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Appreciate what you're doing on this thread for everyone.

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No kidding. It seems people that know a bit more in the financial world love to keep it to themselves. I'm not expecting anyone on an anonymous board to offer out free advisory services But there is a lot of basic knowledge that can be spread.

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What is the over/under on the buy and hold posters who love to ignore all of the action traded during the lengthy sideways movement show up? I predict today.

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What's the over/under that pretty much everyone paying attention to this thread has already forgotten it was an extension of the thread calling for a correction when the Dow was at 15k?

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What is the over/under on the buy and hold posters who love to ignore all of the action traded during the lengthy sideways movement show up? I predict today.

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What's the over/under that pretty much everyone paying attention to this thread has already forgotten it was an extension of the thread calling for a correction when the Dow was at 15k?

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Hey - thanks for confirming the prediction.

Let's take this sentiment and use it as an educational tool. Let's start with the most recent observations made. I have been posting that due to BREXIT and the economic conditions changing that I will NOT be exiting long positions at 18k this time. We haven't confirmed a new bull breakout so it would be premature to see that as being accurate. In fact, we could fail Monday and erase the entire potential set up from today. If we do I will be out of longs faster than you can say "SELL!". We're not trees stuck in the dirt unable to change our circumstances. That's the point.

Now let's take you back to observations below 16k. You edited your post saying 13k to 15k. We hit neither and though observations posted back then were stating the major support levels and what it would mean if those were lost a trader never fights the tape. You can call that being wrong and I'll accept that. But then you must take a little trip back to that thread beginning August 24th last year. Wrongway Oldarmy posted a buy signal. It wasn't the 2nd, 3rd, 4th one until right - it was a definitive 1st posted buy signal after weeks of dropping. Head on over to Nov. 11th and pay attention to the post to exit as we approached 18k.

But wait, there's more! February 12th we have a pure reversal signal post - go long. Now we're onto this thread for the sell above 18k in late April. That brings us back to current observations. It's not about predictions being right or wrong. It's about the money stupid! (that's intended to be James Carville humor).

A buy and holder's account value went $100k to $82k to 98k to 80k back to 97k today (Willing to bet you a steak dinner if you go chart your account values this is within a 3% range of error accurate - assuming you are in primarily U.S. funds.) Now value that out following the above dates re-entering with 50% of monies and exiting then re-entering and exiting again. $100k is currently valued at $122k.

I'll take my approach. The Woody's removed - my hope is that people can learn to profit in times of turmoil. And I'll with say if we had lost that major support level being posted about and discussed then no buy signal would have ensued and the commentary would be much different.

Finally, anyone who is taking the most conservative route, exited the market at or above 18k, and is still out....what have you lost? Absolutely nothing!

Happy trading.

Knowing oldarmy, I'm laughing at people thinking he is a daytrader. He hates overtrading, which is kind of funny b/c when I started I couldn't trade enough (still do but that's my style and a tale for later).

Couldn't be farther from the truth and would be a little hard for a guy constantly traveling the globe, setting up and checking in on his various businesses. HIs technical analysis is superb but his strategy and mechanical approach to trade management is even better (master the latter, conquering greed/emotion/fear and that's THE KEY to being a successful trader). Anyways just b/c you have a full time job doesn't mean you can't have market awareness and take advantage of the technoligcal breakthroughs for retail traders, like scans and alerts to take what the market gives you here and there. He picks his spots, sees it, uses options to increase his probability of success and lower his basis, takes a big portion of an initial pop, and sets himself up to at worst play it out with house money and no worries.

You don't have to stare at screens "in a hole" all day to do that. As oldarmy pointed out just holding things into infinity is great if you are content with modest returns (hey no knocks, that works with dollar cost averaging, positive drift and all) but some of us aren't and I fail to see how we are the fools in this scenario.

I've parlayed my skillset into dropping out of the rat race at age 39. No more politics, no more BS, just my own boss and making money on my passion. Each day I pop out of bed early each morning and set up my screens. Travel mostly full time with my family homeschooling them on the road with a practical and hands on education, and trading pays the bills.

BTW even doing that I'm not a daytrader either, yeah it's part of the equation to an extent when management dictates but I basically have several core positions set for a max of 45 days to expiration, rarely if ever do they go past 2-3 weeks before I book a 50% winner (without fail or manage an outlier loser and move it out to the next expiration window--never lose money, just time and return on capital in rare events). I'll scalp futures around a position to balance my deltas when things get off kilter or when the opportunity presents itself but rarely am I doing roundtrips all day long, and if I am it's a great day full of opportunity (even tests usually mean amplified volatility which is my mothers milk and I'll sell premium on those days until my hands bleed i.e my Brexit oppty. play above).

A few shots of my dark hole this past month Thank you oldarmy and thank you tastytrade . Life is good:



sorry these looked like thumbnails but are printing big

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It sounds like your comments are directed at me. I didn't mean to insult anyone. I really appreciate this thread and oldarmy's input into it.

