Larry Levin's Blog – October 2012 Archive (9)

Land of Oz

ruby-slippers-wand

Friday the preliminary look at Q3 GDP came out and "beat" expectations of a 1.8% print, with a 2.0% reading. That seemingly sounds positive, but since its “election season,” we need to delve deeper into the data to get the real story.

When you pull back the curtain, you of course see Mr. Wizzard manipulating the numbers. Because of the 2.02% annualized increase in GDP, over one third, or 0.71 %( compared to a deduction of -0.14% in Q2), was…

Secret Trading Tip #3

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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…

Earnings Misses



Whether stocks have missed analyst expectations, missed on their respective top line growth estimates, or warned for future revenue misses, when they release their statements they are punished.



For several days it seemed like the overall market would focus on Bernanke’s QEternity buying spree and ignore high-profile disappointments, until Friday.  Like all bad news on Fraud Street; it is ignored, until it can’t be ignored any…

Secret Trading Tip #14

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Getting Technical

If you know your way around a price chart (Tip#5) then you are ready to learn a little more about technical analysis. This kind of analysis is defined as an attempt to try to forecast price movements based on patterns observed in price changes on charts, or other changes that are not rooted in fundamental observations. …

Add 10 Zeros

It was yet another week of off-kilter markets and unexplainable reactions to economic data and macro-events. It’s hard to tell if we are in a bad is good or good is good or everything is bad cycle?  

The one thing we can be sure of is that while you have just read this sentence, the national debt has increased by some ridiculous sum. For all the numbers that I consider on a daily basis, this is the one that is tough for me to wrap my brain around. How can we…

Understanding Candlestick Patterns - Harami

I've already covered some of the better known patterns like doji (Tip #18) and engulfing (Tip#19) – now it's time to add harami to your candlestick chart pattern arsenal. Let's take a look at what this technical signal looks like,…

Friday’s employment data was interesting; wasn’t it?  I think it’s safe to say that it shocked everyone but the politicians.  Like Santa Claus delivering presents to children, the Bureau of Lies & Statistics (BLS) delivered a shocking present for politicians before the election.



The Bureau of Lies &…

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…

Recession Data

This morning’s data was bad – worse than recent poor macro data; however, the market got yet another “stick save.” Thursday morning’s economic news was, in a word: RECESSIONARY.

Durable Goods data was stinky…New orders for manufactured durable goods in August decreased $30.1 billion or 13.2 percent to $198.5 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This decrease, down following three consecutive monthly increases, was the largest decrease since January…