Friday’s results: Buying 5908.50 on the breakout was only good for a 4-point scalp. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5867.75 stop 5864.00. Short 5864.75 stop 5868.50 if price retraces up from below. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) plummets from +43 to -36 with most of the world mildly Bearish on lower volatility. 

Catalysts: FOMC Speakers; Logan @ 8:55, Kashkari @ 13:00. IMF Meeting starts. 

Quick Tip: Belief #1

Success at trading, at anything, is formulaic. No one stays successful at anything without a proven formula to follow. What’s yours? 

You may think it’s your trade plan. You may think you need the hottest strategies, the best broker, more risk capital, and better sources of information. All that surely helps but the foundation for your success starts within you. It’s your belief. 

Do you honestly believe you can become a top-notch trader? Or are you thinking of giving it a try? Trying isn’t enough to overcome the challenges of anything worthwhile. It’s a negat...

Yesterday’s results: No trade triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5701.50 stop 5695.75. Short 5740.75 if price trades below and retraces back with a stop at 5745.75.

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from -17 to +42 with most major world markets Bullish. China closed for a holiday week. 

Catalysts: Non-Farm Payrolls, Unemployment Rate @ 8:30. Fed’s Williams @ 9:00. Middle East crisis. 

Quick Tip: Skepticism

Being skeptical is good. It provides the questions you need answered to decide. In trading you should have a plan with rules of entry and exit. But not all plans perform in all market conditions. Being a little skeptical, asking yourself “Is this the market I should trade with this strategy right now?” is helpful. 

This happened to me yesterday, but my skepticism was late. I took a couple of trades, a loser and a breakeven, before I questioned the market condition compatibility. Following up on subsequent trades that I did not take proved that it definite...

Yesterday’s results: No trade triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5701.50 stop 5695.75. No short suggestion. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) rises from -40 to -17 with sentiment mixed leaning Bearish. China closed for a holiday week. 

Catalysts: Jobless Claims @ 8:30. S&P Services PMI Final @ 9:45. ISM Services PMI, Factory Orders, Fed’s Schmid @ 10:00. Fed’s Bostic @ 10:40. Middle East tension.

Quick Tip: Obscure Biases

Once you’re introduced to the psychological side of trading you find that we all have biases that affect the quality of our decision making. 

Some are well known like Outcome Bias (judging the trade to be good because it was a winner, not because you executed properly) and Recency Bias (the tendency to weigh recent events more than earlier events). 

I became fascinated with biases and wanted to search for obscure examples. ChatGPT helped. Here are a few that traders should be aware of to improve their performance. 

Bandwagon Effect: The tende...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5790.75 was only good for a 5-point scalp.  

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5701.50 stop 5695.75. No short suggestion. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) drops from +30 to -40 with sentiment mostly Bearish. China/HK closed for a holiday week. 

Catalysts: ADP Non-Farm Employment Change @ 8:15. Fed’s Hammack @ 9:00, Musalem @ 10:05, Bowman @ 11:00, Barkin @ 12:15. Crude Oil Inventories @ 10:30. Mideast conflict accelerates. 

Quick Tip: FOMO/DOMO

If you watched the Chinese stock market’s reaction to the huge stimulus program recently announced you’ll have experienced FOMO. The charts for the internet related stocks were parabolic for days with massive gaps up. 

Fear Of Missing Out, FOMO, is an emotional reaction traders have when seeing what they could have had. Price is gaining momentum and you’re on the sidelines. Impulsively, you break your entry rules and chase the trade. 

The problem with chasing is regardless of the outcome, win or lose, y...

Yesterday’s results: The short entry at 5808.00 triggered minutes before the close and failed. Day traders would pass on the trade, swing traders took the loss. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5790.75 stop 5785.00. No short suggestion. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from -14 to +30 with sentiment mostly Bullish. China/HK closed for a holiday week. 

Catalysts: S&P Final MFG PMI @ 9:45. ISM MFG PMI, Prices, Construction Spending & JOLTS @ 10:00. Fed’s Bostic @ 11:00, Cook @ 11:10.

Quick Tip: Biorhythms

I’m not sure if there is truth to the biorhythm theory that we are affected by three cycles: physical, emotional, and intellectual. But there is no question our performance at just about anything cycles. Winning, losing, flatlining. 

I watched the Detroit Lions quarterback, Jared Goff set a record yesterday completing ALL of his 18 passes in a rout over the Seattle Seahawks. Last week he performed “OK” at best. 

