BetterTrades

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Better Trades Momentum Part 2

In Part I of this article, I taught you to trade momentum that occurs after an earnings announcement. In this article, I am going to go into some of the chart patterns we can use to trade momentum that is unrelated to earnings or news. And in Momentum Part III, I will show you how to combine news and chart patterns to trade momentum. But, before I get too far ahead of myself, let me recap what momentum is and why I trade it.

I love to trade options on stocks with a lot of momentum. What this means is that I want to trade those stocks, Exchange Traded Funds or Indexes that are moving fast and far. The way I see it, if I am going to put my money in the market, I want to place it where it will work as hard as possible for me. You may have attended my free webshop on Monster Momentum plays during which I introduced a couple of the technical tools that I use to find and trade this strategy, but let me show you today some other pieces to this strategy and how this can be a boost to your trading account.

The first step to trading momentum is that you need to find a stock that has the capability to move fast and far. These stocks generally have a dollar to two dollar average daily range during normal trading. Once the momentum picks up, they can trend twenty to thirty points or so in a matter of a few months. Sometimes this momentum is sparked by news announcements such as earnings or a new drug approval and sometimes it is just a stock that becomes heavily bought or sold by institutions. Whatever the case, once you learn to read technicals, you will be able to spot the building momentum in time to profit from the big move.

Many of my most profitable momentum trades took place not because of any news but just because the chart began to show signs of big buying pressure or big selling pressure. I look for things like breakouts, long candle bodies, and various candle patterns combined with the six indicators I use to signal a momentum trade. The best way I can teach you to trade momentum is to show you some of the patterns that I and others in my Traders’ Talks have recently traded.

The first thing to keep in mind with momentum is that once a stock has made a big momentum move, you know it has the ability to do it again in the future. It will probably take a breather for a while and it may not move in the same direction, but the momentum will almost always pick up once again.

Take Goldman Sachs (GS) for instance. This stock ran with a lot of momentum from $155 to about $205 before it started trading sideways.

If you had been to my Technically Speaking classes or in my Traders’ Talks you would have traded GS all the way up through that run. But at the end of the run, Goldman took a breather for almost a month while it traded in a sideways range between $198 and $203. During this sideways movement, I put my money in other stocks and ETF’s that were moving with more momentum. Don’t forget what I mentioned earlier, that stocks that have moved with momentum in the past will almost always move with momentum again. So when a momentum stock slows down make sure you are ready to trade it once it begins to move again.

I find momentum trades from my Momentum Scans (you can learn more about these in the Ultimate Scans free webshop), and on January 8th GS showed up on my Momentum Scan as the stock started moving toward that resistance level. By the time it had rallied through the $203 resistance level I had entered a bullish trade. There is no trade that is more fun than a momentum trade. When all the technicals are bullish and my momentum entry was hit, all I had to do was kick back and watch the buying pressure drive this stock up to almost $214 where it sits at the time I write this article. You can see how profitable these breakouts can be on momentum stocks. Goldman has run more than $11 in only five days!

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is another momentum stock that we traded in the past as it ran from $68 to $113. That move took nearly three months and then ICE began to slow down and consolidate. The stock was not attracting enough buying pressure to push it through $110. That resistance became an important price target for the stock. If buyers came back willing to pay higher prices for ICE the stock would rally above the $110 resistance and mark our next momentum entry.

You can see below that ICE broke out on January 3rd , prompting a bullish momentum entry. The stock then rallied to a high of $137 giving us a gain of 27 points in seven days.

ICE and GS are just two examples of the many momentum trades out there. I have shown you a couple important technicals pieces that need to be present to make this strategy work. Make sure the stock has the ability to move at least a dollar or two every day and then look at the price chart to see if the stock has moved with momentum before. Then wait for a breakout from a consolidation area to give you one of the safest, easiest and most profitable entries into the momentum trade. And remember, you may have missed these trades, but there are plenty more momentum trades to come. Learn to read momentum signals in a price chart with my six indicators adding confirmation and you will be prepared to catch the next big momentum trade

Hope to see you soon!

