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TUES. OCT. 12- 4th Quarter Earnings Season Is Here In the many years I’ve been trading, I’ve never seen perceptions of situations change as much as I have in the last year earnings-wise. A year ago, the markets were happy if a company missed earnings as long as it didn’t miss by a lot...

MON. OCT. 11- The Market's Open on Columbus Day? As the legend goes, approximately 518 years ago tomorrow, Christopher Columbus discovered The New World. Mind you, the politically correct (much less factually correct) would note that humans of course were in America before October 12, 1492...

FRI. OCT. 8 - Correlating Assets I want to go into something I touched upon a couple of days as I’ve been asked a lot about it. It’s a very very very important concept. For any of us kids who collected baseball cards growing up, we all knew about the Honus Wagner baseball card. Honus...

THURS. OCT. 7- Worry Hits Momentum I remember the day I officially grew up. It was a horrible day. I’d been studying for the SAT and playing some Nintendo (not necessarily in that order). The day was pierced with the news that my beloved grandmother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer...

WED. OCT. 6- Yesterday's Massive Rally So what happened yesterday? There were two main triggers. The major factor was The less-important factor was a faster-than-estimated growth indicator in the Institute for Supply Management’s measure of service industries. This better than expected...

TUES. OCT. 5- Terrorizing The Markets I grew up in Savannah, GA, but often visited the greater New York area over the years because my father grew up in the borough of Queens (about a 10 minute walk from the St. John's University campus). I made frequent trips into Manhattan with my family...

MON. OCT. 4- The Other Markets The stock market has had a very good month or so. But equity traders are hopefully paying attention to all of the other markets out there as the breadth of the movement has been nothing short of stunning. Pick a market. Any market. Let’s start with...

FRI. OCT. 1- Time To See The Volume? I’ve discussed the concept of volume quite a bit in the last few weeks in this space. I actually have something quite important to discuss in coming days, but for today, I want to focus on the continuing (largely fruitless) wait for volume to “come...

THURS. SEP. 30- Fed Speak Over the last few weeks, I along with many other much more prominent (and well-versed) individuals have discussed the divisiveness prevalent at the Federal Reserve. Well, on an otherwise slow day of trading yesterday, the day was punctuated by one interesting...

WED. SEP. 29- A Flash Crash Test Case On Monday, the stock of progress Energy (PGN) was halted for five minutes upon declining 90% in one second. It instigated a circuit breaker designed to allow for single stocks to pause in the event of sudden movements typically caused by ‘fat...

TUES. SEP. 28- Every Stock Is Different You know how they say that no two snowflakes are alike? Well no two people are alike either (even amongst the identical twins that I know!). My wife for instance absolutely loves skydiving while I have an abject fear of heights if I am not in a...

MON. SEP. 27- Getting Educated About EDU If I had a dollar for every time I heard the words “I wish I’d have held that much longer” not only from others but from my own loud mouth, I’m guessing I’d have a net worth of $100 million or so. Well, let’s discuss a rather fascinating...

FRI. SEP. 24- Profiting From A Block Sale There was a rather interesting trade which developed early Thursday morning last week before the NYSE open and continued to build on itself just after the NYSE commenced trading. Overnight, Cardinal Health (CAH) announced it was selling its entire 30...

THURS. SEP. 23- Voicing Thoughts One of the very unique features at the place where I am fortunate enough to be a trader and a managing partner (Epiphany Trading, LLC) is that we actively seek to foster a feeling of community. When we first formed our firm, we all agreed we’d have a chat...

WED. SEP. 22- Scale Of Price For those who remember, one of the main lighter topics of conversation following the exile of the Marcos family from the Philippines was the excess of handbags and shoes that Imelda Marcos possessed. I am not sure if there is a precise estimate anywhere, but most...

TUES. SEP. 21- Overdone? No Such Thing. I lived in Chicago for a number of years. Although I was never a Chicago Bulls fan, I always respected the fact that they were ridiculously good at the height of their best years in the late 1990’s. One year, they won something like 72 regular season...

MON. SEP. 20- Doing What The Market Says To Do A rather long time ago, a friend of mine (not me, I promise) who is otherwise uber-intelligent did something pretty stupid. He went to the barbershop for a haircut as his hair was slightly long. When the barber asked him if everything was as he...

FRI. SEP. 17- Atoning- Redux I am not going to be in the office tomorrow. However, the blog post I wrote last year (one of the hardest and most introspective which for me made it one of the best in my eyes…and something I will update in due time) is particularly apt. So, forgive me for the...

THURS. SEP. 16- Saving The Yen? For seemingly day after day in this space, I have made reference to the dollar declining to a multi-year low against the yen. Well that certainly changed dramatically yesterday. The Japanese government made a huge (solo) attempt to halt the advance of the yen...

WED. SEP. 15- Moving In Bunches The S&P 500 has been up 9 of the last 10 trading days. Before that, it was down 7 of the previous 9 trading days. Before that, it was up five days in a row. In months much less years past, prices would obviously have strong mini-trends within a trading range...