“bandwagon” theory

Traders often hear about “tulip mania,” the “South Sea bubble” and other similar events where traders have followed the crowd to send prices to extreme levels. You might add the technology dot.com bubble of the late 1990s or the more recent housing bubble to the list of those events where traders got carried away with higher and higher prices. Everyone wanted to be part of the action – the “crowd psychology” or “bandwagon” theory. The same type of crowd response applies to price action on a smaller scale, too. For example, when a market is coming up from a basing area on the charts, “smart money” is responsible for the majority of the initial buying. As people jump on board, we see the bandwagon effect, and that bandwagon pushes prices up. Volume tends to surge at its peak, certainly on the buy side, during the markup phase in the middle. Later, toward the end of the trend, smart money is not doing the buying; somebody else is. The smart money is doing the selling. The market tops by rolling over or sometimes with a spike top. We can see the crowd impact expressed in price and in volume. Just think about what happens among professional traders when the stock market goes up even when the fundamentals don’t provide much support for such a move. Prices often rise because institutional money managers feel pressured to follow the crowd and chase performance. How can they explain why their results are below the industry benchmarks if they don’t go with the crowd and buy the stocks everyone else has in their portfolios? That rationale alone can drive markets higher than they “should” go.

trend trading, momentum, swing, price action, trading futures & equities

"If you are ready to give up everything else - to study the whole history and background of the market ... as a medical student studies anatomy. If you can do all that, and, in addition, you have the cool nerves of a gambler, the sixth sense of a kind of clairvoyant, and the courage of a lion, you have a ghost of a chance." 
---Bernard Baruch

I think that expertise is the connection between knowing and doing.

"Some degree of derivative learning is necessary - BUT - much learning does not teach understanding. Only through experience and extensive practice and application will understanding and expertise arise."

-Heraclitus, 475 BC

New trader to Master Trader:

 "Sir, what is the secret of your success"? "Two words."

"And, sir, what are they?" "Right decisions."

"And how do you make the right decisions." "One word."

"And, sir, what is that one word?" "Experience."

"And, sir, how do you get experience?" "Two words."

"And, sir, what are those two words?" "Wrong decisions."

S&P 500 cash market analysis and outlook

the line of least resistance is upward and this pullback is going to present us with a new menu with new low risk setups, manage open positions and be patient with initiating new ones, and for you that want to short now, plain and simple don't, if the market is going to tank there is going to be plenty of time to get on board, read the post below and don't predict, but follow your proven game plan

“Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.”

~Lao Tzu

Are you prepared ?

"Being prepared, on a few occasions in a lifetime, to act promptly in scale in doing some simple and logical thing will often dramatically improve the financial results of that lifetime. A few major opportunities, clearly recognisable as such, will usually come to one who continuously searches and waits, with a curious mind, loving diagnosis involving multiple variables. And then all that is required is a willingness to bet heavily when the odds are extremely favourable, using resources available as a result of prudence and patience in the past."

- Charlie Munger

UNG - b - now

above weekly view and below daily charts

higher low, buyable gap ( above 50 sma ), and now a breakout through last swing high, trend changes at this point on daily time frame, now looking for follow through and for the price to accelerate higher, and then to have an orderly pullback


<a href="http://www.hyipdata.com">http://www.hyipdata.com</a>

“If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.”

~ Lao Tzu

as long as we're hitting new highs upward trend continues

at this time the trend is up and we don't fight the trend, if you have some shorts on keep the stops tight

What to do now? Wait for a pullback, if we get it, to initiate new long positions and wait for new shorts for now as it doesn't pay to fight the trend.

<a href="http://www.hyipdata.com">http://www.hyipdata.com</a>

sitting on your hands

waiting looks as the best action right now, hopefully next several days of price action will resolve situation and give us a new trend and new opportunities, make sure you wait for follow through ~ read below post, the art of useful waiting

the art of useful waiting

"In chess we have the obligation to move; there is no option to skip a turn if you can't identify a direction that suits you. One of the great challenges of the game is how to make progress when there are no obvious moves, when action is required, not reaction. The great Polish chess master and wit Tartakower half-joking called this the "nothing to do" phase of the game. In reality, it is here that we find what separates pretenders from contenders.

"The obligation to move can be a burden to a player without strategic vision. Unable to form a plan when there isn't an immediate crisis, he is likely to try to precipitate a crisis himself and usually ends up damaging his own position. We learned from Petrosian that vigilant inaction is a viable strategy in chess, but the art of useful waiting takes consummate skill. What exactly do you do when there is nothing to do?

"We call these phases "positional play" because our goal is to impose our position. You must avoid creating weaknesses, find small ways to improve your pieces, and think small -- but never stop thinking. One tends to get lazy in quiet positions, which is why positional masters such as Karpov and Petrosian were so deadly. They were always alert and were happy to go long stretches without any real action on the board if it meant gaining a tiny advantage, and then another. Eventually their opponents would find themselves without any good moves at all, as if they were standing on quicksand.

In life there is no such obligation to move. If you can't find a useful plan, you can watch television, stick with business as usual, and believe that no news is good news. Human beings are brilliantly creative at finding ways to pass time in nonconstructive ways. At these times, a true strategist shines by finding the means to make progress, to strengthen his position and prepare for the inevitable conflict. And conflict, we cannot forget, is inevitable.

- Garry Kasparov, How Life Imitates Chess

Not a day goes by that a trader doesn't have to choose, between what he wants and what he's afraid to lose.

There is no wrong way to trade, or to live. There are only results.

What do we do now? As The Trend Rider you took some profits during the last upward move and for any positions left you have to honour your stops which will make sure you don't give anything back, just in case.

train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose

ENJOY WISDOM video

for traders, one way to achieve that state, "no fear" state of mind is to trade at the size where "this trade" doesn't matter, this is a game of probabilities and your job is not to win every trade but to be ahead over series of trades

trading

It's not easy, but at times; The best time to go long is when you cover your shorts, and the best time to go short is when you sell your longs.

The greatest traders are scientists and artists.

"After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in aesthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are artists as well."

- Albert Einstein

good advice for traders and everyone else by Siddhārtha Gautama

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason, and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."

- Siddhārtha Gautama (Buddha)

trade from Dec. 20th: POT

                                   keep stop @ 41.90 ~ Don't Be Scared To Take Profits

good traders have a special talent...

“Good traders have a special talent for trading just as good musicians and good athletes have talents for their fields. Great traders are ones who are absorbed by the talent. They don't have the talent — the talent has them.”
~ Ed Seykota

follow up: POT

                                   new stop is now @ 41.89

Remember to continue to take things one day at a time, practice proper money and position management, and honour your stops.

follow up: POT

                                          looks like another leg up under development