Archive for March, 2009

• Earth Hour & Extreme Sheep
  alphatrends, March 28th, 2009 at 4:02 pm

  Tonight from 8:30-9:30PM Time zone by time zone, nearly 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries joined the event sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund to DIM NONESSENTIAL LIGHTS in recognition of EARTH HOUR

  The lights on these sheep are probably non-essential, but fun.
  

• Stock Market Video Analysis 3/27/09
  alphatrends, March 27th, 2009 at 4:15 pm

  
  I will be doing a live event again this Sunday March 29 at 8PM Eastern you can REGISTER HERE Last Sunday’s event did fill up so be sure to register early. NO more requests, I received far too many and will not be able to get to them all, thanks.

  We will follow the same format as last week
  1- Market Analysis
  2- General Questions (only accepted through one twitter post, 140 characters ((-:, be concise)
  3- Stocks I am looking at
  4- Reader stocks

• Humor
  alphatrends, March 27th, 2009 at 5:21 am

  Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.
  ~Bill Cosby

• Finviz Stock Screener
  alphatrends, March 26th, 2009 at 12:07 pm

  is free and there is a lot of other good information on their site FINVIZ

  Here is a short introduction to the free service. The password is finviz

  
  Finviz.com Review from brian shannon on Vimeo.

• Who You Are
  alphatrends, March 26th, 2009 at 6:18 am

  To wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.
  ~Unknown

• Stock Market Close 3/25/09
  alphatrends, March 25th, 2009 at 6:32 pm

  

  The blue line is the VWAP since this move began, buyers remain in control but the market seems to be churning here above the trendlines.
  

  Check out the new STOCKTWITS BLOG which I will be part of with a subscription product soon.

• Volume By Price Charts
  alphatrends, March 25th, 2009 at 12:06 pm

  from BIGCHARTS are a free tool which allows you to view where the volume occurred in the market. These levels show where price has “memory” and are often levels of support or resistance not seen with traditional support and resistance. These levels are somewhat similar to VWAP, but I don’t think as useful, but they are free. Here is how to use them. The password is bigcharts

  
  Bigcharts.com Volume By Price from brian shannon on Vimeo.

• Being Lost
  alphatrends, March 25th, 2009 at 6:46 am

  If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.
  ~Lewis Carroll

• VWAP Charts 3/24/09 Close
  alphatrends, March 24th, 2009 at 6:54 pm

  
  Earlier in the day I suggested on twitter that the 2 day VWAP would be significant TODAY and after holding those levels for most of the day, they were violated late in the afternoon. The significance of the 2 day VWAP is that the average long participant since the “new Geithner plan” is now in a losing position and the average short is in a profitable position. While it is just a 2 day battle, it is significant because of the strong emotion associated with the large advance yesterday. Of course, the 2 day chart has to be looked at in a larger context as well. See the chart of the same indexes since the 3/10 move began below.

  
  The charts below are 20 minute candles with the VWAP since the 3/10 move began (purple MA), the 5 DMA (orange). The 5 day MA’s are still advancing as is the average price since the rally began so it is still too early to look for a complete failure. These moving averages and the trendlines will be important areas to watch for potential support to emerge from as it looks like the market may be at the beginning of a more meaningful pullback with the short term lower highs and lower lows.
  

  In other important news…
  

• Brett Steenbarger
  alphatrends, March 24th, 2009 at 4:12 pm

  has written what I think is his best book yet. I have a ton of respect for “Dr. Brett” because he possesses the rare combination of being an experienced (and successful) trader as well an excellent psychologist. Being a trader and trained psychologist allows for a unique insight into the minds of traders which Brett’s new book does. The Daily Trading Coach: 101 Lessons for Becoming Your Own Trading Psychologist (Wiley Trading) is broken into 10 Chapters which are further dissected into a total of 101 easy to read and implement lessons.

  

  As I looked through my copy, I did a little experiment which was to open up to random pages and see if there was something useful on that page, every single time was a success.

  pg 22 “Negative thoughts are inevitable: the questio is whether you buy into them”
  pg 87 “When we master one level of challenge, we build resilience for the next level”
  pg 178 “When the thought-stopping is dramatic, the mind-shift can be equally radical”
  pg 255 “Thematic thinking turns market data into market hypotheses.”
  pf 275 “The edge in trading is so small and quite often elusive that it is imperative to understand market dynbamics/structure and where my personal edge lies” LOL- read the book to understand the humor here…

  There simply was not a page that does not great insight into the mental game of trading and how to reprogram your mindset for success.

  Also, if you do not read BRETT’S BLOG each day, you should start making it part of your daily routine. In addition to the psychological insights, Brett has some excellent and unique research which often mentions my favorite tool, VWAP.