Markay Latimer with Better Trades

Better Trades Momentum Part 1

I love to trade options on stocks with a lot of momentum. What this means is that I want to trade those stocks, Exchange Traded Funds or Indexes, that are moving fast and far. The way I see it, if I am going to put my money in the market, I want to place it where it will work as hard as possible for me. You may have attended my free webshop on Monster Momentum plays during which I introduce a couple of the technical tools that I use to find and trade this strategy, but let me show you today some other pieces to this strategy, and how this can be a boost to your trading account.

The first step to trading momentum is that you need to find a stock that has the capability to move fast and far. These stocks generally have a dollar to two dollar average daily range during normal trading. Once the momentum picks up they can trend twenty to thirty points or so in a matter of a few months. Sometimes this momentum is sparked by news announcements such as earnings or a new drug approval, and sometimes it is just a stock that becomes heavily bought or sold by institutions. Whatever the case, once you learn to read technicals, you will be able to spot the building momentum in time to profit from the big move. As we are heading into the thick of earnings season, this article will show you some ways to trade the post earnings momentum. Watch for part II of this article to learn more about other technical momentum plays.

Holding a directional trade over earnings can be risky, but after the release the uncertainty of what direction the stock will move is gone. I like to trade after earnings because we often have an unusually large amount of trading activity that moves many stocks faster and further than they would normally go. It may be that earnings numbers were a big surprise, (they might be much stronger or weaker than expected) or it may be that traders were waiting to see what the quarter was like before they put more money into or took money out of the stock. It truly does not matter what the actual number are, mind you, because we are not trading the numbers, we are trading the reaction to the numbers. Checking a chart the evening after a company announces will show us if we have tradable momentum. If there is a great amount of buying pressure, I trade it up and if I see a lot of selling pressure, I trade it down.

One of my more favorite post earnings plays is Goldman Sachs (GS). In fact, this trade has worked out extremely well on Goldman a couple times already this year. HINT: this is a stock to watch the next time they release earnings!

Goldman Sachs announced earnings in September and gapped up above resistance. In my Technically Speaking workshops, I will show you how to use an intraday chart to trade on the first day after news is released, but for the purposes of this article I would like to teach you how to make money on this strategy even if you do not have the time to watch the intraday chart. To do this, you need to recognize momentum as it develops on a daily chart. Many momentum plays begin like GS did, as a breakout. Goldman formed a bullish Opening Marubozu candle September 19th after the earnings release. The stock closed that day above a previous $155 resistance level. A close above resistance should be viewed as a strong signal for the stock. After such a signal, I confirm with my indicators (for more information on the technicals I use, join me in one of my live Technically Speaking workshops or watch the class on DVD). I am trying to find any excuse to stay out of the trade. Any bearish indicator or bearish price pattern will prevent me from entering the trade. But, if all technicals confirm a bullish trade I enter the following day. One note of caution here: news may only have enough influence to move the stock for one day. Because of this, I prefer to enter my trades above the high (or the low if it dropped) of the day the news is announced.

Using this technique, Goldman got us into a post earnings momentum trade around $159.75. The price graph and the indicators I teach you to use were all bullish so we had the OK to enter a trade that day. Once our entry in this type of trade is triggered, you want to stay in as long as there is continued buying pressure. Often the buying pressure and momentum will move a stock for only three to five days. In the case of Goldman, the stock had post earnings momentum for three days but it barely took a breather on days four thru six before gapping up and taking off once again. The technicals have remained strong enough to keep providing bullish trades for the past couple months for a run from $159.75 to $186 where the stock is currently trading at the time this article was written. These momentum plays can be traded as one trade that you will stay in as long as you have enough time in your option or as something you can position in and out of to pull profits out along the trend.

