June 05, 2005
Carnival of the Capitalists - June 6th Edition - Hosted by GalaTime
As your host, let me first share how I've compiled this CotC. I started out with Brian Gongol's template, but noticed that several posts (e.g. topics related to blogging, environment, etc.) didn't fall into any of the typical CotC categories. Hence, I've assigned (one or more) keywords to each entry for better categorization & navigation. There were 48 entries, all of which have been listed below, in random order. Given my own blogging interests, I've asterisk-ed those blogs and/or posts that talk about investing & trading in the capital markets.
| Joseph's Marketing Blog | Look for Competition LAST | Business Strategy | When planning your business, look at the competition lastly as to not base your business on a foundation built by your competitors. |
| Secrets of Going Solo | Yes Virgina, You Do Need to Sell | Entrepreneurship, Sales | A direct challenge to solopreneurs to get over the excuse of I don't like selling. If you don't like selling hire someone who does or get out of business. |
| Upsetting the Balance of History | Upsetting the Balance of History | Economics | Economic lessons of unintended consequences |
| Freedom's Fidelity | Global Warming or Heated Rhetoric? | Economics, Environment | General Discussion of Environmental Economics. |
| Weekend Pundit | Waiting For The Bubble To Burst | Real Estate, Investing | Is the real estate bubble really a bubble? If it is, will it burst or just deflate? How can you tell if you are indeed stuck in an overheated market? |
| BaySense | Mis-representation of 'cap & trade': just like Groundhog Day | Regulation, Environment | Most newspapers like the Sun do a poor job of explaining the concept of cap & trade |
| Lead and gold | Top down Innovation | Business Strategy | Argues that while established firms might have an advantages in capital and brand recognition, they face huge barriers in terms of diseconomies of scale, procedures mindsets, and inappropriate metrics. |
| Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching | Why GTD reminds me of the 7 Habits | Professional Development | This article examines how the productivity teachings of Stephen Covey and David Allen intersect and synchronize: As I see it, Allen is bringing fresh attention (especially in Blogsville) to timeless principles. |
| Blog Business World | Title tags: Simple SEO | Blogging | One of the fastest and often forgotten techniques, to move a blog or web page higher in the search rankings, is to change the page’s title tags. |
| View From a Height | Finance Fault Line?* | Investing | Former NY Fed Governor Gerald Corrigan argues that hedge funds have learned from the LTCM fiasco to limit their leverage so as to avoid another meltdown. The problem is, leverage was only one, aggravating aspect of the collapse. |
| Capital Chronicle | The state of auto-makers: my other car's a Rover | Business Strategy | Medium-sized UK car maker MG Rover went bankrupt in May - just how healthy are most of the other notable auto-makers in the US, Europe and Asia? |
| You Big Mouth, You! | Work: What I Do For Money | Entrepreneurship | small business case study in finding and developing a niche |
| Gautam Ghosh on Management | What do you look for in a career? | Professional Development | Sometimes the insight into what a person looks for in a career comes from popular culture, like a Hindi film ! |
| The Entrepreneurial Mind | Assessing Opportunities | Entrepreneurship | Learning to effectively assess potential opportunities is a critical skill for entrepreneurs to develop to increase their chances for success. |
| The Other Bloke's Blog | NeuroMarketing Versus Internet Marketing - No Contest | Marketing | NeuroMarketing reads brainwaves and is invasive. Internet Marketing uses the electronic footprints that customers leave all around to fine-tune promotional efforts. |
| Free Money Finance | Net Worth of Financial Bloggers | Blogging | Sheds light into the financial success (or lack thereof) of people who are giving financial advice on the web |
| voluntaryXchange | Models In This Ad ... | Marketing | Why do advertisers of real estate that features provocatively dressed women have to put a disclaimer in about race? |
| The Sharpener | Brown’s crusade | Politics, Economics | Free market, sceptical dissection of UK Chancellor Gordon Brown's 'Marshall Plan for Africa'. |
| Crossroads Dispatches | Are You Blind to the Breakthrough Story Right In Front of You? | Business Strategy | Dietrich Mateschitz, Donald Trump, Sidney Frank typify a new class of billionaires who got rich not by inventing a new product but by selling an ordinary one inventively. |
| The Prudent Investor | Experience shows that man never learned anything from experience | Politics | President Bush's style of governing and the relaxed mood at the Federal Reserve Bank don't bode well for the future when we remember that the US already went through such a constellation before. |
| Political Calculations | Graduating to a Paycheck | Professional Development | How much is a college degree worth today? |
| JSLogan | Are Frequent Visitors to Your Business Better Than More Visitors? | Entrepreneurship | If all things were equal, would you prefer more visits to your business per person or more people visiting less often? |
| Marketing eYe | Playing to Win | Entrepreneurship | The reason why Detroit Pistons won game 4 against Miami Heat... and the business (and life) lesson behind it. |
