Daily Reading

The markets were down today pretty sharply and it looks like they may retest recent lows. I think it's best to wait till either after the fed meeting, or until the recent lows are taken out, possibly at the same time. My guess though, is that we will trade higher after the meeting, but the chances are pretty good that we are in for a deeper correction. I won't recommend any trades today, rather, I will highlight who and what I read every night as I begin preparations for the next day. I don't think most beginning traders realize how much work and preparation it takes to trade succesfully. I start each night by reading the following:

John Murphy: John publishes a market message a few times per week and he generally focuses on sectors and indices. He tries to incorporate a technical analysis lesson with each of his posts, such as how he uses bollinger bands or moving averages. You can only read John Murphys analysis with a paid membership to stockcharts.com and Murphy is extra.

Ken Tower: Ken is the Chief Market Strategist at Cybertrader and he publishes a daily and weekly comment. Ken is very good too, and his daily comment tends to highlight the short term trend of the indices. I believe his analysis is only available to Cybertrader users.

Financial Sense Wrapup: Great site and I really like some of the writers such as Ike Iossif.

Investors Business Daily: I check the market review each day and I read the online version of the next day Investors Business Daily. I don't have time to read the entire paper, but I read the market review sections and scan for any interesting articles or charts.

Martin Pring: Martin Pring is another technical analysis heavyweight and he offers up some outstanding content on his site from time to time. I am thinking about subscribing to his paid newsletter. If anyone has used it I would appreciate their opinion on it.

Then I read the following blogs to get a sense of how other traders are feeling. (note: I read other blogs when I have time, but I make a point to check these out nightly)

Trader Mike: Mike has been blogging for a long time and offers very sound advice for every level of trader.

Wall St. Warrior: Jamie tends to watch similar stocks to mine and he is a very good daytrader.

Maoxian: I like keeping tabs on Maoxians notable stocks making new highs and his trading system has a lot of followers.

Tim Knight: Tim is the founder of prophet.net and he offers a bears point of view on the markets. He has a very good long time SP500 chart showing why he is a bear on tonights update.

Marketspath: Very good free newsletter. They offer up a daily market review and post charts of potential picks. I find that we overlap stocks from time to time.

Then I review all my charts. I usually review most of my charts on Sunday night and then focus on certain sectors throughout the week. I review the indices and my watchlist every night. I use stockcharts.com for storing my annotated watchlists. After narrowing down the list, I go through each chart in more detail and annotate them. Once I have annotated the charts, I upload them to blogger and work on updating my blog.

One thing you'll notice, is that I don't waste my time on public boards or forums. I am a member of a couple private boards and I read the updates via email. I find that most of the posts on public boards are pure trash and not worth the time. Another thing worth mentioning, is I don't read all the above looking for stockpicks, I read them for the commentary and their interpretation of the markets action. I have plenty of picks from my watchlists and Trade-Ideas. I also try to focus on sites that focus on concepts or ideas that enhance my trading strategy and timeframes.

While I'm not saying that everyone should read what I read, I think every trader should try and establish a nightly routine for being in synch with the markets.

Good Luck,

DT