The entry on this type of trade can feel risky because of the gap. The danger with gaps is that all the trade may be taken in the gap and there may not be enough buying or selling pressure to move the stock further. For example, when the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) announced they were buying CBOT Holdings (BOT), the CME gapped to an all time high. The opening price was over ten points above the long day candle you see earlier that month.

After the open, no one was willing to pay a higher price for the CME and the stock dropped like a rock. When a stock gaps beyond a price at which it was comfortable trading, you can rest assured that much of that play was taken in the gap and the safest way to trade it may be to trade the retracement. One thing you can do to make trading a gap on news more safe is to avoid the trade unless the gap puts the stock near its recent trading range. In the case of CME, the stock was so far above where traders were comfortable buying it that people took profits out very quickly. With Goldman, just the opposite was true. Because it gapped to $155, a price that people had paid for the stock many times in August, traders were much more comfortable piling in at that price after earnings. All the buyers willing to pay $155 or more for GS helped push it much higher.

A news announcement such as earnings can present wonderful trades. The momentum associated with the news may create a lot of buzz around the stock and draw more buyers into the stock, or motivate people to sell the stock in droves. Either way we can trade it. Check the technicals first to make sure everything is bullish before buying calls or that everything is bearish before buying puts. And remember that as long as the stock gaps to a price that is has traded recently, there may be plenty of room left for the stock to move. Enter the trade and manage your risk by placing your stop. This is one easy way to build your account up trading momentum during earnings season.

Hope to see you soon!

by Markay Latimer with Better Trades

Better Trades Inc

BetterTrades™ is the solution to your trading problems. If you have any questions about trading or any doubt that you have the knowledge necessary to compete in today's trading world, BetterTrades™ is the place to turn for helpful classes and useful advice as well as articles and workshops that will allow you to improve your trading strategies and techniques.

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If you would like to join this educational experience, all you have to do is sign up. The registration process for BetterTrades is fast and easy, and it grants you instant access to the multitude of topics and resources on BetterTrades. With your free registration, you will be able to sign up for online interactive classes hosted by a team of professional trading educators, work with our comprehensive article database, or register for one of our live events.

BetterTrades can be your virtual classroom; with some of the top trading instructors working to create classes that will interest, educate, and inspire you, you can participate in a trading education like no other. Work with some of the top names in trading today, and get experience from the professionals who have been on the trading floor and have published books to back up their techniques and skill in the industry. The BetterTrades virtual classes allow you to experience the give and take of a traditional classroom from the convenience of home with their online education programs.

Taking a  Better Trades class is as easy as signing up, and signing on for the class session. You will be able to communicate with your instructor, ask questions, and refine your knowledge of the topic at hand. With BetterTrades, it is easy to work with the system to pick the classes that are interesting to you so that you can get the information you need to trade at your best. Consider starting with our Marketing Essentials course, an amazing overview to help get you off on the right foot.

BetterTrades is more than a virtual classroom environment, though. For those who prefer a more traditional setting,  Better Trades offers live workshops with some of the best minds in trading education to walk you through a wide range of fascinating topics; these classes are constantly offered in major metro areas around the country, and they're the perfect way to kick off your educational experience. BetterTrades is the trading education you've been searching for. Sign up today.

Better Trades

There are few jobs in the world that don't require training, yet many people believe that trading should require little to know training. Trading on the stock market gives you an unlimited potential for earning money, but all too often, people lose thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars simply because they didn't have the knowledge to make effective trades. Instead of just taking a chance, why not learn how to trade the right way? Allow stock market professionals to teach you the strategies that will work for you.

BetterTrades.com is a method unlike many others. Most online sites that promise to teach you how to navigate the stock market are simply regurgitated information from older sites. They are "canned" presentations that deal with simple techniques you can pick up anywhere.