| Roth & Company Tax Update | Treasury Inspector General, Irs Clash Over S-Corporation Employment Taxes | Regulation | The Treasury Inspector General proposes drastic action to collect employment taxes on S corporation income. The IRS disagrees. So do we. |
| Ideologic L.L.C. - A Blog Process Outsourcing Company | Blogger Code of Ethics - Blog Process Outsourcing Version | Blogging | Blog Process Outsourcing is a business concept where a professional blogger writes on behalf of the Company. Therefore, it is essential that some Blogger Code of Ethics is in place for this category of Blogging. |
| Retail Store Blog | Retail Trends and the Boomer Convergence | Business Strategy | The retail spending and sensibilities of the huge Baby Boom and Echo Boom generations appear to be converging. If so, then organic, sweat-shop free, efficient, sustainable products will move markets |
| The Big Picture* | On Line Trading: A Business Plan for the future* | Business Strategy, Trading | Since E*Trade's bid for Ameritrade was rebuffed, and Ameritrade is now approaching T.D. Waterhouse about a merger, I started thinking about this commodity business. |
| Half Sigma | The economics of charity | Economics | The author argues against the notion that charity is strictly about altruism, and thinks that it should not be tax deductible. |
| Revenue Roundtable | Leads, leads, leads | Marketing, Sales | Sales person: Marketing sends us crappy leads. I don’t get enough GOOD leads. Marketer: Sales never follows up on all the leads we send them. We are wasting money generating leads that are never followed up. |
| ROFASix | The Celtic Tiger: Secret of Success Unveiled | Politics, Economics | Why has Ireland's growth been 167% over the last 18 years? While other European economies were languishing, Ireland boomed. A recent study uncovered the reason. |
| Chocolate and Gold Coins | The Economics of Wine Tasting | Economics | If you have a winery, should you charge for wine tasting? |
| Guerrilla Consulting | Getting Paid What You're Worth | Professional Development | This post describes why the hourly billing rate is bankrupting the best professioanl service providers and what can be done abouit it. |
| The Internet Stock Blog* | Is Amazon the loser from the EBAY-Shopping.com deal?* | Technology, Investing | This post discusses the threat to Amazon.com from eBay's announced acquisition of Shopping.com. |
| Coyote Blog | Why Do So Many Libertarians Blog | Politics, Blogging | I was asked in an interview recently, after I described myself as an anarcho-capitalist, why so many libertarians blog. This was my answer. |
| Mover Mike | Copper and Julian Robertson* | Trading | Who is Julian Robertson and what did he say on Ron Insana's show that took the air out of the market on Tuesday May 39th? |
| The Common Room | Managing from the Heart, Correcting | Professional Development | Even if you disagree please don't make me wrong. |
| Big Picture, Small Office | The Truck Stops Here | Professional Development | This is story of decent, uncomplicated man, retiring after thirty years with the company. But where is the CEO? Another tale of folly from the large company that thinks small. |
| Businesspundit | All Marketers Are Liars - A Book Review | Marketing | I review Seth Godin's new book "All Marketers are Liars." |
| The Mobile Technology Blog | School girl "hostage" phone | Technology | There are lots of reasons to have two mobile phones - here's just a couple of more amusing examples. |
| Small Business Trends | Hottest Sites to Find Small Businesses for Sale | Entrepreneurship | This post describes why so many more small businesses are being bought and sold today, and contains the six best sites to find listings of businesses for sale. |
| Ashish's Niti | Leave the culture and the tax-payers alone | Regulation | Argues against government patronage of art as a non-monetiazable thing |
| Interested-Participant | Swampland Sold on eBay | Regulation | A company that sold swampland to buyers on eBay has been ordered by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation to track down everybody who bought swamp and give all their money back. |
| EGO | Christopher Cox at the SEC* | Politics, Investing | Thoughts and comments on Christopher Cox as the new SEC chairman. |
| Alchemy of Trading* | Heart Of Darkness* | Trading | Dangers of leveraged, high-stakes trading |
| Gongol.com | The Economic Costs of Pseudoscience | Economics | Pseudoscience isn't just harmless fun and games -- it has real economic costs. The more you like markets, the more you should be ready to fight pseudoscience wherever you find it. |
| Mean Ol' Meany | Treatise on Re-Education of Deadbeat Socialists | Politics | When all of our populace learns the value of a dollar, they can easily be motivated to better themselves and keep their damn grubby, no-working paws off my pocketbook. |
| Drakeview | Business plan planning | Entrepreneurship | Creating a good business plan is lot of work that must be done by the founder(s) of a start-up. While professionals can assist with some elements, the planning and critical aspects need to be authored by the founder. |
| The Picket Line | Lucky Duckies | Regulation | A useful summary of the "lucky duckies" kerfluffle that was set off by a Wall Street Journal editorial about how the poor in America don't pay enough income tax and so aren't motivated to agitate for lower taxes and less-costly government. |
FYI, next week's CotC will be hosted by Byrne's Marketview. Submit your entries here.
