm not complaining. I bought ORCL before earnings as well and make another $1 grand on that trade as well. As for Cramer's confidence in the stock he recently had the CEO on his show to tout the company's future, which Cramer thinks is going to be a double in a year or so. Hey, I'm not saying the guy is perfect, but he's seen his share of company's fly and drown, and I'm willing to bet this company will do the trick. It's earning should be in the actual green within the next year or so. Keep it on your radar.

Level 3's (LVLT) stock has not done very well since it reported results in late October. In fact it has really been hanging down in price while the market has been rising. Market goes up, LVLT goes down, like clockwork. But some things to consider are:

Gross margins improving nicely
Customer reception of new product portfolio very solid
Indications that business will further improve
$2.2 billion a year in core revenue, growing 26% organically
Operating margins are improving

Level 3 is seeing substantial demand for its 10 gigabit products, the high-end product for telecom. Whether Level 3 gets acquired or not, fundamentals should drive this stock higher. It's building the high speed infrastructure such as fiber optics and even signed the deal with GOOGLE, to be it's backbone in the bandwidth department.

Check out 24/7 Wall Street's Article on Level 3 Here

Apple Computer Puts Up 183%

2006-12-07T17:50:00.000-04:00

Hedge Fun!

I've been hedging my long term positions, one of which is Apple Computer (AAPL). The idea of buying Put options is to buy the strike price at a higher price in which the stock is currently trading so when the stock goes down, you profit from the fall. You must remember that you still are Long shares of the stock, because one would be long term bullish, short term bearish, and the idea is to protect your initial investment from short term losses. Your Put Options contracts lock in your specified sell price for however many shares you would like to have covered, based on the amount of contracts you bought. Let's review my trade, and chart.

I bought the DEC 2006 Put on APPLE COMPUTER INC at $90.00 for $1.20 a contract.

Apple's Chart:

I think this is just a short term breakdown, Apple has been ridiculously overbought by every mutual fund, and hedge fund manager in the universe to "window dress" their portfolio's for the year end preview of their % figures they've gained. The Stochastic Indicator clearly show's the stock has been Overbought for over a month now, without breaching the 80 level which would signal selling and weakness. I hope this gives insight as to how I trade. I like using techinical terms, and never understood a single one of them until I started reading other blogs and sat down to due my own research and find my style of trading. I'm still on a personal adventure to further my knowledge in the options world, and so far, it's paid off quite nicely. Icing on the cake.

Thank you for reading, and please feel free to post your thoughts in the comments section!

-CalTrader

Good Afternoon

2006-12-06T15:00:00.000-04:00

Well it's 2:00pm ET and I'm up $704 for the day. I've decided to quit trading. I've just been doing some thinking, and I've come to the conclusion that when you say making $700 dollars in a few hours isn't enough, then you may be showing signs of greed. So, I did some more thinking and the rule of thumb I ALWAYS like to use is that if you make $250 a day, every working day (no weekends), for a calender year, that's $65,000 (pre-tax). Now I'm not sure how much money anyone else is comparing, but by any standard, that's a nice chunk of change, some people don't make that in 3 years.

I had some very profitable scalps today, to include SanDisk (SNDK), Best Buy (BBY), and then my biggest intra-day mover Xyratex (XRTX).

Here's the chart:

*Evening Update*

After over-looking the Exxon Mobil (XOM) chart and identifying the run up it's had, and reviewing oil's current status, I decided to buy some of the JAN '07 XOM $75 Puts, for $1.25 a piece.

Maybe I'll have a nice Christmas. Breitling watch.

Go Long!

2006-12-05T01:54:00.000-04:00

Well I covered my shorts for further continuing of this bull market has resumed. I found some nice setups today, for some decent profits. I have a feeling with the Bulls taking the lead we're just gonna splurge higher, and breakout from the already monumental highs. I think the bottom buyers have overtaken any type of bearish investor to the core and rattled their bones. I'm sure there were lots of bear traps out there as we had a brief pullback, and continuation higher in most sectors. I'm going to highlight the strength of the market, show you how the volatility is pulling back into it's complacency territory.

Interesting Chart:
Pfizer (PFE)

Today's Trades:

Apple Computer (AAPL)

Best Buy Corp. (BBY)

Volatility Index ($VIX)

As you can see it's heading lower, which means the market is getting more complacent with it's "bullish intent". The sell-off caused a spike in the VIX and shook things up a bit, but it was a false alarm sell off, and the VIX has now gone to rest again.

