Some thoughts, in no particular order…

1. I can’t believe I didn’t realize that the index futures markets were open today. Sometimes I forget that the schedules are different from the cash markets.
2. Now that I realize it, at 12:30 Eastern, the futures markets are apparently closed. At least the quotes on tradestation are not moving.
3. Damn it. And to top it off, I will miss most of Tuesday’s bloodbath, or Tuesday’s fed bailout + bounce.
4. Anyhow… Note to self: NEVER try to pick the bottom.
5. Note to self: Take some time to fully comprehend the irony that freakin’ Tim Knight was long on index options going into this weekend.
6. Note to self: If head does not explode during previous note to self, use any time left to finally investigate Kreslik.com. TRO seems like a cool guy.
7. Although the itchy “cloud” is functionally no better than a couple long MAs in my opinion, it does have the advantage that you can see where it will be about 20 candles in advance.
8. … which has the disadvantage that it eats up a lot of your chart space… which is why I made the amount of bars to plot the cloud ahead a configurable setting in my code. Right now I view about 5 or 6 bars of “future cloud” in case it is useful.

See how the moving average is right in the middle of all the action since the open at 8:30? See how most of the swings keep retracing fully, and keep getting smaller? See how the beads are having trouble committing to red or green? No trades yet today… on the bright side, at least this mess is narrowing. Unlike a broadening formation, it can’t continue forever!

(note this is the trading-level chart… the “overview” chart is basically completely flat during this time frame)

Yawn. Man, what a lackluster trading day. As the goddess pointed out, there really wasn’t a lot going on this morning. Right now, it looks like QQQQ is going to end the day with something like 70% of its normal volume.

Anyway, the only thing I really saw worth watching was SLB, but it made a pretty sudden move all the way from 65.50 up to my intended buy point of 66. So, without any of my intraday setups to back me up, I will label this a breakout trade in stocktickr. I would normally time my entry to get in at 66.00, but since the alert surprised me, it took me a couple seconds to assess the situation and enter my order. I bought just a few shares, and got filled at 66.06. That didn’t make me happy, so I got out as soon as I saw any size on the ask. With a better fill, I’d definitely have stayed in this one until it stalled out.

Well, it was hard not to notice, a little later, that it had stalled out. On the chart, I’ve outlined a rough-looking box play that I could have put on, which would have had a (successful) target of 66.10. Since the breakout was against the overall trend, though, I decided not to take the trade. Geez, when will I learn to trust the box play? It never fails! (heh…). Anyway, I scalped it short, instead, and got less profit than the box play would have made.

As I mentioned via twitter, I’m pretty sure this is one of the only days I’ve ever been both long and short the same stock on the same day and won both times. Pretty nice, even though the total $ won isn’t anything to write home about.

Hopefully your day was swell, and tomorrow will have a few more fireworks.

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

(The idea for this article came from this half hour video episode on workopolis TV, a show which discusses different aspects of your career. I have adapted it for the vocation of Trading for a Living.)

Impatience is about anxiety or frustration at the obstacles to getting what you want or the obstacles to achieving your goals and objectives. Psychologists have suggested that people who are impatient are likely to have higher standards and are more results oriented. This is not a bad thing at all. However, if you act on your impatience without managing it, you may harm a relationship or make rash decisions. If you are acting out of impatience, that means you are not acting with intention.

In theory, one way to deal with impatience is to be more realistic and to better manage your expectations. Managing your own expectations during trading can help stave off feelings of impatience. Traders like me tend to underestimate the time frame required to let a trade work out, or underestimate the length of time required to wait for the right setup to come to me. It’s not that I have such a short memory and forget these rather simple truths, but in the heat of the battle, probably the last thing on my mind when I have 4 or 5 trades baking at the same time, is, “oh, I’ve underestimated the time frame required for this trade, so I had better give it a little bit more time for the trade to work itself out.” So for me, it is good to be continually reminded of these simple truths.

Another way to deal with impatience is to take a broader perspective of things. Yesterday (Feb 13/07), I was pretty steamed at the getting stopped out not once but twice (on two different stocks), only to see the stock reverse back up. But in the bigger scheme of things, it was much ado about nothing. There’s going to be a million more stocks that will stop me out before reversing back up. I had better get used to it, otherwise, I would be wasting quite an excessive amount of energy getting mad over essentially a meaningless event.

What I have learned, is that being patient is not always all about waiting. There are other things that can be done to lessen the focus on waiting. While you wait, you can practice the other 7 habits, or start looking for the next great trading idea. Again, this is a simple truth, but again, it never hurts to be continually reminded of the benefits of taking the patience pill.

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

A second try at video. No fancy editing, just cutting out as much dead air as possible! I don’t have much in the way of video editing software.

This one’s a response to all the references I’ve been seeing lately that say that good stock trading is boring. I disagree! I wonder what jobs these people have had in the past that make them think this way! Every job I’ve had before now has been a much worse form of boring. The kind that you can’t escape without quitting, or underperforming. Trading is a different and better animal altogether.

About Video
Video is certainly faster than writing… also certainly not as concise. I think I will see if I can strike a balance between video and writing that puts the most important information in print, and more of the day-to-day commentary in video form. I think I can get out more content, faster, that way. Lemme know what you think.

Watch this post's video on Youtube

I decided to only trade hits from my watchlist today, and just observe things otherwise. Which made for a boring day as I didn’t notice anything on my watchlist hit. yawn…

I didn’t have CNBC on, but around the 2:15 time, I didn’t see hardly any movement in the markets. Maybe 10 minutes later, there was a bit of a drop. I imagine that lots of people had loaded up long, expecting a positive reaction. So, when they were disappointed, they started dumping their shares. Just my speculation.

So, I hope tomorrow feels like a normal day, since I saw relatively little effect from the big meeting today.

Blog Additions
On the blog, I’ve added a couple buttons at the top. One tries to provide organized links to articles I’ve written. The other is where I’ve started to add book reviews (just 1 so far, maybe I’ll add another tonight).