I love to trade options on stocks with a lot of momentum. What this means is that I want to trade those stocks, Exchange Traded Funds or Indexes, that are moving fast and far. The way I see it, if I am going to put my money in the market, I want to place it where it will work as hard as possible for me. You may have attended my free webshop on Monster Momentum plays during which I introduce a couple of the technical tools that I use to find and trade this strategy, but let me show you today some other pieces to this strategy, and how this can be a boost to your trading account.
The first step to trading momentum is that you need to find a stock that has the capability to move fast and far. These stocks generally have a dollar to two dollar average daily range during normal trading. Once the momentum picks up they can trend twenty to thirty points or so in a matter of a few months. Sometimes this momentum is sparked by news announcements such as earnings or a new drug approval, and sometimes it is just a stock that becomes heavily bought or sold by institutions. Whatever the case, once you learn to read technicals, you will be able to spot the building momentum in time to profit from the big move. As we are heading into the thick of earnings season, this article will show you some ways to trade the post earnings momentum. Watch for part II of this article to learn more about other technical momentum plays.
Holding a directional trade over earnings can be risky, but after the release the uncertainty of what direction the stock will move is gone. I like to trade after earnings because we often have an unusually large amount of trading activity that moves many stocks faster and further than they would normally go. It may be that earnings numbers were a big surprise, (they might be much stronger or weaker than expected) or it may be that traders were waiting to see what the quarter was like before they put more money into or took money out of the stock. It truly does not matter what the actual number are, mind you, because we are not trading the numbers, we are trading the reaction to the numbers. Checking a chart the evening after a company announces will show us if we have tradable momentum. If there is a great amount of buying pressure, I trade it up and if I see a lot of selling pressure, I trade it down.
One of my more favorite post earnings plays is Goldman Sachs (GS). In fact, this trade has worked out extremely well on Goldman a couple times already this year. HINT: this is a stock to watch the next time they release earnings!
Goldman Sachs announced earnings in September and gapped up above resistance. In my Technically Speaking workshops, I will show you how to use an intraday chart to trade on the first day after news is released, but for the purposes of this article I would like to teach you how to make money on this strategy even if you do not have the time to watch the intraday chart. To do this, you need to recognize momentum as it develops on a daily chart. Many momentum plays begin like GS did, as a breakout. Goldman formed a bullish Opening Marubozu candle September 19th after the earnings release. The stock closed that day above a previous $155 resistance level. A close above resistance should be viewed as a strong signal for the stock. After such a signal, I confirm with my indicators (for more information on the technicals I use, join me in one of my live Technically Speaking workshops or watch the class on DVD). I am trying to find any excuse to stay out of the trade. Any bearish indicator or bearish price pattern will prevent me from entering the trade. But, if all technicals confirm a bullish trade I enter the following day. One note of caution here: news may only have enough influence to move the stock for one day. Because of this, I prefer to enter my trades above the high (or the low if it dropped) of the day the news is announced.
Using this technique, Goldman got us into a post earnings momentum trade around $159.75. The price graph and the indicators I teach you to use were all bullish so we had the OK to enter a trade that day. Once our entry in this type of trade is triggered, you want to stay in as long as there is continued buying pressure. Often the buying pressure and momentum will move a stock for only three to five days. In the case of Goldman, the stock had post earnings momentum for three days but it barely took a breather on days four thru six before gapping up and taking off once again. The technicals have remained strong enough to keep providing bullish trades for the past couple months for a run from $159.75 to $186 where the stock is currently trading at the time this article was written. These momentum plays can be traded as one trade that you will stay in as long as you have enough time in your option or as something you can position in and out of to pull profits out along the trend.
The entry on this type of trade can feel risky because of the gap. The danger with gaps is that all the trade may be taken in the gap and there may not be enough buying or selling pressure to move the stock further. For example, when the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) announced they were buying CBOT Holdings (BOT), the CME gapped to an all time high. The opening price was over ten points above the long day candle you see earlier that month.
After the open, no one was willing to pay a higher price for the CME and the stock dropped like a rock. When a stock gaps beyond a price at which it was comfortable trading, you can rest assured that much of that play was taken in the gap and the safest way to trade it may be to trade the retracement. One thing you can do to make trading a gap on news more safe is to avoid the trade unless the gap puts the stock near its recent trading range. In the case of CME, the stock was so far above where traders were comfortable buying it that people took profits out very quickly. With Goldman, just the opposite was true. Because it gapped to $155, a price that people had paid for the stock many times in August, traders were much more comfortable piling in at that price after earnings. All the buyers willing to pay $155 or more for GS helped push it much higher.