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sorry, no insult intended, but got a little defensive of my friend and mentor

Oldarmy took me under his wing about 4 years ago. He's a big fish worth a lot and I at the time just a little guy/schoolteacher. Anyways he's given me countless hours/years of mentorship, fielding all questions, no matter how dumb or naive and giving me the time to talk out scenarios to lessen my growth curve.

When my dad died 3 years back in late May, he kept me engaged all summer when we did kind of day trade via txt but it was more about getting me reps in execution, reading the charts and the tape, and getting my mind off of my pops, all the while learning and growing as a trader. He didn't have to do that. Guy's a multi-millionaire and I'm just a guy but he gave me a ton of time bell to bell, that's the kind of Ag he is.

So sorry if I took offense to what I perceived as pot shots from a few, especially when he's doing nothing but showing open minded young investors a different less passive path to investing and as you can see on this thread he does it with full transparency (not many traders are willing to do that). You'll have to forgive me man, I'm loyal on a normal basis but even more so for people like him.

Oldarmy & Aggiemetal -

Would love if you guys posted some live trades for educational purposes, not to piggyback, and follow-up with thought process behind the trade. I have done really well, but almost exclusively long/short stocks, with minimal options activity. I participate at Tradingview but ppl rarely share trade executions there either. Tastytrades looks like a great resource for options education.

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Oldarmy & Aggiemetal -

Would love if you guys posted some live trades for educational purposes, not to piggyback, and follow-up with thought process behind the trade. I have done really well, but almost exclusively long/short stocks, with minimal options activity. I participate at Tradingview but ppl rarely share trade executions there either. Tastytrades looks like a great resource for options education.

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First off - Jeff (Aggiemetal) I appreciate the kind words, but you've earned every ounce of your new life through disciplined, relentless hard work.

The problem with posting precise trades is the lack of time to explain the background work leading you to enter the trade. More importantly, I would never mind someone "piggybacking" a trade but, equally important as entering a trade, knowing when to exit or apply a hedge strategy is impractical on every trade.

That said, I think posting the macro environment should be viewed as more valuable than any single trade. When posting the exit longs 18k on previous two trips I posted going short. Over 87% of stocks dropped more than 20%+. Maybe more interesting is that only 3% of stocks rose in the proceeding weeks. All that to say a trader has a stacked deck to select his trades.

Friday I did post that I was entering a KMI position. I've had it on my watch list a long time as it has been "basing" months after finding major support. Notice the large cup and handle started into the end of last year. You can see the huge volume spike of 200 million shares (liquidty? Check!) which started the stop of the long slide downward. It had the gap up open on Feb. 17th but never broke out on a major run. HOWEVER, it has not given up the gains from that gap. That tells us that accumulation continued(s) and, as a good rule, when a break out does occur it will be larger. The major resistance sits at $19. Smaller traders can wait until they see $19 broken on volume to jump in. When taking a significant position it takes more time. Let's use this stock as meeting your request for live trade examples, ok? That way we can make posts on a single stock that everyone can keep up with.

So first question you might have is why did I enter the stock Friday. 1) Because it's a stock that I studied and like fundamentally. 2) 18k was broken and I believe it's ability to do so would result in a market breakout further upwards for a time. 3) This extended tight range it's had creates lower option values. That gives me easy access to leverage a large block of options to complete my holdings AFTER it signals a breakout. Let's say it breaks $19 Tuesday. The July 29th $20 calls are sitting at $0.10 cents! I can leverage 100k shares of KMI for $10k. I'm not overly keen on sharing this with the world, so please understand why I am using this one stock example, in real time this one time, for educational purposes.

So why not just wait until it breaks $19 before buying shares? Because the market does not like easy rides. That means it's just as likely to have a large gap and run leaving me chasing the price. I do NOT like chasing stocks. I'll take that risk on missing a larger options trade, although I did also get a partial fill of the $20 call options Friday as well.

Questions? Comments?



I won't lay out my TWTR trade in similar detailed fashion but I will give another discipline I've always followed. When one of my long term holds doubles in price from my average entry purchases I sell 50% automatically, no questions asked. Very unemotional, unceremonious sale order. I get my initial capital out of a successfully studied and executed trade and put wall street on the clock, and look to put my capital to work on the next studied trade. Average purchase price of TWTR holdings is $14.81, so $29.62 is my number. I believe it will get there.

Red line was on earnings report. Big selloff over questions about how social media channel like TWTR would be able to monetize. Huge volume day 2 of selloff shows us big boys are dancing in the stock. It drifts but finds it's base. Green major support line shows May low and June low EXACTLY $14. See that? I bought a wad on that 2nd day when we held $14 on the next largest trading day. I had a super tight stop on at $13.85 off that action.

Hope all this is making some sense and helps!