HOT Shorts!

2006-12-02T19:59:00.000-04:00

I put in these short positions on Monday November 27th, 2006. It was the First Day, the indicies sold off hard, and showed signs of weakness. There was never a full recovery, and these stocks never rallied up to the stop orders which were set marginally higher than their buyin points. Here is their progress so far:

Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS)
Short Entry Price: $58.26
Shares: 450

SunPower Corporation (SPWR)
Short Entry Price: $39.09
Shares: 1000

Breakdowns

2006-11-29T13:42:00.000-04:00

I'm going to focus on one of the most easily identifiable patterns found daily throughout the stock universe. The Opening Range Breakdown. Another term I'm going to address is the Secondary Trendline. After confirming a breakdown, you also want to check if there is the break of the secondary trendline as annotated. Generally, when the Secondary, or steeper, trendline is violated, the odds greatly increase that the stock or index will continue to fall to the primary (flatter) trendline.I use my Scottrade Elite Platform to run Trade-Ideas Stock Scanner, and one of them is the opening range breakdown, with other minor requirements such as avg. daily volume 500k shares, price above $10, etc.

Today's Trades:

Advanced Auto Parts (AAP..not ipod)

Apple Computer (AAPL)

Another View of the Apple Trade:

Good Morning

2006-11-29T10:28:00.000-04:00

News UpDate
09:00am ET Dow , Nasdaq , S&P : [BRIEFING.COM] S&P futures vs fair value: +4.4. Nasdaq futures vs fair value: +7.0. The stage remains set for the cash market to open on an upbeat note as investors continue to rally around evidence that the economy is not slowing as much as expected. Throw in an analyst upgrade on Dow component Verizon Communications (VZ) and Bear Stearns raising their price target on tech bellwether Apple Computer (AAPL) to $100 from $94 and it appears buyers will pick up where they left off a day earlier recouping more of Monday's sell-off. Nasdaq at... NYSE Adv/Dec 0/0... Nasdaq Adv/Dec 0/0.

Stickin' to my Guns, or Shorts..

2006-11-29T03:59:00.000-04:00

Look, I'm not a bear here, nor am I implying that the whole market is still going to sell off, I am sticking to my shorts that I've put in based on technical indicators. They both struck me as nice short positions with a fairly decent risk to reward ratio. The market was weak early in the day but did manage to eek out into the green. I can't believe how strong Apple Computer is holding. The stock seems to be ironclad and barely got it's feet wet when the NASDAQ sold off over 50+ points on Monday, November 27, 2006.

I'll be keeping an eye out on market sentiment, because the direction going into December is anyone's guess. Will the foreshadowed "Santa Clause" rally come out of the sleigh?

High five to Will over at DummySpots for posting a great article on how tech stocks, also the QQQQ, are tied to the high fliers such as Cisco (CSCO) and how it tends to be a market leader. Nice work, I enjoyed the article.

NYC

2006-11-28T18:23:00.001-04:00

Run like hell
Originally uploaded by Thorbion.

city lights

Big Apple

2006-11-28T18:16:00.001-04:00

Big Apple
Originally uploaded by singstar85.

big apple

The Down Jones!

2006-11-27T13:55:00.000-04:00

Just as I expected, I made a call to myself that we would sell off this week, but I was prepared this time and had the short ideas ready for action! Now there are lots of types of sells offs. We do have a weaker dollar, and of course the weak Wal-Mart Store sales have been highlighted, but as President Bush's words would say, "This market is strong, and we intend to keep it strong" (appears redundantly on CNBC). I believe this to just be some profit taking, we've had our run up, the bulls conquered, the bears covered, now I expect the Put/Call Ratio to liven up quite a bit, and also the VIX should get shaken up from it's complacency. People will be thinking we're headed lower, but with over $9 BILLION DOLLARS$ spent on Black Friday, I am staying alert for reversals. I'm looking for retailers, tech, and some oil to play on, as they should all tread higher after a nice pullback, and maybe a brief consolidation period. Here were my short ideas coming into the day!

SunPower Corporation (SPWR)
Here, I'm going to highlight a technical candlestick pattern which I've head great success with, called Bearish Harami Patterns, and SunPower fit the criteria Perfectly!! The key to a higher risk/reward ratio is to short the stock on or near key levels of resistance.

