Do You Have Discipline In Your Corner?

Congratulations go to the New England Patriots for winning this year's Super Bowl. It is perhaps a mixed blessing for investors, as any time a team from the American Football Conference (AFC) wins the Super Bowl, the stock market closes lower for the year. Although, I think investing on the outcome of a football game is not going to get you to where you want to be financially.

Of all the tools available to the trader, none is more important than his or her own mind! Lack of mental discipline has to be a significant cause of losses in the marketplace. Why else would traders with years of experience and reliable systems fail to be consistent winners? Show a 6-year-old child a chart and he will tell you if a market is going up or down by simple observation. Yet, 80% or 90% of all traders end up as losers. The market doesn't beat you, you beat yourself! You are your own worst enemy!

Challenges To Your Mental Discipline

Challenges of a trader's mental discipline exist in many areas of the marketplace and appear in many different forms. Virtually every trader who has spent any amount of time in the commodity business has experienced one or more of the following upsets to his mentality: Continue reading "Do You Have Discipline In Your Corner?"

Shocking News From Amazon And Google

After the bell yesterday, Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced, to the surprise of many, that they made a profit. That, of course, is good news if you were long their stock. The Trade Triangle technology got this one wrong, but also got it right as well, let me explain.

Prior to Amazon's earnings announcement, the Trade Triangles were on the sidelines having received a signal to cover any short positions on January 23rd at $314.75. While the Trade Triangles missed the big 10% up-move in after-hours trading yesterday, it certainly did not cause any harm either. Not getting caught wrong-footed in the market is an important element to successful investing. Or to use Warren Buffett's number one investment rule: #1. Do not lose money. His second investment rule is: #2 Do not forget rule number one.

Jeff Bezos, the chief honcho at Amazon and its driving force, decided to hold back on some some of his expansion spending and give investors something to smile about while placating the street, which was beginning to think that Amazon would never make money. Continue reading "Shocking News From Amazon And Google"

Positions In Apple and Yahoo Before Today's Earnings

After the close of business today, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) will release their earnings. I thought it would be interesting to share with you how the Trade Triangles are positioned going into the release of their earnings.

As always, expectations are extremely high for Apple. But it's a different picture for Yahoo who is sitting on a $40 billion cash hoard from their stake in Alibaba.

The question will be, how many iPhones did Apple sell and how did the iMac perform in comparison to the previous quarter? Did people opt for the iPhone 6+ or did they simply go with the regular iPhone 6? Continue reading "Positions In Apple and Yahoo Before Today's Earnings"

How to Perform Serious Sector Analysis Using ETFs

In today's video, I'll be examining nine different sectors of the economy and analyzing their trends using SPDR ETFs. Out of the nine different sectors, I'll be looking at three of these sectors with strong uptrends, while the remaining six sectors are in a transition stage.

I will, of course, be applying the Trade Triangle technology to each of these nine sectors so you can clearly see how to put each of these sectors to work you.

Creating an ETF sector portfolio is easy and is not as difficult as you may imagine. The first thing you need to do is create a separate portfolio in your Portfolio Manager and enter these nine ETF symbols. Continue reading "How to Perform Serious Sector Analysis Using ETFs"

Europe Is All Out Of Options

Money makes the world go around, but it’s the trends, the big trends in money, that we find interesting and profitable.

This morning ECB president, Mario Draghi, who famously stated a couple of years ago that the ECB would do "whatever it takes" to stimulate the European economy. Well, clearly that little sound bite and some awkward moments (Greece, Spain, Portugal) were not enough as Europe remains mired in a recession.

So what does Europe do? Well, they trot out Mario Draghi again to announce another stimulus package. So far, the ECB has been wrong on its growth forecast as well as its inflation forecast. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence in their forecasting ability. Here is my take and it's simple - they have no idea how to get out of this economic hole. I never bought into the idea that getting out of a hole, meant you had to dig a deeper hole.

How are the markets going to react and translate this latest move by the ECB?

In today's video, I'll be looking at all the major markets. I'll take a look at how they are reacting to the ECB’s announcement of its 60 billion monthly bond buying program slated to continue well into 2016. Continue reading "Europe Is All Out Of Options"