I recently had the opportunity to present at the Money Show in Las Vegas. Below is a brief clip of me rambling about whether or not good traders are born. If you found this clip helpful there are others on the site, just search for my name. My presentation at the conference was webcast and [...]

For those that have just started trading you should know that V shaped moves like we’ve seen the past two weeks are perfectly normal. In fact, this high level of volatility is exactly why those of us who’ve been in the business so long love the markets. Not really. In fact it’s becoming tiresome to [...]

It’s no secret that one of the most volatile economic reports out there is the BLS’ nonfarm payrolls report. Probably one of the most studied and gamed report but I don’t have the data to prove it. I thought I’d share how I use the report to manage risk. It’s good to know the history [...]

Take a look at the SPX chart below that shows a daily close .42% outside the +2 standard deviation for volatility. Going back 5 years there were five other occasions where SPX closed, on a daily basis, outside the +2 standard deviation. Those dates were 3/23/09, 10/13/08, 9/19/08, 4/1/08 and 3/21/07. Look them up. As [...]

Not much for the bulls to be thankful for this past week as the broader market turned in its worst performance for Thanksgiving week since 1932. No question that the market is oversold, the question is when it bounces where does it find resistance. The 10/7/11 gap fill is extremely low hanging fruit for next [...]