The un-Trade Alert

Don’t forget this week’s Live Q&A Chat at 2pm ET today at http://twc.scutify.com/members, on the TWC App, or just hit reply to this email and send in your question. Ask me anything at all about the markets, the economy, trading strategies, tech revolutions, politics, news, apps, cooking, sports, TV, books, real estate, oil — I’m serious, ask me anything.

Stocks are trying to rally again today. What a tear they have been on since those panicky February lows. I’ll remind folks once again, that if you were scared/in pain/panicking back at the lows in February when the $DJIA was at 15,550 or so…well now, while we’re up huge from those lows, is a great time to sell/trim and catch your breath. You don’t have to be all in or all out and you don’t have to nail the top. Just make sure you’re in a position that won’t be painful if the markets do reverse and turn lower and get panicky in their sell-off action once again.

I’m ready and willing to make some trades to both the long or the short side, but am, as always, being patient and very selective in the pitches I’m going to swing at. As a trader, as the writer of a subscription trading service, and simply as a human being, there’s always a temptation to force trades — to trade simply because you think that’s what you should be doing. Let’s quote the greatest trader in history, Jesse Livermore once again:

“There is the plain fool who does the wrong thing at all times anywhere, but there is the Wall Street fool who thinks he must trade all the time.”

And:

“It never was my thinking that made big money for me. It was always my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!”

Cody back in real-time here. Don’t give into temptation or human nature. There is a lot of value in not trading sometimes.