CHANNEL FUNDAMENTALS: This is as important as my “Right Side of the V” concept. Together these two concepts explain a lot of how I traded MSTR / ARKK last week, Nasdaq futures in Jan ‘22, my prior GME write-up and a lot of my trading. So simple yet so many traders mess it up! 1/7
WHY? Bc these basics are opposite our intuition! Lesser traders chase stock higher, buying the higher highs. The stock then pulls back & maintains trend, but the weaker hands that chased then panic out @ the higher low. EXACT OPPOSITE OF PROPER TRADING! 2/7
OPTIMAL WAY: If stock trending higher, way to trade is either to HOLD & CAPTURE BIG PICTURE TREND UNTIL IT IS BROKEN OR IF SKILLED AT TIMING, SELL HIGHER HIGHS & BUY BACK THE HIGHER LOWS. If trend breaks to downside, get out. Counter-trend can be traded using same concept. 3/7
WHY IT WORKS: Bc most trends have wiggles. You can either hold through noise or use the ranges to your advantage. Key is that due to how price action of trends works, you are better off having less size the more extended up it goes & more size as it pulls into the uptrend. 4/7
Larger the ranges, the more benefit from trading the wiggles. Even if you don’t know how far each wiggle will go, I want to be scaling out on extensions higher and scaling back in closer to the lower high. 5/7
CAVEATS: Of course no way to know ad hoc if it will be higher low or will break the channel / stop-out. That is true but misses pt! CHASING THE CONFIRMATION, THEN BAILING AT LOWER HIGH PRIOR TO TRUE STOP IS SUBOPTIMAL TRADING! EITHER ONE IS BAD, BUT DOING BOTH IS RUINOUS! 6/7
Timing it is more art than exact science. Most trends don’t necessarily form a super clean channel, but the concept remains true for anything trending. Many chase the confirmation, then panic out at the lower high. Reflect on your trading to see how often you might do this 7/7
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1. Many struggling finally adapted! It takes time to hone selectivity while still swinging hard on A+ opps.
Traders: “Nov. was a way easier month!”
Me: “No… Nov. was a normal month, YOU all are what changed. You all got better bc you adapted!”
2. Drilling deeper into analytics. @MikeBellafiore told great analogy of his son’s batting practice using sensors to collect data. How can traders be more proactive or self-diagnose slumps sooner by better using their data?
What about alerts if your win rates start to tank?
3. Awareness ➡️ Proactiveness.
My highlight of the day came from one of my fav developing traders.
“I ACCEPTED the TSLA trade wasn’t working & got out. Instead of being upset, I GAMEPLANNED what I needed to see to get back in. The next day, my criteria hit & I caught the move!”
Money? To make family proud? To compete? Mastery of your craft? Lifestyle?
We all have a primary motivator for trading.
I make no secret that money was maybe the greatest motivator for me. I never wanted to struggle like my parents did.
1/6
I think just to succeed it doesn’t matter THAT much what your “why” is, just how DEEPLY you are driven by it.
Do you know YOUR “Why”?
Have you ever truly taken the time to sit down and reflect on what deep down motivates you?
Ever listed all your “Whys” out?
2/6
Every rookie I trained, I would inquire about their “why” and offer to pay for a related celebration of their choice for their $100k net pnl milestone.
I would have them visualize that day. The nice dinner or Blackhawks game with friends or going on vacay w family.
3/6
1. Gameplanning, gameplanning, gameplanning. Teams have stepped up the granularity / # of gameplans. Esp for anything macro-related. Ahead of Fed meetings, analyst opinions are brought in so traders are fully aware of big $ sentiment and mindset.
1/5
2. This yr challenged many SMB traders. So we challenged them to focus on “easy money trades”. And now to expand those further.
Crushing CPI… how bout Fed / other macro data?
Crushing Day-1 earnings… how can you find more or find edge Day-2?