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Abbott and Costello. Laverne and Shirley. Batman and Robin. If you cannot tell, the theme for today’s piece is pairs. Pairs trading was very much in vogue during the late 1980’s in particular. The concept of ‘pairs trading’ was started by a quantitative analyst from Morgan Stanley named...

Yesterday for the first Wednesday morning in quite some time, there was something I did not do: halt everything and stare at my computer terminal at 10:30AM for the weekly oil inventories report. From the positive perspective, it is shows how little oil is correlated with the market these days...

Without a doubt- certainly in the immediate-term- this is an entirely different trading market that we are involved with. Look no further than the last two days as evidence of that. On Monday, the financial stocks were absolutely drubbed in their sector percentage decline in several weeks...

So what was the main culprit behind yesterday’s major declines for Wall Street? Something that was discussed in this space late last week- stress test worries/rumors. For those who did not read the piece, the Treasury is supposed to announce the results of the stress tests for the country’s...

On Friday, as I do every 3rd Friday of the month, I frequently noted the phrase “options expiration today…careful” to anyone who asked me about scalp trades. Without going into an esoteric and ultimately boring explanation as to how options work, the 3rd Friday of the month are when all...

One of my favorite phrases to use when applicable – particularly apt on afternoons such as yesterday when the market is in a slow yet very steady ascent- is as such: “It’s a great day to be an investor, but a terrible day to be a trader.” I derived this from going to various social...

Yesterday, the U.S. Treasury indicated it is seeking a way to reveal the details of the tests it is currently conducting to determine the shape of the biggest banks in the United States. Usually, the innards of such bank exams are not released to the public. In previous discourses of the current...

On Monday, President Obama opened a tiny space in the nearly half-century-old U.S. embargo against the communist regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba. Ostensibly, American telecommunications entities will be allowed to commence providing their services for Cubans. Also, restrictions on family ties to...

A feature of day trading that many day traders get caught up in is the ‘rebates.’ For a number of years, the various electronic communication networks such as Archipelago and EDGX have given out rebates for traders who add liquidity with traders paying fees for taking liquidity. Thus, if IBM...

Sorry this is so late- we had a cable outage at our office this morning negating my 6:30AM arrival. But here it is: This is another “wha’ happened” piece. Most people who weren’t around on Thursday don’t have any idea why the markets continued to rally whereas most people who were...

Last week, $340 million of TARP funds were given back to the government from four very small banks. Clearly, this is not a lot of money when we’re talking of a program with $700 billion and a larger crisis in the scope of the trillions of dollars. However, when the CEO’s of such entities as...

The construction of the Golden Gate Bridge commenced in San Francisco Bay. The original film version of “King Kong,” premiered at new York City’s legendary Radio City Music Hall. Prohibition is repealed. All of these events occurred the last time the equity markets performed as well as...

Agreed and understood. What I am saying is that more times than not, when I've done stuff like that over the course of my career, I've gotten burned. Not always, but more often than not. That is why I look for specific quick trades only. With this in mind, this is exactly what this...

For day trading purposes, the only 'easy' trade I saw was the A-B-A2 thru the high and above unch per my daily instructions. Rallied 30 cents in a minute. it may well be a good short, but to me anyway, it is a complete guess and I don't like to guess. I am not smart enough to know where it...

The thing I heard the most around the ol’ trading house yesterday was “is it going to be this slow all week?” The answer is a definitive “no.” Assuming there is no extraneous event, it is going to get slower this week. Good Friday week in particular is always a tricky calendar time in...

Got it. In any case, hope it keeps going for you here.

It may well work...I just trade for the immediate-term, i.e. I am the ultimate risk-averse day trader. But I see what you're going for here.

The issue here, however, is to decide if you are trading it or investing in it (well, holding the short longer-term)...just because you (or I for that matter) see no reason for the rally, it does not mean that it cannot go to 5 or north.

Good re not following anything blindly. Very wise. All I am doing is presenting an idea list with the way the news/technicals indicate...above that, I note how i plan on trading it,but I am in and out fast whether right or wrong. Not exactly sure why you are short ZLC, but again, my time...

As I've stated repeatedly on this messageboard, my average time horizon for a trade is right around two minutes. So, please do not take anything on my suggested watch/idea list as a 'hold.' Good luck.