Trading is considered a performance activity like at...

Yesterday’s results: No trade triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5781.50 stop 5775.75. No short level today. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) soars from +7 to +86 with all major world markets very Bullish on China’s commitment to stimulus. 

Catalysts: GDP, Jobless Claims & Durable Goods, @ 8:30. Pending Home Sales @ 10:00. Fed’s Powell speaks (pre-recorded) @ 9:20. Yellen speaks @ 11:15. Multiple other Fed speakers all day. 

Quick Tip: Motivation

To succeed in trading (actually, anything in life) you must be motivated. There will always be setbacks, frustrations, losses, failures, and rejections. If you’re not motivated you won’t persist. You’ll quit and carry that psychological “loss” with you. Collect enough of those and you’ll be miserable. 

The answer is to get and stay motivated. But how? Find your unsatisfied need. You don’t require motivation for anything that you’re already satisfied with. You don’t even think about it. If you have enough money for acce...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5775.50 was only good for a 5-point bounce if filled. The short idea never triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5755.75 stop 5752.25. No short level today. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) dumps from +71 to +7 with sentiment mixed on lower volatility. 

Catalysts: New Home Sales @ 10:00. Crude Oil Inventories @ 10:30. Fed’s Kugler @ 16:00. 

Quick Tip: Synergy

In Stephen Covey’s bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the 6th habit is Synergize. The concept is that two (or more) things working together produce a result that is better than the sum. 

Think about this: If everyone agreed with you about the subject at hand, would there ever be any improvement to the subject (process, strategy, plan, etc.)? No change, no synergy.  

That is precisely why you should embrace disagreement… from a constructive viewpoint. Different opinions and outlooks, when approached properly can lead to synergistic results. 

No one knows it all. ...

Friday’s results: No trade triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5705.75 stop 5700.00. No short level today. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) remains at +7 with sentiment mixed and volatility low. 

Catalysts: S&P Flash MFG/Services PMI @ 9:45. Fed’s Bostic @ 8:00, Goolsbee @ 10:15, Kashkari @ 13:00. 

Quick Tip: Expectations 

“What are you struggling with?” was the question I asked a group of traders. One woman said she had expectation challenges. She felt she needed to acknowledge that every trade won't be a home run, or “10 to 1” as she phrased it. 

I respect her self-awareness. Expectations is not a commonly voiced trading challenge. But it is real. You can expect too much and foster disappointment. You can expect too little and minimize your profits. Neither view is healthy for your ultimate results. 

If you are documenting all the trades of your strategies (taken or not) then you will have hard evidence and know what to expect most of the time. The challenge ...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5422.25 just missed picking the bottom of a wild session, offering a 4.75-point scalp before stopping out. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5484.75 stop 5480.75. Short 5656.25 stop 5660.25.

The World Index: (+100/-100) soars from -21 to +57 with most major world markets firmly Bullish. 

Catalysts: PPI, Jobless Claims @ 8:30. 30-year bond auction @ 13:00. 

Quick Tip: Self-Serving Bias

Trading is more psychological than mathematical. Although the quants might disagree, if you study other successful traders you’ll see they do agree. 

Aside from our human problems about “winning is good, losing is bad” and “being right is good, being wrong is bad,” we have biases to contend with. There are plenty. 

One bias I discovered recently while reading Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions by Annie Duke, arguably the best tournament poker female who ever played, is Self-Serving Bias. 

Simply put this bias has us giving credit to our skills when w...

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: This strategy remains on hold but is improving.

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from -7 to +29 with most major world markets mildly Bullish. 

Catalysts: GDP, Jobless Claims, Trade Balance @ 8:30. Pending Home Sales @ 10:00. Fed’s Bostic @15:30. 

Welcome back to Poker Week! If you didn’t read the last three blog posts now is a great time to do so. All week we’re exploring poker lessons that are also invaluable for traders. Enjoy!

Lesson #3: Three “Ps”

If you played poker once a month and your opponents played every day, who is more likely to win? The same applies to golf, tennis, chess, and trading. 

While we don’t have a single opponent in trading we do have someone on the other side of our trade betting we’re wrong. Might they be a better trader? 

Practice, practice, practice. The key to excelling at anything you do is repetition. And if you want to turbocharge your practice, approach it with the intent of teaching it. 

Here’s some t...