frankz

One of the hardest things to master when you are swing trading is when to push the pedal to the metal and when to hit on the breaks.  We have two possible market moving events this week, ECB meeting tomorrow, and the NFP number on Friday.TRUE, YELP, RATE, UIHC, CEVA, GIMO, IMPV, OPK, SSTK, DANG, ECHO, GWR, CNSL, WSTC, PYPL, GNW, are the names on my swing trading watchlist today. Link to CHARTS.Work With MeStay InformedI don’t look at charts in your conventional cookie-cutter manner, or have rules as to where the stock should be whether its 15% off its [...]

If you have not already heard, December tends to be a good month for the bulls, particularly in the small caps.Since 1990, the average return for the Russell 2000 has been +3.57% with an 87% win ratio.  The last time the Russell had a down December was in 2007.The SP500 has enjoyed an average gain of +1.83% and has been up 80% of the time since 1990.Past performance does not guarantee future performance.Work With MeStay InformedSource; PastStat

You can be best chart reader in the world, the best stock picker we have ever seen, but none of that matters if you can't execute.  It's no different than having the best product in the world, but if you can't sell it, then it's pretty much worthless.GIMO, BLX, CRM, ECHO, DGX, BCEI, WSTC, GNW, PYPL, are the names on my swing trading watchlist today.Work With MeStay InformedI don’t look at charts in your conventional cookie-cutter manner, or have rules as to where the stock should be whether its 15% off its 52-week highs or above or below certain moving [...]

Focus on what you can control.  Once you put your buy order in and it's executed, how much or how little you watch the screen is not going to make a difference, you cannot will a stock to go higher or lower.RATE, GIMO, GWR, NBL, DANG, AUDC, LNKD, FB, UTX, MITL, WSTC, BKD, are the names on my swing trading watchlist today.Work With MeStay InformedI don’t look at charts in your conventional cookie-cutter manner, or have rules as to where the stock should be whether its 15% off its 52 week highs or above or below certain moving averages etc, [...]

I get a lot of calls from my broker friends asking my opinion on different stocks. Usually, they ask me after they buy the stock, I always tell them that if they wanted to know my opinion then they should've asked me before they bought it, there is a whole psychological reason behind this that I won't get into. They also tend to ask me about stocks that are already up 4-5 days in a row, usually this is when the story gets around the office, and they start to believe that the stock will never go down.  I also see many [...]

We need to stop quoting old sayings by Wall Street "gurus", things change, what might have worked 20 years ago might not work now.  When it comes to trading we hear a lot about discipline, not enough is said about ADAPTING.  Remember when taking a three-pointer on a fast break was a sin?CEVA, SOHU, GWR, DGX, ABC, M, FEYE, RGLS, DATA, SQM, SGMO, SGYP, XBI, NK, MITK, are the names on my swing trading watchlist today.The Process;Every morning I go through a few of my scans to find buy candidates for the day.  Depending on the current state of the [...]

The one piece of news that shook Wall Street this morning and put everyone on notice was, Turkey gunning down a Russian jet.  Futures immediately took a nose dive, but by 11:00 am the market made a comeback and closed positive.Energy names led the way; Energy was the best performing sector today with XES up 4.69%, OIH +3.26%, XLE +2.17%, USO +2.23%.  Gold and the gold miners also had a slight uptick, probably related to the Russian/Turkey news.Absent from today's brief turnaround was AMZN, FB, GOOGL. LNKD, these have been stellar performers lately, but they did not go green as the market [...]

Trading is 90% mental, if you look in the mirror, you will be staring at your biggest challenge.  Conquer your emotions and you might have a shot in trading successfully.$NPTN, GIMO, TEO, NLS, TYPE, MXWL, NPO, EXPO, VNET, BCEI, RXN, OSK, MTN, TKR, BDC, WUBA, YGE, AMOT, WSTC, NK, are the names on my swing trading watchlist today.The Process;Every morning I go through a few of my scans to find buy candidates for the day.  Depending on the current state of the market the size of the list will vary, usually it's no more than 50 names.  My process is [...]

We have been hearing a lot of complaints about how weak breadth has been, how only a few stocks are pulling the indices higher.  Whether bad breadth will ultimately be a problem or not remains to be seen. You have to keep an open mind that maybe more stocks will start to participate in the future, it doesn't always end badly.The image below tells you the whole story.  The mega-cap names that have a larger effect on the SP500 have outperformed their little brothers on a 1, 3, 6, and 12-month basis. The lower cap names are all lower in [...]

We all know how miserable it's been recently for some hedge funds, now it's time to look at some Robo Advisors.  These portfolios vary depending on the needs and risk tolerance of the investor, but you can get a feel for what the returns might look like for a conservative or moderate investor. I'm using the allocation of a recent Wall Street Journal article.Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, 30% U.S. stocks, 30% International stocks, 12% U.S. bonds, 9.49% International bonds, and 18.51% other; U.S. reit, EX-U.S. reit, IAU, 8.51% cash, this particular mix is down 5.16%.Betterment's mix is 33.5% U.S. Stocks, 36.4% [...]