Where’s Harvey?

I know, I know, it’s been ages since I’ve posted anything! There are two main reasons for this:

1. The markets, as always, are so full of wonderful trades, sometimes it just doesn’t leave time to post.

2. I ran out of things to say.

That second one is the main issue. My last series of videos reached a natural conclusion with the final Let’s Get Practical film.

Doing more live trading videos isn’t really where I want to go, because they are of little value (they’re all the same after a while) and because they cost a lot in lost revenue while recording them (for various reasons I won’t bore you with).

Doing more content-based videos I think gives more value, but I want to make sure they are genuinely useful. So if you have suggestions for topics you’d like me to cover, do get in touch and let me know.

Anyway, back to trading. As I mentioned, the markets are awesome right now. I keep getting emails asking “Does your strategy still work?” or “Are you still trading?” etc.

Listen: a properly developed strategy that is based on fundamental market mechanics (or “price” as I prefer to call it!) will always work. My strategy, as anyone who’s read my course knows, is based entirely on price, not some wonder-indicator that only works in market that happens to be doing one particular thing – be that going up down or sideways.

As long as prices move, the strategy works. And prices move every day the market is open. All you need do is find the stocks whose prices are moving the most on any given day.

There are various ways of doing that, but here’s a really really simple one you can use right now: Pick 25 Nasdaq 100 stocks that fit in your price range.

In other words, make your daily watch list, a list of 25 stocks that come from the Nasdaq 100 list. Pick stocks that are trading within your price range as defined by your money management strategy. For example, stocks priced between $10 and $30.

It’s hardly scientific, and it’s certainly not the most efficient way of selecting a watch list. But as many people try and over complicate things, it’s as good a way as any of “dumbing down” and actually getting started (on paper, naturally).

Here are three trades from Monday that were Nasdaq 100 component stocks:

AAPL:

Ok, possibly a bad example I know, because it’s a high priced stock. Don’t forget though, with dynamic sizing you can make most stocks fit most budgets. So if you can’t trade 1000 AAPL shares, why not trade 100? It moves so well you can still make a good profit with smaller size.

Mondays trade went something like this (numbers relate to the circles on the chart):

1. Entered a short position.
2. Covered the short for +$0.50 (= $50 @ 100 shares, or $500 @ 1000 shares)
3. Took another short
4. Covered here for +$1.50 (= $150 @ 100 shares, or $1500 @ 1000 shares)

So even trading just 100 shares, there was a straightforward $200 profit to be had. For those who prefer the afternoon session, have a look at that lovely rally in the last couple of hours – easily $2/share to be had there (so another $200 profit if trading just 100 shares).

Right, next one:

AMZN:

1. Took a short
2. Covered for break even
3. Took another short on the break of the very obvious support
4. Covered for +$0.70 (= $70 @ 100 shares, or $700 @ 1000 shares)

And again, a lovely rally in the afternoon session, worth another $1/share without any trouble.

One more…

EBAY:

1. Took a short here
2. Covered here for +$0.20 (=$20 @ 100 shares, or $200 @ 1000 shares)

Ebay is a much lower priced stock, so although the profit per share was much lower than the other two, you could easily trade larger size to make up for it.

So there you have it – three Nasdaq 100 stocks providing simple trades. Now Monday was a particularly easy day to trade, but the point is there are easy trades like this every day – if you look for them.