I remember one particular email I received a few months ago. Or maybe it was a comment on this blog. I can’t remember exactly where I read it. But the gist of the comment was that trading stock options is an individual activity.

I think the author of the comment even called himself a "lone wolf," and implied that the idea of "group trading" was ridiculous.

Certainly, many traders make a decent living by themselves. They lock themselves away in a corner of the house, watch charts all day, and pick their own trades. And over time they grow their portfolio.

This "isolation method" didn’t work so well for me. But fortunately I disocovered a different way. My big breakthrough came when I decided to join a trading group. I can think of one word that explains why joining a trading group made such an impact on my success…

Read the rest or post a comment »

A blog reader named Sam writes, "Seems like you just cut and paste info from other places. What is the deal with that. Do you know how to trade on your own?"

Sam posted this comment on one of my blog posts. I didn’t publish it immediately because I wanted to respond to Sam’s comment in-depth in this blog post.

First, let’s examine what Sam is actually saying. He makes two separate accusations:

1. He says I cut and paste information from other places.

2. He implies I can’t trade. 

Sam implies that I can’t trade after he states his belief that I essentially publish plagiarized articles on this blog, which is kind of confusing. I’m not really sure how writing skills and trading skills are related.

Anyway, let me answer the accusations directly…

Read the rest or post a comment »

Taxes are due for most people today here in the U.S.  April 15th has become one of those days that a lot of people have come to abhor.  I have especially noticed that in circles of traders.  More times than not, traders don’t seem to be a fan of April 15th.  But, does it have to be that way?

Does the IRS have to be a Foe?  Or, can the IRS be just as much a Trader’s friend?

I just wanted to give you a little heads up…

Read the rest or post a comment »

When I make a trade, I’m not looking to hold a position for a year, six months, or even three months. I want to enter and exit my trade within three to 40 days. I have found that I can often make anywhere from 5% to 150% per trade using my methods.

This is a much different strategy than most traders and investors use. They want to be in a position for at least six months and maybe a few years or longer. They are in it for "the long haul."

There’s nothing wrong with this strategy. In fact, I think it’s quite good for certain types of traders and investors. But, I have found, it simply doesn’t fit my personality. I would rather see consistent high-percentage gains on low-risk, short-term trades.

Here’s how I do it…

Read the rest or post a comment »

Trend trading is a perennially favorite topic among traders. And "The trend is your friend" is probably one of the most famous and repeated phrases within the trading community.

But platitudes like this can be deceiving. Is the trend always your friend? And is it profitable to trade trends? Well, the answer is a bit complex…

Read the rest or post a comment »

If you scroll down and look in the right-hand column of this page, you’ll see a bunch of little pictures tiled in a rectangle. This is a visual grid that displays the pictures of this blog’s most recent readers.

The grid is powered automatically by MyBlogLog.

The reason I bring this up is because I’d like you to consider getting a free MyBlogLog account if you haven’t gotten one yet. Here’s why…

Read the rest or post a comment »

One of the biggest mistakes I see over and over again is trading too frequently.

You’d think it would be something more technical than that. Maybe misreading charts or not following money management rules. But it’s not. It’s making too many trades, plain and simple.

Why is this?

Well, I have a theory about that…

Read the rest or post a comment »

Here’s what’s up -

In the past 2 weeks, over 50,000 traders have bombarded a special "insiders" trading website all about a new way to supercharge your portfolio.

You might even call it an "underground" website because everything it exposes challenges what 90% of all traders have held to be true for years.

So if you have ANY interest in discovering how to supercharge your portfolio (regardless of what you trade) in less than 20 minutes a night, you’re in for a TREAT today…

Read the rest or post a comment »

Nearly everyone (including the IBD) predicted earlier in the week that the market was confirming a bottom. But was the prediction correct?

Personally, I use the counting method to determine a market bottom. And it looks to me like we did NOT reach a market bottom.

Bulls will always attempt to reverse a down-trending (bearish) broad market. These attempts will almost always fail. You’ll hear these failed attempts called everything from technical bounces to false positives to a whole bunch of other names.

Here’s a price pattern to determine if indeed we’ve just experienced a market bottom, meaning the market has just gone through an honest to goodness trend reversal and a bear trend has indeed turned into a bull trend…

Read the rest or post a comment »

Do you like to test drive first?  Would you like to give a new ETF member website a test drive?  And, then would you comment below this blog post with your thoughts?

One of my trusted friends and mentors, Bill Poulos, is letting me give you complimentary access to his ETF Members Website Preview, but only until April 1st.

Read the rest or post a comment »