Description of Bearish Harami Patterns:
1.) The market, or stock's chart, is characterized by an uptrend.
2.) A 2 candlestick pattern in which a long white candle on the first day, is proceeded by a black candle whose real body is completely engulfed by the real body of the first day's white candle.

What it Means:
1.) A sign of disparity about the market (or stock's) health.
2.) A small black candle shows some uncertainty.
3.) A change of the trend.

I will remain short both of these stocks until I see it necessary to cover from a reversal in the current market sell-off.

Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS)

Also check out a great blogger and market analyst's Steve Puri's Market Opinion.

Anticipation

2006-11-26T04:22:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers,
I just wanted to point out that there is possibly a new Financial/Investment/Stock Trading series in the works. If you haven't heard yet, the producers of the popular "Entourage" HBO show are looking to create a show that deals more with young Wall Street investors making $40-$60 million dollars a year. Great Idea! as this would be the ideal time to release a show with the market at it's all time highs. There is currently a show called, "Wall Street Warriors" but is only available on HDTV's Mojo, channel (paid subscription). However, if you'd like, you can check out, (4TV) for a free glimpse of the weekly show, under HDTV Channel 1, Sunday's at 10pm. This new show will re-enact some real-life trading situations with a comical twist. I am very excited to see such a show, as a trader I'm always thrilled to get into the life of another highly successful trader, so see how they work, operate, and daily routines. Aren't you?

Well here ya go!

2006-11-23T00:40:00.000-04:00

You know what this is about.

No Day-Trading for me Today, I took the day off.

It's cool though, because my long term investments were up $800 today, so I still had a smile on my face at the end of the day. Especially after that ECarFly (ECFL) run, up 310% today, sheesh.

Trade Idea Executed!

2006-11-21T15:29:00.000-04:00

Reliance Steel (RS), gapped up this morning in PRE-MARKET, on strong volume. I was watching pre-market, and entered a limit order of $36.01. I saw the stock having strong volume, 200% increase compared to the typical volume, which is a good sign. My target of $38 was hit 4 bars later, AFTER THE OPEN, on a 15 min timeframe.

I ran a stock scan on Stock Charts this morning around 2:30am as I could not sleep and I found this under CCI Buy Signals. Check my previous blog entry for the full trade-idea analysis.

The trade netted 1.99 points.
Shares: 500
Gross Profit: $995.00

Another Trade Idea! (Longer Term View)
If you had to pick 3 companies to invest in over the next 10 years and not touch the investment throughout the duration, which would they be?

Here's mine: Google (GOOG), Apple Computer (AAPL), and Starbucks (SBUX)
The growth potential for these companies are outstanding, and I don't see these stocks as being trendy, as demand will/should only increase.

Let's take a look at one of the aforementioned stocks...

Starbucks (SBUX)

Trade Ideas!

2006-11-21T03:51:00.000-04:00

Let's take a look at Reliance Steel (RS). It's been a nice uptrend, support from strength in the metals sector, PD Acquisition initiating strong attraction to these stocks, near-term resistance just overhead. If RS can break through this price point of $35.99 on strong/better than avg. volume, then it's definitely a buy, as the momentum will be carrying it higher. Possible near-term target $38.

Here is BankFinancial Corporation (BFIN). It's RSI is declining, printing lower low's, broke it's 50DMA, lower high's on the MACD. If it breaks through $17.49 on decent volume, throw in a short, as the momentum will be in a downward spiral, possible near-term target $17.20. If the $17.50 level holds, do not short this stock.

Disclaimer: I am not a CFA, and take no responsibility with what you do on account of this information.

Boring Day, Small Scratch

2006-11-20T21:35:00.000-04:00

Wow, my first losing day in weeks! It's okay I'm not worried as I implemented strong money management today, and risk control. Stop Limit Orders are great when you've draw your trendlines, taken an overall glimpse of the market, and made the decision to pull the trigger. I personally like stop loss orders, as many oppose them, but they can be fairly reliable in a sideways market, and should not be used on Momentum plays, where a stock fluctuates $1.00-$2.00 every hour, it will blow right through your order.

Anyway, I took a scratch of a $200 Loss today.

Hope you did well out there. Remember the name of the game is "Capital Preservation" not "Day-trade your Life Savings Away."

