Newsletters
Trader Hugh’s New Year’s Resolutions
Why bother with New Year’s resolutions knowing we won’t keep them? My record is about a week. Last year, I tried to get off sugar, knowing how bad it is. That lasted about three days. Funny how we slip back into our old ways as soon as the effects of the New Year’s libations wear off. This […]
What Just Happened Last Week?
An interesting email I got from a subscriber… “Wednesday, December 18, SPY tanked 23 points and Hugh made 116% on calls in less than an hour just two days later. Pray tell Hugh, what’s your secret?” Without giving away all my confidentialities here (I’d have to kill you if I did that), the following is […]
Santa Rally & Great Gift Idea
This is a phenomenon that seems to happen every year, although there are never any guarantees. Yale Hirsch, founder of the Hirsch Organization and creator of the Stock Trader’s Almanac, discovered it in 1972 when the market showed statistically predictable patterns with an upward movement that runs from Dec. 28 to Jan. 2 of the […]
Why Scalping Works So Well
I am often asked, even criticized, for aiming for just a few cents with my scalps. They say “If you know the stock will move three points, then your option should move a dollar and a half. Why would you take only a dime?” This is a good point, but my reply is, “You know […]
Are you Entrepreneurial? Try Options
Nothing captures the entrepreneurial spirit more than trading options. I discovered my inner conscience in that regard many years ago with my first foray into the business world. I was in high school, and, living in the western New York area, my family had a cottage in nearby Crystal Beach, Ontario, on the Canadian side […]
Perils of Chasing the Opening Price
Often times, there is a built-up surge of demand on the stock, driving prices high right off the opening bell. That works out great for an options trader if you can jump in early and secure your spot. We discussed this in an earlier edition of “SPY on the Market,” especially when I told you […]
What Makes Trading So Difficult When it Should be Easy?
I am often asked this question. Markets go up and they go down. Why not just buy something, and when it goes up a little, sell it then? It sounds so simple, but executing that logic is not so. Let me explain several reasons for this dichotomy. While it is true that we like to […]
Chart Patterns
Did you ever think as a kid that learning to draw, connecting dots and even geometry would ever be useful later in life? Me neither. In fact, when I first heard of such activities related to options trading, I thought someone was pulling my leg. Here I am, many years later, making money based on […]
Cool Trading Tip: Legging In
What I want to know is, how do they know it’s me trading? It so often seems that my trade, my lowly little trade, moves markets into huge swings, always against me. It’s uncanny how that works. With the millions of shares trading every day, it seems that it is my purchase of call options […]
Redundant Indicators
The last time I counted, Schwab Think or Swim® had 384 indicators and a slew of drawing and other tools, all of which have been designed to make you a better, more successful trader. Then, there are stock symbols such as the CBOE VIX index, an option-derived measure of expected S&P 500 volatility that is […]
