Education Center
I have one technical question for you if you have the time. On several stocks, the candlesticks on the chart will have a small candlestick with a large extended wick. These are red in color. They are a gap up and then the price recedes. What is up with this candlestick and what does it mean and what action is usually required when this happens, buy, hold or sell?
The candlestick symbol to which you refer may mean a reversal if it is at the top of a run. The gap up, then recession from the high and lower close (long wick), means sellers pushed the stock back down but then buyers rallied it back up to the close and hence the smaller candlestick […]
Can you discuss how to distinguish between a double top and a consolidation? There are many stocks these days that look like they could be interpreted as either one of these formations.
A double top is a bearish pattern characterized by a stock’s or index’ move to a high then a move back down, followed by a second attempt at a high that fails, the second try usually occurring on lower volume. That is unhealthy price/volume action which typically can’t boost the stock over the previous high. […]
You always point out the delta when buying an option. Is it better to have a high delta or a low one?
An option delta measures approximately the change in the option price for every $1 change in the underlying stock price. For example, if a call option has a delta of 50 (it can also be shown as 0.50), for every $1 the underlying stock moves up or down, the option will move, all other things […]
Regarding 10, 18 & 50 day MVA. Why do you measure on this reference, with MVA’s, why not, 15, 23, and 55 MVA’s or 20, 28, & 60 MVA’s. Why does it have to be these particular days?
When looking at the market we learned the hard way to watch what the market was telling you and then react accordingly. No matter how smart I thought I was about the market and started feeling certain that something had to happen, the market always seemed to show me no, it did not have to […]
What is the best way to check if institutional buyers are getting involved in a stock?
As intitutions (mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies) control 70% of the money that is invested in the market, they are typically involved in many of the issued traded on the larger exchanges. They typically move in stocks that trade in excess of 100K shares per day so they can move in and out or […]
Can the PUT option plays on the report also be used where one could go SHORT. Or, do you advise PUT and SHORT on a play or alert when that is the case? Next, several trailing stops were triggered last week. How does the alert service provide us with where a trailing stop should be set once an alert is triggered?
We prefer buying put options on downside plays because we know going into the play what our maximum risk is. In other words, the most we can lose on a put play is our investment in the option if it eventually expires without us selling it or exercising it. With a short sale if the […]
I look at after-market activity for the previous day and pre-market data before I start the new investing day. I see in a number of companies shares moving more than 20% up and down in post and pre-market action on ECN’s, usually with low volume. What is the best way to take part in Pre and Post Market activity?
Trading before and after the open and close has improved in the last four years with more efficient trading systems and better liquidity. Anything to help match up orders helps, and with more individuals participating it has helped liquidity. One of the problems with trading outside ‘normal’ hours is that there is no market maker; […]
How is Implied Volatility taken into consideration in your option plays?
Implied volatility is a component of option pricing along with the time until expiration, whether the option is in, at, our out of the money, etc. What implied volatility tries to do is assign a value to the assumed range of movement a stock might have during the life of the option. There are two […]
Can you please tell me where I can find information intraday to know if the institutions are on the selling side or buy side.
During any individual session there are several signals we look for to see if institutions are net buyers are sellers. The fundamental indication is whether the market overall is rising or falling on stronger volume. If volume is running stronger, then the market move has institutions behind it as they control over 70% of the […]
How can an investor know when the stock looks as though it is recovering, whether it is just a head fake, or a real recovery?
Very good question. Try to think of stocks as going through phases of life. There is a larger phase over the years, and then there phases within the larger moves. When a stock is trending higher it tends to follow a routine: base, breakout, run higher until it exhausts the base, then bases again for […]