Calculate your risk, and pull the trigger.
Out,
CalTrader

NYMEX's Gift To Me

2006-11-17T20:39:00.000-04:00

Scalp Tale of The Year!

Today was the IPO (Initial Public Offering) of the NYMEX (NMX).
I anxiously awaited the first trade to made by Chairman Richard Schaeffer, and I was already astonished by the 120% jump in the $59 offering price to $120 per share, I still knew there was room to fly up, as this may have been one of the most anticipated IPO's of the year, and it just so happened to be when the market is at it's all time HIGH!

It's around 9:45ish and the first trade was made....the stock is flying through the roof....I go to my order entry screen and punch in a 400 share lot, Market order.

Boom, I'm filled within seconds, share price $122.48!

Two minutes later the stock is near $138.25, I'm up over 10 points!!!! My nerves are jumping, my eyes looking all over the screen to make sure this is real, I've never experienced anything like this in the world!

Do I sell now, or get greedy? This question boggled my mind for seconds, with the stock still flying up a point per second, I look again, and the stock is at $149.88 per share, I quickly enter in a MARKET SELL ORDER, and I was filled fairly quickly.

Are you ready for this??

Stock: New York Mercantile Exchange (NMX)
Entry Price: $122.48
Exit Price: $149.93
Share Size: 400
Gross Profit: $10,980.00 !!!

This day is my day that will go down in history not only with me but in the world. Nymex surpassed the top two U.S.-based IPO's for the past six years, with it's one day percentage gain of over 125%.

I did enter another order for this stock and unfortunately it lost $5,430.45. This was to be expected as the stock peaked around $150 and some change, and decended from there on out. If anyone was Brave enough to short sell near the top, they would've made a hefty profit as well, but I highly doubt anyone had the balls to do so.

I'll take it:
Trades Made Today: 2
Net Profit: $5,549.55

Out,
CalTrader

Today's Action..

2006-11-16T22:10:00.000-04:00

Today was a fight. A big fight actually. I fought the hard battle for every dollar earned.

I started the day off terribly, getting killed by a trade in Rambus Inc. (RMBS). The trade lost $1,350 in less than 5 minutes. Whew, yea you bet your buckle I was pissed. Most people don't make that much in a day, and I lost it.

Well off to the more positive news, of being a dedicated, knowledgable, and disiplined trader. I dug myself out of this hole, and quite well may I add.

Gross Profit: $2,845.87
Net Profit: $1,558.87
Trades: 20

Not too shabby considering I was in awe of my horrible decision to trade such a volatile stock that in my terms should be labeled, "No Mans Land".

So here's a good short I threw in today on SanDisk Corporation (SNDK). I saw a nice long candle on the opening bar, hitting yesterdays high to the cent and decending all the way to the bottom of it's range, almost breaking the opening range low. When I saw the break of the opening range low, I went short ($47.10). This stock was incredibly weak thereafter and made a nice free-fall for some good profit.

Another nice short today was Encore Wire Corporation (WIRE). It took out it's opening range low (opening range breakdown), busted through it's lower Bollinger Band, cleanly broke it's ~~trendline~~, while tearing through it's 50% Fib retracement level, so I got short. *Notice* I covered my position at the 50% Fib Extension. Net points 0.47 (lotta technical indicators huh?) Click each for info!

Here is a cleaner chart for the more simplistic view of the trade, and how it ended throughout the rest of the day.

Clear Channel Communications, Inc. (CCU) was a GAP play that slowly tapered off it's high, I wanted a piece of that pullback, so I got short, again.

Total Profits

2006-11-16T03:52:00.000-04:00

Today was relatively flat for me. Took some shorts, and some longs.

Gross Profit: $435.00

Not any in depth post, but more will come tommorow..

-Cal

Worked my ass off Today!

2006-11-14T17:04:00.000-04:00

Okay, not enough sleep and traded all day.

Gross Profit: $981.00

I'll be posting charts, ideas, and my daily review later tonight
Over & Out,
CalTrader

Freshly Scanned Trade Ideas!

2006-11-13T17:52:00.000-04:00

Today I surfed some good trades in oil. I usually watch oil prices on CNBC flip back and forth, but that became annoying.
My remedy: Chicago Mercantile Exchange Real Time Crude Oil Quote.

Today's trades included: Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU), Transocean Inc. (RIG), Joy Global Inc. (JOYG), and Level 3 Communications, Inc. (LVLT).

