Brett Steenbarger asked me to help him with the new book he’s writing on the subject of trader self-coaching by answering the following question: What are the three things you’ve found most helpful that traders can do to coach themselves?” Here’s what I wrote up in response: The first thing a trader needs to do is step back and take a big picture view of things. This is extremely important for new traders as they need to figure out how trading is going to fit into their lives, but even folks who have...

Dave Mabe from Stock Tickr passed along a question he’d seen that he thought I could answer. Are there any ETFs that trade 99% equal to crudeoil, soybeans and gold future contracts? I’m not sure whether the inquirer is asking if there’s an ETF which includes all three of those commodities, or whether the question is if there are ETFs which track each of those commodities seperately. I’m going to answer based on the idea of three seperate ETFs because I can’t imagine there’s one which is includes...

I’ll admit it. One of the less enjoyable parts of my job is covering earnings conference calls that companies do after they’ve announced their quarterly results. Some of the guys on my team are really into the calls and listen to all of the ones they can get on. Being primarily a technician, they just aren’t my thing. You can imagine how much of a drag it can be to have to spend a hour plus listening to managers talk about their business and analysts asking them questions, especially when you don’t really...

Corey over at Afraid to Trade posted a piece in which he discusses the use of ATR percentage. I’ve already submitted a comment on that post complaining about how he’s stealing my ideas. Well, sort of stealing. He got the idea from someone else. I, however, wrote about what I called Normalized ATR (N-ATR) in an article for Trade2Win like three years ago and mentioned it in a post on this blog (Volatility Pointing at More Stock Market Upside) more than two years back. I also had an article in Stocks & Commodities...

Brett Steenbarger was recently included in a video taped by France 24. The focus of the video was on the subject of rogue traders, obviously inspired by the Jérôme Kerviel events. Part of the filming took place at a prop shop where Brett does some advisory work on the coaching side. (and yes, it’s in English) The video features Joseph Jett who has for more than a decade been fighting to clear his name in regards to accusations made against him while he worked for Kidder Peabody. Jett told his side of the story in his...

Got this question from a member of my mailing list the other day. John,   Where do I go to find good stocks to invest in?  Is there a particular source you’d recommend?   Albert Unfortunately, I’m about to make an example of Albert here. The very short, very simple (and definitely smart-alecy) answer to the question he asked is the NYSE, NASDAQ, London Stock Exchange, Tokyo Stock Exchange, etc. There are good stocks for investment all over the world. My guess is that’s not the question Albert is trying...

Do me a big favor. Don’t be this guy. “Banks’ borrowing at the rate climbed to a daily average of $13.9 billion in the week ended July 16 from $7.84 billion three months earlier.” So currently banks are borrowing about $417 billion per month from the Fed? Where did the Fed get trillions of dollars to makes these loans? If this rate of borrowing continues for the next 6 months will they will borrow 2.5 trillion? Against what assets? Is this the biggest money give-away of all time? (and completely illegal/unethical...

Well, the BBC interview last night was a mixed experience. While my time on air was fine, the producers droppeed the ball. It started off with them not calling me for the pre-interview before-hand by the time they said they would. That created a situation where they were trying to call me while I was in transit, which of course means I didn’t get the calls (three of them to different voicemail accounts) and ended up having to call them (in the U.K.) well after the agreed upon time to get that thing done. Then, despite...

Here’s a first. I’m going to be doing a phone interview on BBC 5 this evening to talk about Wachovia (WB), which released their second quarter figures today.  It’s scheduled for 8:20 pm Eastern and will be part of the Up All Night program.  You can listen live through the BBC website. This was something arranged through my employer. I’m going to be an expert commentator on WB. Of course I’m primarily a technician in my work, so I had to bone up on the specifics. If the call I did with a producer...

Since starting this blog I have written up a number of book reviews and I’m sure I’ll be writing more in the future as I read new ones. Here is the list as it currently stands (listed newest review to oldest). Buy – Don’t Hold by Leslie Masonson Technical Analysis in the FX Markets from The Technical Analyst A Trader’s First Book on Commodities by Carley Gardner Trading From Your Gut by Curtis Faith Making Sense of the Dollar by Marc Chandler Reading Minds and Markets by Jack Ablin Trend Following by...

I took part in this year’s CNBC portfolio challenge. Well, I sort of did. I’m not a huge fan of contests like that because they tend not to represent real trading very well. The things one needs to do to win them are just about the complete opposite of what good trading is all about. In this case I only really signed up because a couple of us in the office were talking about it. I don’t think any of us ended up taking it particularly seriously. For my part I found the restrictions a pain, the contest interface...