Hope you enjoyed this CotC. Cheers!
-Kaushik
Posted by galatime at 06:00 PM | Comments (0)
June 04, 2005
CotC Reminder, Blogger Kudos, Yahoo OptionClub
First, a reminder that I'll be hosting the weekly Carnival of the Capitalists (CotC), starting tomorrow; and would particularly like to see bloggers contribute (here) their posts on investing/trading ideas.
Next, congratulations are due to Bob Arne, of the Hedging Options blog, on passing the Series 7 test. Bob scored 82%, and I'm guessing that's a good score :)
Fellow blogger (and Roundtable contributor) Tom Ott, of the Sixth World blog, also gets our good wishes; he recently graduated with a part-time MBA! I too went through this (full time job + evening MBA school), and believe me, its a lot of work.
And finally, a quick mention of the Yahoo OptionClub; a users group dedicated to collaboratively expanding our knowledge and understanding of stock and option trading strategies, technical analysis, and money management. Its one of the few messageboards free from junk/spam/rants; there's actually good discussion of option strategies, trades and trading resources.
Posted by galatime at 11:52 AM | Comments (2)
May 20, 2005
New Blogs: Finaxyz, Gross Speculation & Stockcoach's Corner
More trading/investing blogs added to my blogroll:
Finaxyz: Started in February by Jack Krupansky, the blog features a daily "Stock Market Commentary" post, that covers economic reports, commodites, futures, venture capital & market outlook. The author maintains several blogs in fact, ranging from technology to entrepreneurship.
Gross Speculation: I found this one via Trader Mike's post; the blog is maintained by Bo Yoder, who's a trading consultant and author of the Active Trader newsletter, and Mastering Futures Trading. Posts cover trading strategy, intra-day market action, impact of economic news, etc.
Stockcoach's Corner: This one was launched in Dec '04, to track a portfolio worth ~$330K, and "share stock-picking ideas with others, and provide discipline for the author's investment decisions."
Posted by galatime at 12:03 PM | Comments (0)
May 04, 2005
New Blogs: BlogginWallStreet, Volatility Rider & Wishing Wealth
More trading/investing blogs added to my blogroll:
BlogginWallStreet: Started in Dec '04, the BWS blog focuses on "what really moves the market". Frequency of posts is fairly high (3-4 per day), with topics ranging from oil & commodities to GDP, program trading, etc.
Volatility Rider: The latest options-related blog, VR is written by Quant Trader out of San Diego, CA. Its only a month old, but there's several option trades posted - both stocks (GOOG, GS, UNH,TWX, ATK, EBAY, DNA) & index/ETFs (QQQQ, SPY).
Wishing Wealth: Authored by Dr. Eric Wish, this blog uses a set of proprietary indicators to assess market conditions (trend, strength, etc.), and chart analysis to pick stocks/sectors.
Posted by galatime at 09:21 AM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2005
CotC, Hussman, "The Psychology of Risk"
The weekly Carnival of the Capitalists is up at Brian Gongol's blog. It features a new, really nice looking format, that makes it much easier to navigate the large no. of entries that get submitted each week.