Nothing spectacular, just quick scalps really.
Trades: 12
Shares: 50,000
Gross Profit: $698.30

Today was probably the easiest money I've made, I mean I studied my setups, drew trendlines, watched the MACD for signals on a 30 minute chart, for an 8-day period. The signals are clear as day! I'll show one example. I spent around 2 or so hours at the computer. I went to my college courses, came back, put in my orders, and stops, took a shower, ate lunch, watched the daily market news and as you can see it performed nicely for me.

Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU)

Now after the MACD (Moving Average Convergence Divergence) signaled my buy, I scalped for $0.20 cents, 2 times, on 1000, and 1,400 share lots. As you can see from the chart the MACD never crossed back over signaling a sell point. I however did not want to participate in the volatile fluctuations of the Crude Oil Market today, so I played it safe.

Now for some good Ideas on Swing Plays that could possibly profit nicely.

Best Buy Co., Inc. (BBY) (Possibly a Near-Term Buy)

Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company (WWY) (Possible short canidate)

Disclaimer: I am not a CFA, or stock broker and take no responsibility in the choices you make from the recommendations from this website. Use information accordingly under preferable market conditions to avoid substantial losses.

Update!

2006-11-10T17:36:00.000-04:00

Okay so we did get quite the pullback after yesterday's afternoon session, and boy did I miss my mark on some damn good trades ON THE WEAKNESS!

I did have an early morning scalp on one of my favorite energy stocks: Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU). Oil was getting a nice pop in price and of course all the oils were treading higher. The trade netted $0.30 cents and the share size was 1,000 shares.

I was spooked out of the trade after the economic data was released that trade balance was lower than consensus and their was an immediate drop in the DOW. You can see the slight drop after the sell of the trade (where the red line is).

Gross Profit: $300

On to business: Amazon.com (AMZN)
After reporting earnings CSCO popped up nicely hinting for a higher open of the NASDAQ on yesterday's opening, which ultimately leads to higher tech stock prices. AMAZON, however, was exceptionally weak, and I was trying to cash in. I missed my mark.

1. Sold Short: $39.51
2. Initial Stop: $39.59
3. Stopped Out: $39.59
Risk: $0.09 cents
Share Size: 2300

Gross Loss: $207

*If closed at the end of the day the trade would have netted:
P/L: $1,748.00!
Gain: $0.76 cents
12:1 risk/reward (12R for you homegamers!)

Let's not even talk about the Akamai (AKAM) trade that I missed.
4 Points!
HighChartPatterns, also pointed out in his nightly newsletter, he was 1 hair short of pulling the trigger as well. Those guys are some of the most uniformed traders there are. Great stock analysis, overall awareness of market conditions with multiple guys monitoring sectors at any given point during the day. Check them out!
Yours Truly,
CalTrader

Whew! White Hot!

2006-11-09T14:25:00.000-04:00

Last time I checked Apple Computer Inc. (APPL) was trading around $84.50! Sheesh! Since it's low of $50.16 it tagged on July 17th, 2006, it's come along way! Keep your eyes out on this stock, now that it's popped up over it's near-term overhead resistance, it may pull back a bit but the momentum behind this stock is full steam ahead for that 52 week high of $86.40.

Betting or Trading?

2006-11-07T16:20:00.000-04:00

Your Trading Style Poll!

I recently came across an interesting conversation on EliteTrader.
The thread was Traders Make Money.

The interesting topic was if you're 95% sure of a trade in your favor, why not bet 95% of your portfolio's value?

Many combatting topic's arose such as: young traders can afford risk, experienced traders called it suicide, immoral traders said insider trading is good, define "killing in the market", name of the game is "capital conservation", going "All-In" works every single time but once, etc.

One trader noted that large gains can be made without using leverage:

"Catch a 2.00 move in soybeans with 2 contracts and thats $20k. Learn to take 30 ticks/week on zb. $8k/month on 2 contracts. etc. etc.. add these up and you'll be able to increase your size without overleveraging before you know it."

He stated that you don't have to risk 95% all the time, you just need great trading skills, analytical expertise, and specialize in an area of the market in which you've found an edge, and with that you can make a small forture without the desperate bets.
Good Thinking!

Today's P/L = $731.70
AKAM & BTU are some of my regular intra-day scalps as they fluctuate anywhere from 3-5% per day from low to high.