 BetterTrades is something entirely different. Instead of being a website where you can get the same information that is posted everywhere, BetterTrades.com is a method that caters specifically to the individuals enrolled in their courses. The Trading Webshops, the key to this program, are live, interactive courses that you can take in the comfort of your own home. These Webshops will not only teach you the basics of trading, they will teach you how to trade in a way that is beneficial for you.

Wondering how these Webshops work? At BetterTrades.com, you simply sign up for the Webshops that you feel will help you to become a better trader. It doesn't matter if you're looking for beginner courses or more advanced techniques, Better Trades(http://www.better-trades.com/)is sure to have the course for you. Take as many courses as you like. You can even take a webshop again for refresher purposes.

Why should you work hard everyday and invest in a market, only to lose all of your money? Your money is valuable and taking courses from Better Trades can teach you how to intelligently trade your money and how to use the markets to increase your investment. Because they are invested in making sure you can truly use the training they provide, BetterTrades.com is different than the others. If you need a stock market training you can truly use, you need Better-Trades.com.

BALLON STRANGLES, A BETTER TRADES STRATEGY

I have often taught that there is a countermove for everything that a market or stock can throw at you. You may not know it but there is one. This is generally a true statement because if you wait too long, there are some situations you can't get out of but for the most part there is a way to respond to and survive just a bout anything. IF YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO AND HOW TO DO IT. The emphasis is to make the distinction that knowing is not enough. You must know how and that takes training. However it does start with knowing what.

I developed the Balloon Strangle as a way to counter the effects of high volatility and unpredictability (ie. Danger) of news announcements that happen when the market is closed. This would be like earnings after hours or an anticipated Board meeting or a court ruling. Something that could move the stock in a big way but you don't know for sure which way. Conventional wisdom (and it is good advice) is to avoid this like a plague.

A conventional strategy to mitigate the effects of volatility is the strangle or straddle play. Traditional positions for a strangles and straddle are at or near the money. You take opposing positions so that either way it goes you have a winning position. You hope that the move is big enough that the losing position goes to zero and then the winning one can make money. Problem… near the money position are expensive and the move must be quite large to erase one position and still move far enough to make money on the other one. But the idea is that you are somewhat insulated from the unknown. At least you can stay even as one goes up in value and the other goes down.

The Balloon Strangle was a twist using the leverage of Out of the Money positions. If you use a graphic to show the option prices you will often see a leverage point in the curve created by plotting the option prices. It occurs in the Out of the money positions. It represents a spot where the value of the option changes much faster in one direction than the other. In other words if the stock moves one way the value of the option changes very fast but very slow if it moves the other way.

Here is an example of a Balloon Strangle on an earnings play with YHOO. I played this because of the potential YHOO had to move far enough to make the cost of both an Out of the money call and a put pay off. The potential was for a double of my money.

Now YHOO sits ½ way between the important price levels. This is the perfect setup for this play. The YHOO earnings usually has a big move and it is has clear targets.

Now here is what happened. YHOO moves like it was following a script. The upside move goes right to resistance.

Now the results… YHOO moved up to resistance and hesitated. 2 hours into the trading day and at the next sign of hesitation I pulled the plug on the trade. Resistance seemed to be holding, I got what I was looking for in an up side move so I sold both positions. The net of $1.75 was very close to the estimate of $1.70.

By the way, as the day wore on and YHOO did not make any attempt to move higher, the Oct 42.50 began to drop in value much faster than the stock sagged. This dropped the 42.50 calls over .50 while the stock pulled back .60. Waiting for the end of the day would have cost me over .50. The play was to be in only to catch the reaction to the news.

This strategy takes practice and applies to potentially good sized moves. Always practice with out funding first.


Ryan with Better Trades

AVOIDING DAY TRADER STATUS WITH BETTER TRADES

Due to an overwhelming request of questions about Day Trader Status I have decided to write this newsletter to look at these issues. Whether you know about it or not, you don't want to accidentally learn about Day Trader Status by a notice from your brokerage firm saying that you are now tagged as a Day Trader!

