Archive for the 'Proprietary Trading' Category

Lightspeed, Anvil and Terra Nova

*IMPORTANT Point of Clarification: Lightspeed has not purchased Assent, but rather has licensed The Anvil platform, which will continue to be available to customers. The press release actually crossed the wire this morning and can be found on multiple news outlets, or you can read it below: Lightspeed Financial Acquires Exclusive License to Operate Anvil [...]

Tails Tails Everywhere: A Look at the Carnage from “The Glitch”

Notwithstanding my annoyance at last week’s “technical glitch” that probably made a few people over a billion dollars, the problems it caused for my programs because of extremely large tails in many stocks is a bigger hindrance. The lows set on Thursday’s sudden cascade 1000 point sell-off, although we’re being told was caused by a [...]

Global Macro Themes for the Proprietary Trader

30-year Treasury Yields are about to spike along with a dollar rally. I feel this is the catalyst to trigger a sustained pullback in equities, which will reflect our rising unemployment rate and all the stimulus plans that are slowly phasing out. Equity Long/Short Market Neutral traders will have an edge in this market over [...]

Macro Signals…

Gold went over $1000 and sustained a rally to $1020. A dip to test, and re-test $1000 is likely. This magical number will continue to be used as the line at which bulls and bears continue to thrash each other relentlessly like a tug-of-war match in an Ultimate Fighting chained rink. I’m watching the 70.50 [...]

Invitation to Join New LinkedIn Group

With all of the clutter and insanity due to groups turning into recruiting grounds and advertising forums for esoteric and mindless products, I was compelled to launch my own LinkedIn Group which is being emphatically embraced by the systematic and discretionary proprietary trading universe, to my delight. I know many of you are Prop. Traders, [...]

VIX and Variance Futures

The December CBOE S&P 500 3-Month Variance futures settled at 5053, which is a volatility of about 71% (square root). That number was once “unreachable” on a short term basis, let alone over a 90-day period.  Longer-term Variance much lower for now, in the range of 38% to 43% volatility (still relatively high). If market [...]

Caught the Turn, Now Lets Eat…

Or should I say “feast”, to better reflect my opinion? Perfect catch of the turn. Having switched from net short to net long mid day and scored doubles on both sides is excellent for a typically uneventful Wed. Nevertheless, should have crushed it beyond what was achieved. Seems like overly cautious following prior 8 weeks [...]

Trading Ideas Inauguration Week…

Long-term study of S&P 500 cash index shows 18m RSI below30 for first time since 2003 bottom. Modify long basket: re-weight sectors based on model runs on Sunday!!! ERX, CRM, CAT & CME, ICE - swing pivot UYG- Friday 8 count. Volume rising. Looking for climax low… URE- 2nd volume spike around major low. Final bottom [...]

Trading Ideas Week of January 12, 2009

JPM, BAC broke on huge volume and are headed for their lows. GS looks like it’s in trouble here. CLosed below all of its MA’s and ON near term trendline. High volume on Mon’s sell-off.  Relative to these charts, SKF has the potential to run about $100. JPM actually could make a new low based [...]

Trading Ideas for January 7, 2009

WED: Market on the verge of confirming multi-month bottoms in “Obama” related sectors (i.e. infrastructure, solar, coal, tech). Market was giving clear signals that a trap was being set yesterday, and today’s massive gap to the downside was the final leg. Those trapped bulls are now panicking out, which sent the NYSE TRIN over 2 [...]

Journal Entry Week of January 5 2009

FAS plenty of room to the upside. Create long basket with this. MBI breakaway gap? Watch AGM, ACI SKF break below $100 pending…. CSUN watch closely DRYS target $18.50 EBAY – S2 in place, shallow but potent target ~$20. N/L ~$15.30 AAPL, GOOG multiple b/o’s. Watch for shakeout/recovery. MCHP, MRVL, NVDA, RIMM rally in progress SPY [...]

Market Operations of a Proprietary Trader

January 2 AIG Commodity Index confirms bottom ACI immediate buy CAT, CLF What’s going on with CCRT? CMDTY: AKS- good S2.. Follow up on nat. gas stocks: CHK, CNX, EOG Watch Solar SPY traded through d/t line on rising volume. Is this a trap? 50dEMA $91.75 CME going to top range ~$265 AAPL $85 not [...]