coolhand's Account Talk

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airlift said:
Coolhand,
I am currently 100S. Are you planning to move out of the stock funds end-of-month to take advantage of the two IFTs of February? Based on your viewpoint, do you see the jobs numbers coming out on Feb 6 or Feb 8, as the catalyst for a new leg down, or are you considering other more important issues or data? Tia, have a good day, and Good Luck!
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From a sentiment perspective, and this is a matter of opinion, things have been neutral, which is why SPX is trading in a wedge. When I took my stock position a couple weeks ago, I anticipated selling into a rally that I'd hope would occur before the end of the month. We are seeing some reslilence on pricing action at the moment, but no definitive move up or down has been made by the market in the last few trading days. It is unknow how the market will react to jobs numbers by themselves, whether they are seen as good, bad or indifferent, but the market already knows what the employment picture looks like without them. I think a decent piece of good news could move this market higher right now even with more bad news being released. GDP could be a market mover too. Or earnings by a given company.

It's important to understand that the market does not just react to good or bad news in and of itself, but also relative to how traders are have positioned themselves prior to news being released. That's why the market frustrates those who use fundamentals as their basic trading mechanism. Sometimes fundamentals cause the market to look rational, other times irrational.

I am wary of another big move down, but I also don't want to get caught looking the wrong way if we make a signficant move back up first. I'll be watching the markets intently this week to see if I need to hold fast or bail, but until the market offers a better clue I'm not sure which move I'll make.
 
Sell strength! That's what I'll be doing today. 900 SPX is not unreasonable on this rally. It may take 2 days to get there, but we aren't nimble enough to take advantage if we hit that level tomorrow and dive by the close. I'll be taking a sizeable portion of my stock position off the table today as I anticipate today's rally will stick to some extent.

Lot's of bulls right now to push us higher, but bearish levels have not tapered off either. That means once this rally sputters we'll probably see more volatility, but probably not till we retrace the gains to a large extent.

That's my view. FWIW :cool:
 
coolhand said:
Excellent article here. This is a big obstacle for many traders.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/28872487
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Good article Coolhand,

I'm far from perfect, so I don't have to worry about that. :laugh: I do look for a trend and am not in any hurry to jump back in. I have my yearly goals and I'm way ahead of them, so I can afford to wait until a good trend shows itself, plus I sleep well at night. :D

CB
 
75/10/15 GCS. This should put me up about 2% for the month, but I'm leaving 25% in until Friday in case we have more room in the short term to move higher.

I've got more flexibility in my brokerage account and I'm holding on till I see a turn back down with volume. Long FAS and TNA.
 
Not working out the way I was planning lately. I was thinking that the big players knew the GDP would be a disaster today and they had established their short positions on Wednesday's huge gap knowing:

1. the past gaps over 2% have always been filled and
2. rear view mirror investors will be selling right before and the day of the GDP release.

I was thinking we'd get a gap down or flat open today, the 3x Bear funds would drive it down some until the boys stepped in, covered, and put a run on the shorts. It looked like they were starting to base until that ridiculous headline came out. It's incredible how much influence the headlines have had on the stock market lately.

At least 825 held on a late volume surge. Reverse H&S is still in play, but they're not going to make it too easy or obvious. I'm still long TNA.
 
Hey Tom,

I wanted to join but I don't know how. I finished up January with 2.67% return. :)

I don't know if I can be added, what are the requirements?
 
No problem Cool, just checking.

Felix, I sent you a private message regarding the autotracker.
 
Uptrend said:
Openness and honesty IMO if you want to be believed, you need to be tracked. Otherwise you are just a spouting horn.
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Really - How do I know for sure that folks are actually moving money and not just trying to win a hat. I think you are blowing your spouting horn in the wrong account talk. I think coolhand is cool and honest..... ha... Spouting Horn Indeed! ha.....

Robo
 
Uptrend said:
Openness and honesty IMO if you want to be believed, you need to be tracked. Otherwise you are just a spouting horn.
Click to expand...

I have two primary reasons for being here. 1) Share my experience and knowledge. 2) Help others learn as well as myself.

I post on other boards as well. This is the only one that I've participated in that has a feature that allows folks to track their returns. That's fine and dandy if that's what one is interested in. I find that it introduces an element of competition. The market is tough enough to deal with without that.

