Larry Levin's Blog – March 2013 Archive (8)

Indecision

Who’s Next?

venus

When the US housing market was starting to fall apart Ben Bernanke made a now rather famous statement because he was so wrong.  Regarding the situation he said on March 28, 2007 “At this juncture, however, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained.”

On which planet of the solar system it was contained, he did…

Indecision

If I had to describe today’s market in one word it would be: indecision. Although the market closed lower, it was mostly indecisive.  There were many rumors concerning the Cypress situation – all indecisive in the end. 

 While the news/decision for Cyprus as a whole may be indecisive as of yet, the reality for its citizens is final: there is little-to-no-money in the ATMs.  The news wires carried the following during the day…

*Cyprus Popular Bank…

Secret Trading Tip #15

Trailing Stops

The topic of trailing stops comes up on occasion in my Virtual Trading Room. They can often cause some confusion, so let’s take a bit of time to clarify what constitutes a trailing stop and how you can use it in futures trading..

Trailing stops are actually stop loss orders that you move according to certain parameters in your trading plan.

Why Move Stop Loss Orders?

Stop loss orders are stop orders…

Secret Trading Tip #1

Trade with a Plan – Using a Stop Loss

In my opinion, every trade you consider should be laid out ahead of time with a roadmap. A complete map should have an “off ramp” or a place where it makes sense to enter the market. It should also have exits for your destination (profits) as well as off ramps for emergency exits. This part of your plan will likely include stop orders.

Stop orders placed to potentially close an open position are…

Waiting Game

waiting

There was no action Thursday.  Traders are waiting on Friday’s monthly employment situation report. 

 The way Chairman Ben has the market cornered, either a better than expected or worse than expected outcome can be spun like cotton candy into a bullish reaction.  That is the normal course of business on Fraud Street; however, because the market has gone up almost every day this year without a pullback, traders are looking for a…

Secret Trading Tip #3

A Little Lesson in Lingo

The world of trading has many parts that seem a little foreign to new traders. There are plenty of catch phrases, symbols, and other banter that can be intimidating or even confusing at first. One of the biggest sources of confusion includes the shorthand that you see for many markets. Understanding what you are reading is important, and learning the basic lingo can come in handy.

Everything has a specified…

Barnyard Economics

Barnyard

Which came first - the chicken or the egg in the new world of Barnyard Economics???

If the first two months of 2013 market’s action could be compared to the farm, the crop would be poor and the animals unproductive, but the farmer would be enjoying a banner yea...except on Mondays. Because alas, for the eight Monday in a row, the S&P 500 closed lower. The farmer (and the markets) might opt for a three day weekend in…

Secret Trading Tip #29

Advanced Technicals – Moving Averages

In Tip #14, I talked about some of the basics for technical analysis. Trends and simple chart patterns are just the tip of the iceberg for technical analysis tools. There are many advanced tools that technicians use to try to find signals in the market price. One of the terms you might hear quite often is moving average.

The moving average for a market plots the result of a…