A news announcement such as earnings can present wonderful trades. The momentum associated with the news may create a lot of buzz around the stock and draw more buyers into the stock, or motivate people to sell the stock in droves. Either way we can trade it. Check the technicals first to make sure everything is bullish before buying calls or that everything is bearish before buying puts. And remember that as long as the stock gaps to a price that is has traded recently, there may be plenty of room left for the stock to move. Enter the trade and manage your risk by placing your stop. This is one easy way to build your account up trading momentum during earnings season.
Hope to see you soon!
by Markay Latimer with Better Trades
We can all Learn-and transform our brain in the process. That's the message in this Interview-Part 1 (out of 2) from Dr. James Zull, Professor of Biology and Biochemistry at Case Western University, Director of UCITE (The University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education), and Professor of a Human Learning and The Brain class. Dr. Zull loves to learn. And to teach. And to build connections. He has spent years building bridges between neurobiology and pedagogy, as a result of which he wrote The Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching the Practice of Teaching by Exploring the Biology of Learning, which shows how neurobiological research can inform and refine some of the best ideas in educational theory.
In that book, Prof. Zull added biological information to David Kolb's Learning Cycle framework. David Kolb's Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development book refers to human learning, but Professor Zull tells that today, in his desk, he has cognitive neuroscience papers and research that show that apes go through the same 4 stages when they are learning a new activity, activating exactly the same brain areas than we do.
AF: What is Learning? Can apes really learn in the same way we do?
JZ: Learning is physical. Learning means the modification, growth, and pruning of our neurons, connections?called synapses? and neuronal networks, through experience. And, yes, we have seen that apes go through the same Learning Cycle as we do, activating the same brain areas.
AF: How does Learning happen?
These are the 4 stages of the Learning Cycle. 1) We have a Concrete experience, 2) We develop Reflective Observation and Connections, 3) We generate Abstract hypothesis, 4) We then do Active testing of those hypotheses, and therefore have a new Concrete experience, and a new Learning Cycle ensues.
In other words, we 1) get information (sensory cortex), 2) make meaning of that information (back integrative cortex), 3) create new ideas from these meanings (front integrative cortex) and 4) act on those ideas (motor cortex). From this I propose that there are four pillars of learning: gathering, analyzing, creating, and acting.
This is how we learn. Now, learning this way requires effort and getting out of our comfort zones. A key condition for learning is self-driven motivation, a sense of ownership. To feel in control, to feel that one is making progress, is necessary for this Learning Cycle to self-perpetuate. Antonio Damasio made a strong point on the role of emotions in his great Descartes' Error book.
AF: can we, as learners, motivate ourselves? How can we become better learners?
JZ: Great question, because in fact that is a uniquely human ability, at least to the degree we can do so. We know that the Frontal Lobes, which are proportionally much larger in humans than in any other mammal, are key for emotional self-regulation. We can be proactive and identify the areas that motivate us, and build on those. In other words, the Art of the Learner may be the Art of Finding Connections between the new information and challenges and what we already know and care about.
If I had to select one Mental Muscle that students should really exercise, and grow, during the schooling years, I'd say they need to build this Learning Muscle. Learning how to Learn. That might be even more valuable than learning what we stress in the curriculum, i.e., the subjects we teach.
AF: Do you think this is happening today in our schools?
JZ: I don't think so. First, of all, too many people still believe that Education means the process by which students passively absorb information. Even if many educators would like to ensure a more participatory and active approach, we still use the structures and priorities of another era. For example, we still pay too much attention to categorizing some kids as intelligent, some as not so, instead of focusing on how they could all learn more.
Second, learning and changing are not that easy. They require effort, and also, by definition, getting out of our comfort zones. We need to try new things, and to fail. The Active Testing phase is a critical one, and sometimes our hypothesis will be right, and sometimes wrong. The fear of failing, the fear of looking un-smart, is a key obstacle to learning that I see too often, especially for people who want to protect perceived reputations to such an extent that they can't try new genuine Learning Cycles.
AF: Fascinating. Given what you just said, how do you help your students become better learners?
JZ: Despite the fact that every brain is different, let me simplify and say that I usually observe 2 types of students, with different obstacles to learning and therefore benefiting from different strategies.
Both Svetlana Nunez & Alvaro Fernandez are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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