WHAT IS A DAY TRADER?

A Day Trader is someone who does four intra-day trades in five consecutive trading days. Let me address some terms here to help you understand this better:

      Intra-day trade: A trade that is opened and closed in the same trading day (round trip).

      Five Consecutive Trading Days: These are calendar days that the market is open, all in a row. For example:

            If the market was open on Monday through Friday that would be five consecutive days.

Then we would have Tuesday through Monday for the next five consecutive days (unless Monday was a holiday in which case it would then be Tuesday through Tuesday.

            Next, we would have Wednesday through Tuesday, and so on. The key is five trading days in a row.


HOW TO AVOID IT

One of my favorite students, Debi D, taught me to use a calendar to record my intra-day trades. By placing an "X" on the day

you do intra-day trades, (2 X's if you do two, 3 X's if you do 3 in that day) you can avoid accidentally getting to four by

looking at your calendar. Make sure you mark the days the market is closed on your calendar.

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

I thought it mattered a lot, but after my research for this newsletter, it appears there actually are some great benefits

being classified as a "Day Trader" if the $25,000 is not an issue for you. Basically there are two issues at hand:

      ISSUE ONE: Your brokerage firm will likely impose the NASD requirements of maintaining at least $25,000 in your trading

account - and you have 5 days to comply. If you have this kind of money there is no issue! However, if you are starting out

with limited funds to trade it could be a big issue! One important note - always ask for one time of forgiveness! Many

students told me they did and the status was removed - so ASK! There may be a way around it, but I am not sure. From my

reading of the requirements, the penalty for not complying is that you are subject to cash only trades, (which are what we

were doing anyway with options)!

      There is a really incredible benefit though if you are tagged a Day Trader and maintain the $25,000 minimum value in

your account. You may be eligible for day-trading margin, which is 4 times account buying power. WOW DO I EVER LIKE THIS

ONE!! This buying power may only be used intra-day and may not be held past market close. Orders exceeding Day-Trading Buying

Power will be rejected.

      ISSUE TWO: Tax Consequences with the IRS

            Actually upon my research into the IRS Publications it does not appear as bad as I thought. A tax firm specializing in trading activity, says:
          o They allow a full deduction of all trading losses in the year they occur, thereby circumventing the historical $3,000 net capital loss rule.
          o They allow full current expensing of trading expenses without limitation, thereby circumventing the limitation on miscellaneous itemized deductions.
          o They enable the active trader to still take advantage of the beneficial long term capital gain rules.

          o They enable the active trader to circumvent the restrictive "Wash Sale" rules normally applied to investors, thereby alleviating a huge record-keeping nightmare.

          o They allow the active trader to deduct losses on open as well as closed positions.

      Continuing on with my IRS research:

      You would report your trader's activity as a business on Schedule C of your 1040, possibly allowing all the deductions for your classes and tools, versus a limitation on deduction for passive trading that would have had to be reported on your

Schedule A with a 2% AGI limitation deduction. But here is the sweet deal: you can still elect to report your gain or loss on

Schedule D as a capital gain unless you made the mark-to-market election, (which has you claim the income as ordinary income on Form 4797 instead of Schedule D - see IRS Publication 550 for more information on this). Just to be safe, you better talk to an accountant that specializes in stock market trading. Being a retired accountant, I want to tell you that most accountants will not know how to treat your trading income properly - you need to understand this.

The proper classification of your investment activities is important to determine how income and expenses are to be reported.

Traders that buy and sell securities frequently can report their purchases and sales result in capital gain and loss, and their deductible expenses are trade or business expenses.

Happy Trading!

Darlene Powell with Better Trades

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it"

I like maxims and quips. Little phrases that tell a big story. I like the parables in the Bible because a child can say "I get it," and an aged student can say "Oh… now I get it." The principle of keeping it simple is a good one for most of life's situations including trading. And while trading skills are not easy to master, they involve simple principles.

