When I first started trading back in the late 1990’s, I thought trading would be an awesome way to make money. After a failed attempt at day-trading (using a dial up modem baby!), I thought I would become a overnight options superstar. I must have thought I was going to swing around my big stick and […]
Big Picture: Late in the day Friday I sent out a Tweet with the image below. Sometimes the markets seem totally ridiculous on an intraday basis and the price action on Friday was a prime example. Apparently, an aggressive buyer (or buyers) decided to enter the market and drive it off the lows after a crash […]
Big Picture: Lately I’ve been thinking about relevance. What matters, what doesn’t, and, of course, why. When you follow financial markets, the volume of information is overwhelming and the vast majority of it doesn’t matter and will be quickly forgotten. A good policy is to assume that whatever you read, hear, or see doesn’t matter. […]
Big Picture: Speed can be good or bad. I probably don’t need to tell you that the markets are in a state of elevated volatility right now, but it is worth pointing out that volatility can take place in both directions. The past two weeks have included a fast move to the upside with a […]
Big Picture: Did anyone else like how I called that bottom last week?! Right after I said I was bearish we had a nice roughly 2% higher week. Sometimes I’m just wrong. This is one of those times. I want to talk about a ratio that I’ve started following. That ratio is the VIX/VXV ratio, […]
Big Picture: Context is everything. This week the markets fell a few percent, but it didn’t seem like that big of a deal. Following the big tumble lower two weeks ago, being off a measly 2-3% isn’t that significant. The Russell 2000 ($RUT) continues to hold up better than the S&P 500 ($SPX), but there’s […]