Recent content by Gabe Velazquez

Have you ever just jumped into a trade without understanding the trading environment, meaning whether the market was trending, range bound or close to a major turning point (higher time frame supply or demand) only to have the trade stop out? Of course you have…we’ve all experienced that...

One of the most perplexing areas of trading is identifying trends early enough to still have low-risk, high-reward entries. Every book ever written on trading has told us that we should always align our buying or selling in the direction of the trend, and that this is the key to trading success...

What Is a Futures Contract Rollover? In the futures market, the transition from an expiring futures contract to a new futures contract is called a rollover. Since futures are derivatives contracts that control an underlying asset they, like many contracts, have a start and finish date. Because...

It is not a mystery that in the financial markets there are two distinct groups, those that make money a large portion of the time (banks and institutions) and, on the other side, those who don’t (the general trading and investing public). These folks tend to struggle to keep up with market...

A common perception among the general retail investing and trading public is that in order to garner large profits, you must take on big risk. So where does this view come from? Who perpetuates it? And is it necessarily true that low risk trading isn’t possible? Can Low Risk Trading Result in...

If you start any type of business you first have to come up with the initial seed capital to get the business off the ground. This comes with the understanding that there’s always risk because there’s never a guarantee that the business will prosper. With any traditional business we will always...

Every March, and other quarterly months (June, September, and December) the futures contracts that track interest rates, currencies, and the stock index futures come to the end of their contract life, and expire. This necessitates the need for traders engaged in these markets to exit these...

One asset category that is not very well understood is what we refer to in the business as the credit markets. In the futures market, these encompass all debt instruments such as U.S. Treasury Bills, Notes, and Bonds, and are not limited to derivatives of debt issued by the U.S. treasury. The...

There are many similarities between speculating in the financial markets and playing poker. Most participants in either or both endeavors would agree that both are equally challenging of one's discipline and mental acuity. In addition, understanding statistical probabilities as well as knowing...

Of all the facets of trading, the first that a new trader must learn before he can engage the markets with any degree of confidence is the identification of low risk entries on a price chart. Notice that not just any entry will do, only those offering the biggest reward for the least amount of...

One of the challenges a new trader faces - amongst many others - is finding the optimal time interval for the candlesticks being plotted on their charts. The trading approach or style one implements will of course, have a big influence. For instance, a swing trader (one who intends on holding...

First, it was Citigroup disappointing with their earnings shortfall, and this, along with less-than-stellar retail sales numbers for December, sent stocks roiling on Tuesday. The Dow and S&P finished the day lower by more than 2%. To add insult to injury, Intel's lackluster earnings release...

I have previously discussed the fractal nature of markets and specifically the fact that there are always smaller tendencies contained within the larger more dominating trends. Also the old Wall Street maxim "buy low, sell dear," adding that though this concept is seemingly easy to understand...

Markets quite often exhibit tendencies that, for the astute trader, may translate into profits. One such tendency is what I refer to as the "rubber band effect." Markets tend to overshoot, similar to a rubber band that's stretched to its extreme and snapped back to its normal tension; so, too...

The eagerly watched for retest (of the prior lows) finally came to fruition on Wednesday of last week. Although, the ER2 (Russell 2000) didn't quite make it down far enough to touch the recent nadir. This was not the case for the S&P and the Dow. These two benchmarks actually exceeded their...