As for options, check out the latest Weekly Market Comment by John Hussman (of the Humman Funds, HSGFX & HSTRX). He talks about why the HSGFX fund uses index options, instead of futures, to hedge the portfolio: "These positions allow the flexibility to use “directional” and “contingent” positions, are liquid, and reduce the need for day-to-day cash settlement flows." He also explains the difference between synthetic short positions, put-only positions, and contingent call options. For those concerned about the effectiveness of options during market crashes, check out his comments on the OCC. All in all, a very informative article from Hussman!
And finally, TraderMike points us to an hour-long webcast from Dr. Ari Kiev, author of 'The Psychology of Risk' and 'Trading in the Zone'. I haven't gone through all of it yet, but anything on trading psychology deserves your time.
Posted by galatime at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)
April 12, 2005
New Blogs: HedgingOptions, NevBlog & FreeRider
Here's some blogs that I've recently bumped into:
HedgingOptions: Talk about brand new - this blog is just 2 days old! Authored by Bob Arne, who writes for Truck & Barter as well, the blog mainly talks about short-term option trades. Finally, I have some company in the lonely world of option bloggers. And you gotta love the blog's motto: "It could go up, it could go down, or it could stay the same."
NevBlog: The author, Neville Medhora, is an Austinite, a UT (business school) student and a racquetball player. Could I possibly have more things in common with another blogger? As for his posts, they are absolutely frank, entertaining and insightful.
FreeRider: As the banner proclaims, FreeRider is about "Totally Useless Vaporizations About Money and Investing and the System of Natural Liberty". The posts aren't frequent, but worth reading, especially if you are partial to charts.
Posted by galatime at 02:36 PM | Comments (1)
April 04, 2005
CotC, Roundtable and such.
The weekly Carnival of the Capitalists (CotC) is up at the Law & Entrepreneurship News blog. The CotC is usually light on topics related to trading/investing, but the posts provide good fodder for an active mind.
Although I'm taking a break from the Roundtable, my fellow bloggers are keeping it alive; check out the posts on McDonalds (MCD) by Levi Bauer, JALOTI, Tom Ott and Ron Sen (ChartStudent).
And finally, a short article by Jeff Neal, published at Optionetics, on how to use ratio backspreads to lock in your profits on bullish positions. Complement these with collar option strategies, and you'll have good control of the risk/reward tradeoff on your large equity positions.
Posted by galatime at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)
March 30, 2005
Optionetics: Mindset, Technique & Discipline
At times like these, its best to go back to the fundamentals: trading plan, risk management, psychology and such. Optionetics has a timely article, authored by Jay Kaeppel, that reviews the key success factors for a trader. I've tried to incorporate several of these into my trading plan, but internalizing these into my day-to-day trading activities remains a work in progress.
Excerpts:
Bottom-line: “Treat trading like a business.”
Posted by galatime at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2005
Taylortree, B. Steenbarger & Carnival of the Capitalists
Mike at Taylortree continues to offer an excellent compilation of notes in his latest "Cumulative Knowledge" post. Check out the links to two interviews @ Real World Trading.
Brett Steenbarger (Trader + Psychologist) offers a list of reading material on topics such as creativity, positive psychology, greatness and exemplary achievement. Psychological factors are probably more critical to success in trading (in fact, in any activity); yet how often do we factor those into our trading systems?
This week's Carnival of the Capitalists is up at the Beyond the Brand blog. For those of you new to this phenomenon, the CotC is a weekly edition that features posts on business, management, marketing, accounting, finance, economics, sales, capitalism, ...
PS: I'm slated to host the CotC on June 6th.
Posted by galatime at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2005
The Edge, 70's Deja Vu, etc.
Every so often, I come upon some excellent blog posts, the kind where the author has taken a unique and quite thought-provoking approach. Here's a few that I think are worth your time:
Mark Cuban @ BlogMaverick
The Sport of Business: Mark's comments about engaging in an activity only if he can learn something from it are worth noting; not many of us think about (or can implement) such an approach in our daily lives. He talks in detail about the need to develop and retain an "edge", without which there is no chance of success in any form of competition.
Mike Taylor @ Taylortree
Canary in a Coal Mine: With an intent to compare the present state of (economic) affairs in the US to those during the 1970s, Mike finds old Business Week issues that have headlines that are eerily similar to those in the media today. His analysis of Baby Boomer populations points to a scenario where the 2000 - 2012 period may not be rosy for stock market investors.