No Trades Today

2006-11-07T01:12:00.000-04:00

No trades, waiting to see what elections do, and how the market will show it's colors.

Stay tuned, I'm ready for trading action!

Out,
Caltrader!

Day Trade Day # 2

2006-11-02T21:22:00.000-04:00

Ever feel like you trade sloppy? Patience, diligence, and researching good setups will get you to where you need to be.

Another huge day in the market! I scrambled all morning on losing trades that reversed on me because the market was so choppy. The indexes were playing tag with being in the green and the red, and finished negative in the red. I did manage to beat yesterday's net total, for my largest net gain in 1 day. I'm really starting to enjoy these wonderful positive days. My best money maker was Level 3 (LVLT).

Net P/L Total: $3,250

Sold Short
Covered

Bought
Sold

Done for the Day

2006-11-01T22:40:00.000-04:00

Today was an uneventful day in the market for me, and I traded very well. I don't know what came over me, trades just came to me and I traded with confidence. Took some decent short setups in the oil sector today as they were all very weak. Also did some heavy scalping which became very profitable.

Total Net P/L : $2,484.65 (commissions included)

Some points of interest are the stock (LVLT) is traded very thickly with the avg trade size being near 50,000 shares. I got in and out all day long on 12,500 share lots scalping pennies. I usually am not a scalper but it was working, and hey if something is working and is profitable, why stop? I mean the commissions add up a little, but nothing too major for 1 day out of the week.

More trades coming,
-Caltrader

Best Buy Trade

2006-10-26T01:37:00.000-04:00

Today we salute Best Buy (BBY). It's been trucking along ever since $47 per share, nailed earnings on September 12th, 2006. It's made a high of $58.50 on October 16th, 2006, and has pulled back nicely to a support area of $54 a share today. It glided down today in a very calm and smooth manner surpassing the $54 area, and breifly touching $53.68, and quickly began an uptrend to $54, and closed at $54.53.

My entry was at the $54 mark, and looking to hold until we go higher. I'll be looking for some Fib extensions for my exit.

Let's take a look:

GOOG Call Options

2006-10-24T03:03:00.000-04:00

On 10/9/2006, I purchased the GOOG $450 Calls for $13.50. As of yesterday's closing price they're now up to $36.90, a gain of 176.33% in 10 trading days.

I may hold these options as they're expiration is 11/18/2006, so I still have a bit of time left. If tommorow's price action is good, and the stock drifts higher, I may go ahead and take some profits. I believe in taking partial profits off the table, and leaving the rest to run. I've read many opinions on this topic as many tend to disagree and don't see a point. Also there are many advocates, such as Jim Cramer who encourage taking partial profits.

Check out 1Option as he has many insights to trading options and even an article on taking profits as well.

I really wonder how high this market can go, I mean we do have an imporant FOMC meeting this week, so we could potentially go higher or bust from bad news of inflation. Yea yea, we're all saying here on our blogs, 50/50 chance, that's the magic number, either go long or short.

Check out one guy who is really short in the market, and quite frankly I feel sorry for him considering he's been short in the past oh let's say 1000+ points or so in the DOW? Tim Knight.

That's all for now,
Caltrader

Other Great Stock Trading Blogs

2006-10-23T00:21:00.000-04:00

check out:
This guy made 198% in 3 trading days through a real money options trading championship, check him out, it's a real interview. He's currently being flown to Chicago for winning the contest.

Lots of good Links and Investing Info here

Personal Fav on Market Updates and Opinions

You're one stop for Wall Street Gossip.

Thank to my buddy over at Wall St. Warrior, he's informed me of a new TV Series about Wall Street workers, and all that the job entails to include: greed, money, trading, rich sports (polo), oh and did I mention greed & money? cha ching! New Tv Series INHD.

That's it for now. More Great and informative blogs and sites coming!
-Trader Cal

Apple Away!

2006-10-19T00:48:00.000-04:00

Well after mentioning Apple earlier this week, and purchasing a position before earnings, it's paid off quite well in the near term, and the broader prospect of the future looks very promising as well. Apple reported earnings on $4.84 billion in income with profit rising 27% to $546 million. Gross margins were up 1.1% from mostly Macbook laptops, and the total units sold were up as well.

% Change Since Mention Earlier This Week:
Apple Computer - 6.5%
Level 3 Comm. - 17.6%

More Trades Coming..

