Today is Thursday and general market was up slightly with a strong finish into the close.

The S&P, Dow and NASDAQ markets were all up slightly at the close with a strong come back from earlier session losses. I believe there are unemployment numbers coming out tomorrow and it is expected to be an important figure which will propel the market big one way or another.

I did not hear the speech, but someone said that the President was speaking and made a comment about great unemployment results to come. He seemed to be upbeat about the news tomorrow. Well, let me remind you of a time that he addressed the markets before. It was two days before we hit the S&P 500 low of 666 on March 6th or 3/6.

The point is, two days before the market hit that bottom. I did hear a speech by the President that was so very upbeat and encouraging. He basically said, the stock market is a great buy, but not in those words. I had never remembered a previous president doing that, but it may have happened. Again, back to the point. Two days after that speech, the stock market shot up over 400 hundred points on the Dow and it has not looked back since.

Now, I had heard of a very upbeat speech that was given today about unemployment and that you can expect this and that. Well, he seems to have pretty good timing in the past, is he going to go two for two, maybe ?

The market is in a position to rally, but there is one thing I would have liked to have seen today that did not happen. I was hoping for lower numbers on the bullish sentiment that was released this week. It came in basically the same, around 39% bullish. That is not really good enough to get the call the I was looking for, but that does not mean we can not rally. Many times the numbers will push back and forth in the middle as a fight is taken place between the bulls and bears. Its just that when you get extremes, we often see bigger more predictable moves. OK, enough on that.

In today’s trading, I was trading very small, just 1-2 contracts. I was coming off a few days of very big gains and moved my contract size down to insulate myself. It did not change anything, as I still traded well and hit more than my daily goal. I probably traded for about 8 S&P points of total profit. Much more than the 2-4 points I shoot for on just a regular day.

There are times through out the week and month that I have been pushing it and I have done very well. I usually don’t like to trade for a long time. I know that it is often times best to get in and get out. If you have good profit for the day, book it. Go do something else or enjoy some of the freedom that trading offers you. Many traders will say, that they like the idea of being a trader, because it will afford them more time freedom. That can be true but only if you exercise it. Taking time away from the markets can give you a fresh perspective. If you trade all day, every day, you will get tired and burned out which can produce mistakes. You need to be fresh and on high alert. It is to easy to place trades out of boredom as the action slows down, so be careful of that.

As I say that, there is a place and time for study. It is important to get screen time in if you are new to trading. It has been said, that good trading is more like an art. That can be true, but you can learn this art or trading by exposing yourself to market data. I feel, every serious trader needs to keep learning and one way to do that is, by looking at past data and becoming exposed to different setups, reads, looks and situations. You can still do this while the markets are closed as you go over past data. There is a value to it, even if some think not.

Seeing how the market reacts in certain price action setups is important. You need to put your mind inside the price and feel the moves and try and experience what other traders may have been feeling for them to push the market up or down as you see it unfold. Again, this is past data and it does help. Looking now at live data is different, but if you remember what setups you seen that worked out before, you will over time, be able to identify them as live data unfolds or that is what you need to strive for. History repeats itself and that sure is true in the trading markets. Find the history of the past and apply it to the future. You will be glad you did as that is what will turn out a winning day, week, month and year.

Good Trading to all