Yesterday’s results: Buying 5698 stopped out. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5630.00 stop 5626.25 (filtered out during FOMC release between 14:00 and 15:00). No short suggestion. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) drops from +33 to +8 with sentiment mixed. Waiting on FOMC. 

Catalysts: Building Permits & Housing Starts @ 8:30. Crude Oil Inventories @ 10:30. FOMC Rate Decision @ 14:00, press conference @ 14:30. 

Quick Tip: Don’t Retire

You’ve probably heard or read the best ways to have a long and fulfilling retirement: Exercise regularly, sleep more, eat healthy, drink moderately, stop smoking, and minimize stress. 

Here’s one thing you might not have heard about: Connect with people who have the same purpose. It turns out that loneliness is a killer. 

Living in Florida I’m frequently asked when out socially if I’m retired. I’m not and never will be, in the classic sense. Why? To keep my mind sharp. Learning and reading are great, but nothing beats interaction with peop...

Yesterday’s results: No price levels available due to contract rollover. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5698.00 stop 5693.25. No short levels above. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from zero to +33 with most major world markets Bullish on rising volatility. 

Catalysts: Retail Sales @ 8:30. Industrial Production @ 9:15. Business Inventories, Housing Market Index & Fed’s Logan @ 10:00.

Quick Tip: Complacent?  

We all trade to win and make a profit. The ups and downs happen along the way. The time to get laser-focused is when you’re feeling like you don’t need to. 

The recent rally in the S&P has the stock indexes at or near all-time highs. Our team’s swing trading portfolio had some incredible gains last week. One trade earned over 700% in two days. It’s natural when everything is effortlessly going your way to relax and enjoy the ride. 

But complacency is a dangerous condition. It precedes fear. You’ve likely heard Buffett’s famous quote “We try to be greedy wh...

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: This strategy remains on hold but is improving during the Globex session, not the day session. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) remains at +7 again with sentiment mixed on falling volatility. 

Catalysts: Crude Oil Inventories @ 10:30. FOMC Minutes @14:00. Waiting on Powell’s Friday speech. 

Quick Tip: Outside the Box

Trading with price charts and technical indicators is hugely popular. Being a visual learner, I find them useful too. Patterns and colored indicators “speak” to me quickly. With practice, you don’t need a calculator or much thought to analyze opportunities. 

Eighteen months ago, I learned a different approach. It made me realize I was confining my trade plan and limiting myself to being just another retail trader using an all-too-common approach. 

As usual, I started a deep dive into researching this new approach. For me that included finding significant evidence the approach had an edge. And before I added it to my trade plan I ...

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: This strategy remains on hold but is improving during the Globex session, not the day session. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) remains at +7 with sentiment mixed on falling volatility. 

Catalysts: Fed’s Bostic @ 13:35 and Barr @ 14:45. 

Quick Tip: Best Fit

There are virtually countless ways to trade. Different styles, strategies, time horizons, tools to use, etc. 

How do you know which you should trade? 

Most traders go at this decision backwards. They hunt around for a strategy or mentor that has proof the edge is there and they imagine relatively easy success copying it. 

While there is nothing wrong experimenting with different approaches, successful traders find that they do better fitting the strategy to their personality, not trying to change their personality to fit the strategy. 

One obvious example is time horizon. You might find a solid winning strategy for day trading but once you do it you find it’s not fun. You don’t like the ...

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: This strategy remains on hold but is rapidly improving. Stay tuned. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) rises from +21 to +36 with most major world markets Bullish. 

Catalysts: Building Permits/Housing Starts @ 8:30. UofM Consumer Sentiment @ 10:00. Fed’s Goolsbee @ 13:25. 

Quick Tip: Sell or Hold? 

Money messes with our heads. Until you get a grip on the emotions associated with winning and losing, you’re unlikely to succeed. 

Here’s a viewpoint I learned from one of the all-time great traders, Larry Williams: “More money is lost due to overstaying positions (greed) than exiting due to the fear of losing money.” 

Your fear is likely solved by using stops that lose an amount of money you can accept. Easy enough.

If Larry is correct, and I do believe he is, then greed is solved by pre-planned profit targets and open trade management. Planning targets is easy, open trade management requires skill and discipline. 

Here’s an example: The chart abo...

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Nothing tradeable today.  

Tuesday’s results: This strategy is on hold... but is improving and likely out of the drawdown soon.

The World Index: (+100/-100) dumps from -14 to -64 with all major world markets Bearish on rising volatility. 

Catalysts: MFG & Services Flash PMI @ 9:45. New Home Sales @ 10:00. Crude Inventories @ 10:30. Bearish hangover from GOOG/TSLA earnings. 

Quick Tip: Expensive Options

Traders going long want (need) to buy low and sell high. What may be more important, if available, is a clue that something non-publicly known is about to happen forcing the stock to rise quickly. This might be an earnings release, new product, acquisition, etc. The idea is that smart money knows something the public doesn’t and trades that information. 

Following smart money buys in the options market has edge. You want this. The obvious question is how do you find them? 

Larry McMillan, in his excellent book Options as a Strategic Investm...

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Nothing tradeable today.  

Monday’s results: This strategy is on hold... but is improving and likely out of the drawdown soon.

The World Index: (+100/-100) reverses from +36 to -14 with many major world markets motionless. 

Catalysts: Existing Home Sales & Richmond MFG Index @ 10:00. TSLA & AMZN earnings after the close. 

Quick Tip: Strategy Death

This Volume Profile strategy has been in a drawdown for some time. It’s getting painful to document the setups/results every day, but it must be done. Otherwise, how would we know if the strategy is worth trading again? 

What I’ve noticed in the daily review is that the levels are not the main problem. It appears the entry and exit rules are. Fortunately, we have thousands of trades documented, each with 47 data points, and this offers us a significant research opportunity to solve the problem. Stay tuned. 

Why am I sharing this with you? 

Two reasons: 

1) Documenting and reviewing your tradin...

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Nothing tradeable today.  

Friday’s results: This strategy is on hold... but is improving and likely out of the drawdown soon.

The World Index: (+100/-100) reverses from -36 to +36 with most major world markets Bullish. 

Catalysts: Nothing on the economic front. Election views differ but the market is melting up nicely. Earnings season continues. 

Quick Tip: Open Your Mind

Imagine you’re attending a trading conference. You’re one of hundreds of traders watching the presentations, talking to vendors at their booths, looking for some new edge to add to your plan. 

If you asked everyone you met, “What tools do you use to trade?” Here’s what you’d hear: Price action, chart patterns, fundamentals, supply/demand, moving averages, volume, RSI, MACD, CCI, ATR, Stochastics, Bollinger bands, etc. 

The fact is, other than fundamentals, they are all looking at the same core variables; price, time, and volume, simply displayed differently. 

You’d lik...