Upcoming Week's Outlook

2006-10-15T21:52:00.000-04:00

Let's keep on our feet this week as the DOW is still testing that 12,000 point. The Nasdaq and S & P, seemingly played catchup with the DOW on Friday as they both remained positive and the DOW was just trying to figure out how it wanted to digest the GE earnings. This week will be big as we have earnings coming out from some major companies for leadership. They are: Motorola, Office Depot, Yahoo, IBM, United Technologies, AMD, Ebay, Samsung, Broadcom, Bank of America, Citigroup, Peabody Energy, Google, SanDisk, Caterpillar, & 3M.
For more companies who are reporting earnings this week, visit (CNBC Earnings Calender).

Small but profitable Trade

2006-10-14T03:59:00.000-04:00

No day trades in the early morning as I just watch the news and follow the NASD, and the S & P play catch up with the DOW. I was just going through some charts and I was keeping my eye on (LVLT). Around 11:25am this stock printed a NRB (Narrow Range Bar) after bottoming on it's support level of $5.00, and quickly bounced right up to $5.32 shortly thereafter. If you were actively watching this stock, as it is very liquid and trades on average around 30 million shares each day, you would have had 3 seperate but equal chances to buy the stock at an entry price of $5.00 per share, and ending the day on an exit near $5.25 - $5.32. Let's take a look at the entry, which tagged $5.00, three times on a 15 minute chart.

Trades & Thoughts

2006-10-12T17:03:00.000-04:00

When I first started trading I thought, "Man, I'll make thousands each day, and be able to buy anything I want." Well, the first month of trading I found that not to be true, and I've realized every trade is a fight. People ask me all the time, "Well where does all that money go when you lose it? And that proposes a good question, but the answer is in someone else's pocket, because for every buyer there is a seller, so when you're in the red, Billy Bob is sitting in the green. You must learn to protect capital in order to advance to a higher level of trading, only then will you remain consistently profitable, given that you're trading nice setups poised to breakout in the first place. BTW, what is a Breakout?

Yesterday I found a nice little company called Ingen Technologies, it develops and markets cutting-edge medical technologies designed to increase accuracy of medical care and prevent unnecessary medical costs.

They released a new medical device OxyView(tm) which helps your respiratory system maintain good oxygen levels in asthma patients.

This stock is treading HIGH RSI levels (90), high volume, and crossing above (200) MDA, and is up 350% in the past 3 days.
Thanks to good research and quick execution I was able to capture:
Entry: $0.096
Current: $0.17
Gain: 77%

Update: Apple (AAPL) is up 3%, after bottoming on yesterday's purchase price of $72.99-$73.10 a share. Nice bottom pick.

Update: I will be holding my Level 3 Comm. (LVLT) shares until earnings. Entry price was at $4.88

Long Term Buy, Apple Computer (AAPL)

2006-10-12T01:40:00.000-04:00

Today Apple was downtrending with the Nasdaq, I saw a support level around $72.59, from August 22nd, 2006. Today's low just happened to touch $72.60 for a split second before bouncing off the level of support. Now one thing I have to keep in mind is that we've crossed below the 50 day moving average, so technically we're testing it right now. I picked up 100 shares at $72.99. I believe this will be a great quarter after Christmas and the holiday season as well as upsides for new products being released. Apple is one of the most innovative companies around and is looking to surpass most others through technology as well as branding.

Apple Computer's Chart

Today's Trade, Advanced Mirco Devices (AMD)

2006-10-10T14:25:00.000-04:00

Today, AMD gapped up higher in the pre-market session. Yesterday's close was $23.00 and this morning it gapped up slightly to $23.47. I was watching the 10 minute charts on my real-time scottrade screen and saw a low risk entry.

Entry: $23.32
Stop: $23.17
Initial Risk: $0.15 cents per share

Now 5 minutes after buying AMD ran all the way up to $23.73, I failed to move my stop accordingly to the jump in price, and therefore losing quite a bit of possible profits.
Exit: $23.34

Lesson Learned: After setting initial stop, and the Stock Price continues to move higher, move your stop according. If price jumps $0.70 per share, move stop up 33%, or just divide the run up in price since your entry, divide by 3, and tack that amount onto your inital stop.

