Options have become an increasingly larger focus among stock market traders of late. Recently a question came in from a reader asking “How true is it that this can be used as a leading indicator of underlying stock price movement? Where can this information be found?”. My colleague Joe Kunkle focuses a lot on options trading, so I asked him to provide his thoughts. Along with the use of technical, fundamental, event driven, and other types of analysis, one of the best indicators of future stock price movements is...

One of my list members answered the call to contribute some thoughts on trading and trader development to share with others through a guest post. He’s asked to remane annoymous. I think it provides a fantastic perspective on what it really takes to become a successful trader – hard work and experience. It took me many years and thousands of hours of market watching to develop my proprietary trading methodology. The baggage from my old “learnings” was so heavy that I was unable to trade successfully until...

The markets are a lot like a manic depressive in that there are moments of incredible euphoria and then, almost in the blink of an eye, incredible feelings of despair and hopelessness. These emotional extremes are also contagious to those who are participating in the markets and as individuals suffer these extremes they eventually reach a point where they are paralyzed into inaction just as the markets begin to turn in their favor or detriment. When the markets are healthy and the future for the economy looks bright the market...