Christopher W. Mayer @ SafeHaven
The Riddle of the Nile: The author talks about how innovations in one area (Harold Hurst's modeling of the river Nile's floods) were applied to a completely unrelated field (Mandelbrot's study of cotton prices) with remarkable success. I've always been amazed by cross-overs of ideas across scientific disciplines, and the gush of new research that tends to follow such events.
Posted by galatime at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2005
Business Blogging Awards - Congratulations!
The Business Blogging Awards were announced yesterday; in the finance/trading categories, the winners were:
Congratulations!
Posted by galatime at 01:15 PM | Comments (2)
February 13, 2005
Roundtable, Night Owl, Option Screen, etc.
I was busy celebrating my birthday this weekend, so things were a bit light on the blogging end.
First up, this week's Roundtable covered Toyota Motors (TM) and Agilent (A); check out the posts by Tom Ott, Levi Bauer, JALOTI, & Ron Sen. I skipped Toyota, but did pick a Bull Put Credit trade for Agilent last week, and so far it's in the black. Here's the P&L table for my Roundtable option strategies.
There's no Night Owl session from the LBR group tonite. Check out the archive of my summaries of these valuable charting sessions with Chris Terry.
And finally, check out the Option Screen for stocks with unusually heavy option volumes on Friday. There's always potential trades lurking in there!
Posted by galatime at 06:23 PM | Comments (1)
January 19, 2005
Option traders can be funny too!
Posted by galatime at 03:02 PM | Comments (0)
January 15, 2005
Site Updates: 2005 Portfolio, Links, Categories, etc.
A quick note on some updates to my blog:
* The 2004 trading portfolio (all positions closed) has been archived here.
* The 2005 portfolio is linked here, and has one open position - the TJX calendar spread that I added on Jan 14th. There is also a permanent link on the left side-bar, under the "Real-time P&L" title.
* I've reduced the number of categories for my posts for easier browsing. Note the pull-down menus on the left-side bar - you can browse the GalaTime archives by date, month or category!
* I've updated the links (to other sites/blogs) on the right side-bar; check out the new category Daily Market Views at the very top.
REQUESTING READER FEEDBACK: I'd really like to hear from you on what you like (and what you don't :-), as well as requests for new features, easier navigation, etc.
Cheers,
-Kaushik
Posted by galatime at 03:36 PM | Comments (0)
December 27, 2004
Trading Plan v2.0
As indicated earlier, I have updated my trading plan w.r.t. trading candidates, stop-loss and profit-taking strategies, loss management, etc.
It's posted at http://www.galatime.com/tradingplan. I encourage you to use the links on the right sidebar (categorized into Expectancy, Money Management & Trading Psychology) for further discussion of the trading principles that I refer to in my plan.
Posted by galatime at 08:51 AM | Comments (0)
December 24, 2004
Happy Holidays
Wish y'all a Merry Christmas! Have fun & be safe!
I'm on vacation, in Missouri, and posts will be intermittent until Jan 1st. Meanwhile, check out the entire GalaTime archives.
Cheers,
-Kaushik
Posted by galatime at 06:45 PM | Comments (0)
December 23, 2004
Trading Plan Update
As indicated in my recent portfolio update, I've closed my trades for the year, with a net 4% loss. Over the next week, I'll post my updated trading plan, with the following changes:
I'll also make some changes to the blog - archive the 2004 portfolio & paper trades, add stop-loss & exit details for open positions, etc. Suggestions are always welcome!
Until January options expiration, I'll continue to add paper trades to the Idea-lab portfolio, to test my updated trading plan. However, I'd also like to move from paper trading to actual trades, initially with limited capital - nothing teaches better than putting some skin in the game!
Posted by galatime at 09:52 AM | Comments (0)
December 16, 2004
Message from Bill Cara (TraderWizard)
Bill Cara (of the TraderWizard blog) is taking a break, and will be back with a new website/blog soon. He can be reached at carabill@rogers.com.
He's asked to forward the following message to his readers:
Hi TW Networkers,
The Trader Wizard is going to take a holiday. For business reasons, the web site has been shut down. Readers can reach me directly at carabill@rogers.com
When I return, in January, I will have a different style blog, and maybe even a new name.
In the next few weeks, in addition to enjoying the holidays with my family, I will be hard at work at a number of things:
· to build an investment fund for the China projects of Michael Wong
· to finish my book draft ‘Say No! to Wall Street’
· to consult to the credit union system in North America
· to build my automated ‘buy or sell’ decision models
· to consider how I might improve my web presence with a new website and blog.
