Over the years I have employed a variety of stop strategies with varying results. I’ve tried wide stops, narrow stops, multiple and partial stops, lazy stops, intelligent stops based on volatility, etc. After having spent a significant amount of time and effort on trying to find the one perfect stop logic I’ve basically boiled it down to this: There is no perfect stop – period. Getting stopped out is an inherent aspect of trading and you should simply recognize it as a transition point between being in and out of the market. Don’t over think it. After all you can always enter again should market conditions warrant a new campaign.
I wonder what thoughts were triggered in your head when you saw the featured image above. The notion of a brewing storm is rather ominous and usually is associated with inconvenience, discomfort, and sometimes outright destruction of property. But I chose it very carefully to make a point which I’ll try to convey below. Let’s look at some charts:
This may be strange coming from an expat living in Spain but you guys have no idea how much I miss going to a good ole’ fashioned American diner. No not one of those fake copies in L.A. they build on top of the original ones after tearing them down. Yes, I’m looking at you Mel’s – what the heck were you guys thinking? A solid American diner has an ambience unique to where it’s located, it must have a zany 1950s interior, there need to be impatient chain smoking career waitresses, and the food of course needs to be delicious with generous portions to boot. My favorite diner in the world is Carla’s Route 66 in Twentynine Palms – I think it used [...]
Like dominos, one by one, the doves at the Federal Reserve appear to have fallen over the past few months. The final and most important one is widely expected to at least tilt a little later today at 1:00pm when Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen is scheduled to deliver her much anticipated speech. Equity markets have responded accordingly which brought a final end to one of the longest lasting rallies in which I had the pleasure of participating in my trading career.