October 2004 Archives

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.

A group of Morgan Stanley analysts, led by the esteemed Mary Meeker, have released a report on the impact of 'next generation content' (PDF) . The report is focused on RSS, and more specifically how Morgan feels that Yahoo, since their implementation of RSS on 'My Yahoo', is headed towards becoming a sort of Associated Press for digital media. It contemplates potential business models for revenue sharing between Yahoo (or whoever the content aggregator is) and publishers (bloggers in many cases). The report is very well done and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you're a blogger.

One of the main points that the report discusses is monetizing the 'tail of content'. There was a great article about 'the long tail' in last month's Wired magazine that is also a must read. That article gives some great insights on the business models of Amazon, eBay, NetFlix, etc. There's a lot of money to be made in the 'tails'.

(Morgan Stanley link via MaoXian)

The Nasdaq bumped up against its downtrend line yesterday and fell back. It's really starting to look like it'll be do-or-die next week (post-election). I can't wait for that to be out of the way (please let there not be any recounts & whatnot) so I can get back to swing trading.

Currently holding:

In the comments of my last post Duru made the excellent observation that the Nasdaq stopped just shy of its almost year-long downtrend line. I was so focused on that little triangle that I didn't even notice it. The S&P and Dow are also still within their downtrend channels. So maybe my election theory will still play out. As always, time will well.

I've gotta take my car to the shop this morning (damn I miss my old super-reliable, never-had-a-problem Honda) so I won't be posting a watchlist today. Happy trading.

So much for my little theory about the Nasdaq staying in that triangle/coil I pointed out this morning. The market put in an impressive gain today on strong volume. The Naz even closed above the oh-so-important 200-day moving average. The S&P traversed its 50 and 200 DMAs today. It looks like somebody is trying to load up ahead of the big event next week. If it weren't for the election I might be tempted to take a stab at some longs right here. But I'll just continue to wait...

Here's a chart of the NASDAQ, which makes me feel pretty good about avoiding the market over the last couple of weeks:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nasdaq stayed in that triangle/coil right up to election day.

Currently holding:

Although I'm not doing any swing trades right now I have been keeping an eye out for stocks that I might want to trade after the election. So far the picking are very slim. The market seems to be going to sleep -- which isn't really surprising given the upcoming election. Hopefully there will be some decent set ups next week. Somebody wake me up when the election is over... :-)

Currently holding:

Cap'n Arbyte wrote an interesting article entitled 'The Productivity of Stock Trading' which does a great job of explaining what traders 'produce/create' and how they contribute to the economy. If any of you traders have been feeling like slackers you should read that article. :-) (Link via this week's Carnival of the Capitalists)

It was certainly a bad day for the bulls oh Friday, but the level of angst I saw and heard on Friday surprised me. For all the complaining people are doing, the market really hasn't moved very much over the calendar year and especially not over the last 12 months. I guess the talking heads just don't see the trend channels in which the indices are locked. I just don't see what all the excitement is about, but I guess that's just me. :-)

Edit: That caption on the S&P chart is supposed to say "This range shows that the trend is sideways at best and down at worst."

I remain very disinterested in the market right now. That's because of all of the earnings reports to be released next week as well as the election. For months now I've been having flashbacks to the last election debacle because of how close the polls have been. That messy process put the market in a serious funk. So I've had plans to avoid the market until the election was decided for a while. Now that there are reports of Republicans and Democrats lining up attorneys to contest the results I'm sure that I will be in cash until the results are official. (I'm talking about swing trading, day trades are fair game.)

As for the current market, the NASDAQ appears ready to test its 200-day moving average again. That will be an important level to watch. Let's see if it can close above it. The S&P and especially the Dow still have work to do to get back to their 200 DMAs.

How about that GOOG? I know the Google shorts are screaming bloody murder this morning, now that it's gotten price targets of $175 and $200.

Currently holding:

The other day I noticed the TheStreet.com has published some of Gary B. Smith's articles on the free section of their site. I may have to start visiting the site again on a regular basis. Here are several of the articles that I found interesting.

• Getting From There to Here, Reprise - Gary talks about how he became a trader and started using technical analysis. His story sounds a lot like mine. I just sort of fell into trading too.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been - A bit more on Gary's background
• The Chartman, Explained - Gary's philosophy on trading. Some great concepts in this one -- expectancy (one of my favorite topics) and some flaws of fundamental analysis. I had to smile at the beginning of this article. I've had so many people assume and most of my friends still refer to me as a daytrader. I've just given up trying to correct them and/or explain the difference between that and swing trading. Also just the other day I ran into an old acquaintance and she looked at me sideways and said that what I do for a living "just sounds shady". LMAO
• Using Fear and Greed to Your Advantage - Gary talks about how he goes "long greed and short fear."
• The Chartman's Key for Traders - More on expectancy and the concept of treating your equity like a store treats its inventory (you want to turn it over quickly, as opposed to getting rid of it!).
• More Questions, More Answers - Q&A about risk, drawdowns & back-testing.
• Gary's Greatest Hits on Trading - Revisiting a past column that struck to the core of his trading style. This column originally ran on RealMoney Jan. 27, 2001.
• The Beauty of the Simple Approach - K.I.S.S. This one is a must read! (I think this may have been ghost-written by MaoXian)
• The Chartman Explains Why - Gary explains why he trades. The reasons are, in order -- Work/life flexibility, The Challenge, The Money. I think I'd flip 'money' & 'challenge'.
• This Trader's Life -- The Chartman's Approach - A looks at Gary's typical day
• If You're Gonna Trade, Have a Backup - Gary drops some serious knowledge in this piece. Anybody who's thinking about trading for a living must read this one. What he says about having an alternate income stream and/or a huge pile of cash stashed away is so true. Dry spells are a mutha@&^*#, especially if you have bills to pay every month and no other source of income. Trust me, I know all too well.

Here are some other good articles by Gary from back in the day.