I've learned enough to know who I should listen to and who I shouldn't. Past returns are never indicative of future expectations. :cool:
 
KevinD said:
Thats the hardest part for a n00b like me... :suspicious:
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This is a real challenge for any one trying to get handle on the markets. For me it meant reading numerous books, trying different services (I've used Ebbchart, Revshark, Thrifttrading, Strategic Forecasting, and Wall Street Sentiment Daily among others), and listening/watching the action on various message boards. I've developed my insight from all of these elements.

I've learned that there is no "one" way to trade in the markets. Some folks rely exclusively on charting. Others use sentiment. Some use fundamentals. Many, like myself, use a combination of some or all. Getting a good handle on each of the above helps, but is not a necessity.

But in the big scheme of things it's important to remember that perspective and context must be applied to any given method. To gain that one needs experience, and that takes time. Be patient on this road, keep an open mind, and proceed cautiously. As you gain knowledge, you'll gain confidence. Over time you will determine what methods you are comfortable with too.
 
coolhand said:
This is a real challenge for any one trying to get handle on the markets. For me it meant reading numerous books, trying different services (I've used Ebbchart, Revshark, Thrifttrading, Strategic Forecasting, and Wall Street Sentiment Daily among others), and listening/watching the action on various message boards. I've developed my insight from all of these elements.

I've learned that there is no "one" way to trade in the markets. Some folks rely exclusively on charting. Others use sentiment. Some use fundamentals. Many, like myself, use a combination of some or all. Getting a good handle on each of the above helps, but is not a necessity.

But in the big scheme of things it's important to remember that perspective and context must be applied to any given method. To gain that one needs experience, and that takes time. Be patient on this road, keep an open mind, and proceed cautiously. As you gain knowledge, you'll gain confidence. Over time you will determine what methods you are comfortable with too.
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Coolhand,

I enjoy your comments and many other of the more active posters here. You mentioned a lot of pay sites in your post here, and I'm with you. I don't want to just take someones word for it but want to understand why they are making the decision they are so I can learn. For someone who wishes to learn technical analysis, what pay service has easy to understand explanations?? Where would someone start? Any recommendations as far as paid sites go? Do you still use them are are you flying solo?

Many Thanks.
 
Diesel said:
Coolhand,

I enjoy your comments and many other of the more active posters here. You mentioned a lot of pay sites in your post here, and I'm with you. I don't want to just take someones word for it but want to understand why they are making the decision they are so I can learn. For someone who wishes to learn technical analysis, what pay service has easy to understand explanations?? Where would someone start? Any recommendations as far as paid sites go? Do you still use them are are you flying solo?

Many Thanks.
Click to expand...

I would recommend any of the pay sites I've already tried. Currently I'm using Wall Street Sentiment Daily and Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor). The Stratfor service is not a market trading tool by itself though. I like it because I get global intelligence that I find refreshing compared to mainstream media news.

The Wall Street Sentiment Daily is more for intermediate to advanced traders and is not targeted for TSP use so I would not use it as a beginning tool.

I have a brokerage account that I'm trading as well as my TSP account, so I needed something more tailored to my personal taste.

I work 9 hour days with every other Friday off and at times I travel quite a bit, so going solo is out of the question for me. I don't have the time to sort things out on my own day in and day out.

I really enjoyed my RevShark subscription and I learned a lot from him. Ebbchart is very good too. I have no doubt Trader Fred's service is a quality product too, but I have not tried that one. I think I may use his services to trade ETFs though. Tom has started a new site called ETF Talk that uses the same products as TSP, but it's targeted to trading ETFs.

http://www.etftalk.com/

As far as technical analysis goes, there are free products on the web that you could start with. I'll try to put together some URLs later that you could check out. For pay services I think stockcharts is one of the most popular and has features to help traders learn.

http://stockcharts.com/

Hope this helps. I'll get back to you on free TA stuff.
 
Stockcharts.com is a great place if you're into TA. I'd say go into the public chart section, start clicking on the public charts until you find someone you think you can relate to and then try to get a free trial. Don't do any of these so called gurus before doing a trial first.

Really, if you're looking for TA, there are more blogs out there than you could shake a stick at who draw up daily voodoo charts. Some of them are pretty good and if you find one you like, again, most will let you subscribe to their site via email or reader.

There are guys out there who are free that are better than most pay sites. I don't know how some of these guys justify their fees.
 
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