After the Dow passed north of 10,400, I felt that equity markets entered a zone of rampant speculation, where risk/reward ratios became unreasonable. In that scenario, I feel it is best to step back and take a deep breath.
So maybe my readers might think it wise to consider doing the same.
Seasons greetings, and see you soon…
Bill Cara
For the Trader Wizard
Posted by galatime at 10:48 PM | Comments (0)
Suggested Holiday Reading
Here's what I've been reading recently, to broaden my understanding of technical analysis, trading psychology, and such. Most of these aren't "mainstream" sources of trading articles, so it might be worth your while to scan through them.
Technical Analysis:
Trading Psychology:
Options:
Posted by galatime at 03:39 PM | Comments (1)
December 14, 2004
GalaTime reviewed by Forbes!
Wow! GalaTime made it to Forbes' List of Investing Blogs; there's a short review of each blog by Matt Rand, with a summary and the "best" and "worst" features.
I'd like to know if readers agree with the reviewer on this:
"WORST: Lots of links within the site seem to lead you in circles."
I figured that providing links within each post would help readers easily jump to relevant articles/references - but apparently, not!
Glad to see that ST Roundtable member Bill (TraderWizard) was mentioned as well.
Other blogs in the list: Random Roger's Big Picture (Forbes' Favorite), Inventing Money, MaoXian, Seeking Alpha, The Kirk Report, CanSlim Investing & Trader Mike.
Posted by galatime at 09:22 AM | Comments (3)
December 11, 2004
Watch out for lefties!
And now, for something totally out of the blue - here's an article from the Discovery Channel for light weekend reading. It looks into why left-handedness has survived among humans, and finds that left-handers survived because "they were better at fighting, having a built-in advantage in combat with a right-handed opponent".
Other findings include:
Well, what do you know - I'm left-handed! While playing racquetball, it is definitely an advantage. No comments on the advantage in combat :)
Oh, one more thing - "In industrialized cultures, the theoretical advantage enjoyed by left-handers would be cancelled out by long-range weapons such as the gun." - Duh!
PS: With Bill (TraderWizard) and Tom (SixthWorld) unavailable for the Security Traders Roundtable, we're taking a break this week. Check out our previous Roundtable posts, and the P&L statement to see how we're doing so far.
Posted by galatime at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2004
Blog Updates
Here's some recent changes to my blog:
Posted by galatime at 04:31 PM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2004
Hello Again!
I'm back from vacation - had a great time, went to Miami, St. Petersburg & the Florida Keys.
First, the bad news - GalaTime got 50 spam comments over the past 10 days. I have now switched to moderated comments to atleast prevent this junk from getting posted to the blog. Since they use multiple IP addresses, it's not going to be easy to block them - any suggestions would greatly help.
I've been away only for a few trading days, but it seems like there's so much that I need to catch up on:
Posted by galatime at 09:50 AM | Comments (2)
November 21, 2004
Vacation (Happy Holidays!)
I'm off to Florida for a 10-day vacation! Happy Thanksgiving to those in the US. See y'all on December 2nd.
Meanwhile, take some time to review GalaTime's archives & the Security Traders Roundtable posts.
Cheers,
-Kaushik
Posted by galatime at 09:43 AM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2004
Explaining Market Success by Brett Steenbarger
A recurring theme in interviews with top traders, and the best books on trading, is the importance of psychology. Brett Steenbarger personifies this - he's a psychologist, an active trader, and Director of Trader Development for Kingstree Trading, LLC. He also publishes a daily blog of his take on the market - based on a set of indicators that he has developed.
His recent article on market success explains that a trader must adopt a model that "fits with his or her basic personality, outlook, and experience sets". Each one of us can find a unique way to consistently profit from the market - however, most traders end up jumping from one system to another, never taking the time to understand themselves, or the "edge" that they have (if any) over other market participants.
Do check out his extensive set of articles on how you can improve your trading mind-set.
Posted by galatime at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)
October 09, 2004
Performance Review
One of the most difficult aspects of trading is the lack of structure - there's no well-defined goals, time lines or metrics; there's innumerable alternatives (stocks, bonds, options, futures, etc.) to choose from, and a million ways to make (or lose) money. Although this does make it challenging and rewarding, it forces you to become your own critic every so often (if not every moment), and conduct a "performance review".