Check out : Trailing Stop Rules

My First Double Bagger (100% Gain)

2006-10-09T15:14:00.000-04:00

I have a huge philosophy on doing your own in depth Research. As I found out being a young investor you must learn the ropes and teach yourself all that you can. Looking at ratio's, rev's, and earnings all equivilate to picking good stocks (usually). More in depth anaylsis would be looking into the news for positive, negative content? Word of mouth in the news is very powerful, for instance GOOG and it's You-Tube talks. It's currently driving the stock higher on good sentiment.

Back to my point.
DOUBLING YOUR MONEY.
Now you could say this was a speculative play, or you could also view the aspect of a low float, good news sentiment, new unique product coming out, steadily increasing volume over 6 month period and a CNBC Press Release coming on September 15th, 2006, 3:00pm EST.
The stock is Conforce International (CFRI)

I'm not the type to hype, but if the stock is ripe...

Entry: $0.34
Current: $0.7
105% Gain in 1 week! (real trading)

(Virtual Trading Acct) 142% Gain

Trade of the Week # 2 (rarely happens)

2006-10-09T04:19:00.000-04:00

Acorda Therapeutics Inc.'s volume rose after the biotech drug developer announced a private placement of around 3.2 million newly issued shares of common stock at $9.75 per share, expected to close on Friday. Volume increased to 13 million shares, versus average volume of 1.6 million shares, with the stock climbing $1.32, or 10 percent, to $14.89.

*Purchase price, 1280 shares at $15.27. Sold the whole position near the high of the day for $15.95.*

Net Profit : $873.60
Trading Time : 2 Hours
% Gain : 4.47%

Trade of the Week

2006-10-09T04:17:00.000-04:00

Wow what a trade. Very impressive one day return on your money with low risk. I purchased yesterday afternoon at $10.66 per share. Huge bounce off yesterday's closing price.

How did the 2nd Richest man in the World start out?

2006-10-09T03:10:00.000-04:00

He bought a pin ball machine at age 12 for $25 and put it in a barber shop. Within 3 months he saved up enough to buy 3 more pin ball machines. This man is Warren Buffet.

As young college students we should all be constantly searching, thinking, and imagining what we would like to do to make money. In my opinion there is a market for anything, you just need to get there first. Beanie Babies, baseball cards, even putting old things on ebay are good examples of different types of markets. I for example found out that some people were in the market for 3 Letter Screen Names on AOL Instant Messenger. So what did I do? I obtained as many as I could and sold them for Profit. Sounds Crazy? But it worked..$125 per screen name, not bad eh?

I have many more insights, thoughts, and investing blogs on the way...

I appreciate any comments..

"We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy, and to be greedy only when others are fearful."
-Warren Buffet (2nd Richest Person in the World)

Are you tired of working for an employer, or making minimal amounts of money?

2006-10-09T01:44:00.000-04:00

I am here to help my friends. I am tired of standing on the sidelines, listening to friends complain about how little money they make, how they're struggling to pay bills and college tuition.

I am starting this blog to help students, friends and others learn how to make money in the stock market, and secure their future. Long term investing, 401k's, day trading, you name it. I'm going to cover it.

If I can make $1,000 in one day, so can you.
Over and Out,
Caleb Williams

*How To Make $1,000's in Cash on Your Stocks without Selling Them*

How to Get Started with Investing

2006-10-09T00:33:00.000-04:00

1.) First I would recommend you just start reading about how the market operates and what drives everything in the stock market.
A recommended book would be: Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom by Van K. Tharp

2.) Next, I would recommend testing some strategies that you've learned from the reading material before you put any real money into the market. It's always beneficial to learn through experience, and when it's virtual money, you only have knowledge to gain
I recommend Virtual Stock Exchange:

A simulated stock market game to test strategies.

That's all for now, but I've got more to come with blogs of successful traders and how they make $$ thousands of dollars each day due to studying the market and using clear indicators of what could happen, always using protective stops of course.

*Remember*
“There is no such thing as Luck, only Success, and it is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

Today

2006-10-07T22:44:00.000-04:00

Today I drove home, tried to avoid cops, succeeded and finally arrived 2 hours and 20 minutes later. It started raining but nothing really that bad. Good to see family on Fall Break. Monday, September 9th, 2006 is Columbus day, and the markets will be closed. I'll be trading from home on Tuesday the 10th. This is where I first started to trade. My trading started out very poorly, and lacked methodolgy and rules. I guess you could have called it rogue trading.