iBankCoin
The first hit is always on the house.
Joined Aug 2, 2009
1,847 Blog Posts

Finding Confidence in Trading

I asked the question last night, “How many of you show up to trade on a daily basis, confident in your efforts?” The responses were several “LOL’s.”

If trading comes down to you showing up to press buttons and hope, then I’m glad you’ve found me.

If you’ve followed my blog here on iBC, you’ve seen that I write, speak, trade and reply to comments with confidence. With every peak and trough in the markets, I’ve never waivered from my analysis or trade plan. The outcomes have been right, and this creates confidence.

The tickers we seek out in After Hours with Option Addict – when I see those stocks topping the charts day in and day out…confidence.

If you want to start finding more confidence in what you’re doing in your trading career, start focusing on the planning aspect. We aren’t here to just throw stuff at a wall and hope it works. If you’ve watched me trade, I am patient in the process, the mechanics are pre-defined, and location of the trade is paramount.

You want my opinion? As you start applying these mechanics that we discuss in After Hours with Option Addict, confidence will come. The discipline around trade planning will eliminate the antsy feeling you get with the randomness of your motions.

If you want one thing to work on to help eliminate emotion and build confidence – trade location. Define the entry point that requires little adverse price movement to prove you’re wrong.

This will eliminate 50% of the questions I get via comments and e-mail as well.

 

 

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40 comments

  1. wstn_saga

    OA,
    Can’t say enough that this has made the biggest difference in my trading since following you in After Hours. It has help to take out a lot of the emotion when putting of positions. Thanks and keep up the outstanding work.

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  2. rajusus

    Hello OA
    Did you dump SOL ?

    Hopefully this wont be another FFIV 🙂

    thanks

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    • Option Addict

      No.

      What do you mean by FFIV?

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    • JStar

      FFIV is a great example of trade location. as soon as it broke down below the wedge ($88), pull the trigger and exist with almost all premium. can always reenter if it corrects.

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  3. matt_bear

    509 good enough. rolled aapl to november

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    • boilmeimirish

      Thanks Matt, I just posted a question on this in the last thread.

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      • lanforce

        boil – I left you a note in the prior thread on this.

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      • matt_bear

        holding options over the weekend that expire the following friday, more often than not, take a hit monday morning.

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        • autumnalcity

          Yes, Theta counts weekend days.

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        • autumnalcity

          Shit, I should have said,

          “Yes, Theta works weekends.”

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        • boilmeimirish

          Check out the 1-day chart–you think we might be climbing the WoW right now, at aversion?

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          • lanforce

            Boil – a tale of two Apples.

            Last time the stock was in the 506 range was September. The new iphone announcement happened – The stock went from 506 to 445 in less than a week.

            A reminder that AAPL announces earnings on the 24th.

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  4. John

    Well written pal!

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  5. StocksRider

    OA, does it concern you that YGE is taking out prior day’s lows two days in a row?

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    • Option Addict

      Not totally applicable in a range. I use the h/l method post breakout.

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      • StocksRider

        Thank you. I have options expiring today held for long time and good gains. I was going to book them. But getting tempted to reenter here for Nov monthlies. Would you?

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        • lanforce

          Rider – that’s what I did. Rolled my Oct 6’s into 8’s and pocketed the difference.

          Target is still 10, AFAIK.

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    • JStar

      makes for better enter if not in it – like me

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    • JRog

      Rider, the lows you are talking about look like a perfect bullish continuation “flag pattern”. That’s not a bad signal.

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  6. Raul3

    You do good work OA, getting the confidence give one a huge edge

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  7. jdp

    is there a difference between afterhours w/ OA and trading addicts?

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  8. lanforce

    The biggest confidence comes from knowing I am (relatively) immune to the market when it comes to OA picks.

    In the past, I was up at 5:15am watching after hours trading and my whole emotional perspective was formed at 6:35am (CA) to see whether the DOW was gonna be up or down.

    NOW, I’ve learned to LOVE seeing the market tank – knowing that I will make money while others are losing their shirts.

    The other thing I’ve learned is that good entry equals good exit. If the target has started to pop, it’s WAAAAAY to late for entry. The market has already noticed.

    “Get it while the world is ignoring it”, as OA always says.

    And a trade plan – set your target, your stops, and your bail points – then staple them to your forehead – even better, staple them to the forehead of a loved one, or the family dog.

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    • cheesetrader

      high quality stuff

      For me, confidence grows from having a plan and excuting it – from entry to exit.

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  9. StocksRider

    Bought LOGM Nov calls and GRPN Nov puts.

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  10. mrboulders

    Following you on DANG – put my order in at the price I was comfortable with and waited. Sure enough it came back enough for the fill. Just got my fill on RENN as well.

    Playing the trend channel on SIRI has been working out really nicely too, after we discussed a while back. The volume pocket above $4 starts to thin out.
    Targeting $4.25

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  11. mike418

    STNG having a great day. Was this an OA pick a week or two back?
    Will this move launch the other shippers?

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  12. JStar

    FSLR blu through 1st target of $46.75 and almost hit 2nd traget of $50. I’m out. still hold stock

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  13. JStar

    CRUS going down in flames. Good call OA dumping on Tues.

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  14. mike418

    Going through FINVIZ like I see OA do nightly and saw GT. Nice setup and not much overhead.

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    • lanforce

      Doing the comps, I’d see a more interesting move in Cooper (which is news driven, admittedly).

      As to GT, it diverged from the DOW more yesterday – I’d look to buy a dip.

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      • mike418

        I’m not following you on Cooper. We are looking for setups outlined here that have proven to work.

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  15. lanforce

    Rolled my CBS 60’s up for a tidy 300% profit (52 week high yesterday).

    Entered Nov 65’s at a nice price of .15 (Looking at open interest I guess mine were the 2nd and 3d options ever traded). I hope that’s not an omen.

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