For the past few months, I've been trading options (covered calls and naked puts) with mixed success. Some of the things I have struggled with:
To improve upon my win/loss ratio and net returns, I have decided to make some changes to my trading plan. However, I would like to begin by paper trading for the next 2-3 months to test the effectiveness of my new plan, and actually enter into positions beginning Jan '05. Some of the changes I intend to make include:
I'll be posting more details on this soon ... suggestions welcome in the meantime!
Posted by galatime at 09:29 PM | Comments (0)
September 29, 2004
Option Screener @ GalaTime
For easy, real-time access to my watchlist, I have created an option screener at http://www.galatime.com/optionscreen, also accessible via the 
link on the sidebar. The screener looks for all option trades that meet the criteria listed on this page; for details on why I chose these criteria, look at my trading plan.
A few things to note:
Posted by galatime at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2004
Trading Plan
The best approach to trading is to think of it as a business. There are more than a million ways to conduct business and make profits; similarly, there are over a million ways to make money in trading. No one method is right or wrong – what matters is whether it suits your skills, experience and personality. To carry the comparison further, successful trading - like successful businesses - requires a well thought out plan.
Although I have been trading options since earlier this year, I haven't put in the effort to define my plan in detail. I'll do so over the next few days on this blog. For easy access, I'll maintain the trading plan on a separate page at http://www.galatime.com/tradingplan. There are several trading principles (expectancy, money management, position sizing, etc.) that must be considered while developing the plan. Please refer to the sidebar links on the plan page for detailed discussions of these principles.
The picture below summarizes the need for a trading plan.
Source: Day Trading Tutor
Note: Although some of these concepts might seem specific to day trading, I think that any one who chooses to particpate in the financial markets (trader or investor, short-term or long-term, stocks or options) must consider elements such as risk, expected return, worst-case loss, etc.
Posted by galatime at 07:57 PM | Comments (0)
September 14, 2004
http://www.galatime.com
To make my blog more user-friendly and feature-rich, I have decided to move it to a new domain: http://www.galatime.com, hosted at TCH, and powered by Movable Type 3.1. I have imported all previous posts from BlogSpot, and added categories for easier navigation.
I plan to add more features over time, including:
- Summary of my trading goals, methodology and money management
- Table of current options portfolio
- A list of potential trading candidates
- Participation in mock trading (with a $100,000 portfolio) at Investopedia
Posted by galatime at 11:08 AM | Comments (0)
August 30, 2004
Systematic vs. Chaotic
Trading Markets (via Yahoo) has a timely article on using systems vs. discretion in trading. It reminded me of Jack Schwager's Market Wizards books, where a larger % of the featured traders used strict rules and back-tested systems, and stressed the need to wring emotions out of trading.
Some "old" advice might be of help:
"It is best to do things systematically, since we are only human, and disorder is our worst enemy."
-Hesiod (Greek didactic poet, ~800 BC)
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Posted by galatime at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)
August 29, 2004
From 1999 to 2004 . . .
The 1999 bull market was my introduction to trading stocks and options. As you can guess, this resulted in a very lop-sided education. But in 2000, I did have the sense not to invest a large % of my net worth in the market and thus avoided a large drawdown. However, I took a break from trading until 2003, to focus on work, school (evening MBA) and a brand-new family. This helped me put aside a reasonable amount of trading capital, without neglecting my 401k or other savings.
Now I'm back, and far more serious about becoming a trader with the ultimate goal of "meals for a lifetime".
In March , I began using stock screens and IBD (Investors' Business Daily) as the primary source of ideas for options. I transitioned to PowerOptions in May - they offer an excellent service in screening options directly using all possible combinations of risk/return metrics, option greeks, fundamental metrics of the underlying equities, etc. Their strongest advantange is in letting you run screens for specific option trading strategies - e.g. covered calls, straddles, etc.
I changed from Scottrade to Interactive Brokers to minimize commissions, formed rules to avoid illiquid option contracts, and stuck to limit orders to get orders filled at my preferred price points.
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Posted by galatime at 06:33 PM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2004
First things first . . .
I'm going to spend the next few days creating links to my favorite blogs, options-related sites, and such. I'll also publish my trade history and current portfolio of options.
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Posted by galatime at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2004
Why did I decide to blog?
- It's (supposed to be) fun!
- Chronicle my experiences as a novice trader.
- Collect bits of wisdom from my readers.
- Work towards the goal of "meals for a lifetime", and ...
- Have a Gala time along the way!
Posted by galatime at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)