Mastery in most areas of life includes learning to conserve extraneous movement and effort. When it is done right it looks simple and onlookers often say "Well, I could do that." But the "wanna be" soon finds that it is not as easy as it seems. Trading can be frustrating and discouraging, but when the market seems to get you down and you feel like you will never get it, remember Sean Connery's famous line, "Impossible, but doable."

Too often, traders experience real highs and real lows. While the give and take is normal and expected, big swings are usually the result of changing stride or technique inappropriately. Finding your stride or niche can really make the trading life a lot more consistent and smooth and therefore, profitable. Getting to know a few terrific trading stocks rather than collecting all the potential candidates from recommendations and scans begins to overwhelm a trader and changes the rifle shot accuracy to a shotgun splatter.

So, a while back in a Trader Talk Live training a student wrote "- the past 7 days of trading have been absolutely fantastic. I have confirmed again the value of following just a few stocks and getting to learn (as much as possible) their behavior. PD is one of my all time favorites". She was referring to a principle that is trained in the Trader's Forge two day trading camp that I conduct once a month. I advise students to build a stable of good trading stocks and get to know them. Pick your favorite 6-10 and back trade them repeatedly. Learn to recognize the patterns of behavior. Does it behave in similar ways around earnings? Does it make clean or sloppy turns? Does it have a tendency to throw certain chart patterns? In doing so, you get a feel for the traders who influence the stock and improve your chances to repeatedly tap that stock for pattern trades.

The patterns we observe are the behavior of people. Key Traders are interacting with various levels of traders, brokers, fund managers and the public. This cast of players is unique in each stock or group of stocks, bonds, commodities etc. Hence, unique patterns develop and that is the key. Instead of flitting around like a butterfly from bush to bush looking for a new flower, you can find certain flowers that keep producing on a regular cycle. You develop a routine and learn the cycle so that you can just stick around and harvest over and over again.

I have a friend who taught me this principle in a dramatic way. He had a very narrow group of stocks that he got to know and not only did he learn the patterns, but he also studied the company's behavior. He knew how they acted around earnings, what products they were releasing, and how their stock responded to economic news and events. One year alone, he made over $750,000 trading one company. It was interesting to note that others seeing his success always wanted to know, "What's it going to do next?" Like the children's story of the Little Red Hen, most fellow traders wanted to cash in on his valuable insight and very few asked him to teach them how to trade like he traded. It was folly to think that if he gave them the information, they would also gain the skill it took to glean the information. That, however, is human nature.

It is the nature of most folks to want to find the easiest way. Most want to find a secret or a magic strategy. A good deal of the GDP of this country is based on selling the sizzle, not the steak. We search for the fountain of youth, the short cut, and the edge so to speak, but in the end one universal constant remains. Working smart is better than working hard. And in the end, the magic is usually finding the key or core of the matter and developing some simple and specialized skills.

If you can find a piece of good ground that can be cultivated and harvested over and over again, you find one of the jewels of trading. The secret of most millionaires is finding a stream of residual income. Patterns are there because people are creatures of habit and the market is just people. With six to ten good pattern trading stocks in the price range you like, there will always be something ready to trade. When you run across a great stock, you can replace the weakest one in your stable and place it on the bench until it warrants taking a position on the starting lineup.


The problems come when a trader chases the latest hot stock or lets their field of vision widen too far. When you find an account size and a group of stocks and a few strategies that work, stick with it!!! And don't mess with it and Dance with what 'brung ya'.

I would love to have you spend a couple days with me in the Trader's Forge. As a trading coach, that is where I can do the most good for you. I train folks in the Trader Talk Live mentoring workshops each week but that training is most beneficial to the folks who have been to the two day training of the Forge. Last week was a terrific training in Tampa. This month is Denver and then on to Detroit.

I hope to see you in the online web training classes held throughout the week and soon in a two day FORGE Trading workshop.


Ryan with Better Trade