Financial Investing Radio

I'd like to introduce my wife....Eileen...we will hear more from her later on... When I was 8 years old I got a brand new watch for my birthday. I was so proud of that watch. It was shiny, had awesome hands, it was accurate, and it was a Timex!! I had my eye on this watch for some time. So when I got it for my birthday I was elated. After my birthday party we went outside to play some football. I wanted to protect my watch so I took it off and set it on the top of the car in the driveway. Some time later my Mom came out and had to run some errands. She got in the car and we all waved as she drove off. As we finished our football game I went to get my watch and realized that I had put it on top of the car...the car that my Mom had taken. I stood there, stunned. What was I thinking? How could I have forgotten about my brand new watch on the car. I had wanted this watch for so long. And now it was gone. I waited for my Mom to return and I shared the bad news. We drove the route she had taken, but we could not fi

Recently I was on a flight out of Seattle and we passed right next to Mount St Helens. It’s peak jettisoned into the sunlight as it’s base was surrounded by clouds. Such a stunning sight. As I took in the scene; in awe at the beauty of the snow capped peaks, the person next to me stated that he had just been on the top one week earlier. He began to describe the preparations he and his team had done, the gear they took, and the precautions they considered. This got me thinking about the financial climb that we each make. There are multiple steps up the financial mountain which represents different levels of our financial state and awareness, including the following: 1. Unaware financially 2. Aware of our financial state, but missing some tools 3. Doing some budgeting, still difficult to save 4. Saving some but not investing 5. Doing some passive investing, like 401K 6. Actively investing, in the markets or perhaps real estate 7. Trading the markets long term 8. Intra-day short term trading There are beautiful

Making Financial Decisions with a Partner! From a family history perspective I am a mix of many cultures. But a predominate culture in my family history is Danish. For some reason I have been interested in the story of my great great grandfather who migrated from Denmark to the US In the 1800s. I learned about what township and island he came from. Well, A number of years ago I had the opportunity to do some work in Copenhagen. I took advantage of the opportunity to ask my Danish co-workers what trains I would need to take in order to get to the location where my great great grandfather was from. I began my journey and got to the location; it was a real treat for me to see the small marketplace in this village that seemed to still be suspended in time. I began my journey back to Copenhagen and got to one of the towns where I needed to make a train transfer. However, I didn’t speak the language and the local people were not versed enough in English. The signs were not clear and eventually I was informed that I

In my first year of college I took an advanced Algebra class...not sure what I was thinking. By the end of that semester I had a passing grade, but it was nothing to brag about. My professor pulled me aside and suggested that before I go to the advanced Geometry class that I re-take the advanced Algebra class. Well, I didn't want to hear that; it hit my pride, it was a message that was contrary to what I wanted to be doing...but for which I was not prepared. I proceeded in the next semester with the advanced Geometry class and as you would expect, I did not do well. Being honest with ourselves in our preparation to be able to trade is one of the most important parts of building our financial portfolio. What are the steps that one goes through in order to be able to trade? Here are three key items to consider to prepare us to be able to grow our financial footing: 1. Detoxify your Finances 2. Starve your Debt 3. Build your financial foundation THEN Consider trading!!! Remember...Algebra before Geometry!! 1. De

One time when I was in high school a friend of mine and I were climbing the cliffs in western Colorado. We got to a certain point and determined we could see the view better if we dropped down what appeared to be a small cliff. And, we were right, the view was much better as we looked over the valley below. Immediately below us was a cliff of about 500 feet. In time we determined to start heading back as the sun was getting low in the sky. The way out was to go up the cliff we had just dropped down from to get a better view. But we soon learned there were no hand holds for us to use to get out. We discovered we were trapped; we couldn't go down as that was a long drop and we couldn't climb out either. When does it make sense to double down? Have you ever done that? Earlier in my trading I did that and it is a very scary thing to do. It is a deceptive technique that pulls you in and rewards you once or twice. At that point you start thinking..."hey, I have found the technique to grow rich!" It is about at that

Today Bitcoin shed 28% of its value...that is a lot of volatility! But in any market you need it to be a two-sided market; so this kind of adjustment is somewhat expected...albeit 28% is a big adjustment. When I saw this it prompted me to talk about the ability to handle a loss. My comments are targeted to markets with liquidity where there is some level of confidence you can exit the market with little slippage. Years ago I read a book from a trader who said that the common thread he had seen of those who could not invest well or trade, was the inability to take a loss. At first that seemed counter intuitive. As I studied it further, and then applied it myself, I learned that he was right. The ability to properly handle losses is one of the most necessary skills needed. There is a fundamental human element that is at play here...and that is the need to be right. In fact, we work hard as humans to be right; we will try all sorts of tactics. Investing and trading requires you to address this human element dire

One night coming out of the mountains in a two-wheel drive truck it was raining hard. My father was driving the truck and the road was totally muddy and slippery. As we looked off to the side of the road we could see the side of the mountain dropped off steep. It had our full attention! Looking back at that situation I wonder if we did enough homework to decide if we should go down that road given the conditions and the fact that we were in a two-wheel drive truck. Perhaps we can relate that to making decisions to enter an investment or a trade. How many times do the emotions participate in the decision to enter a position? Every time! A friend of mine years ago flew his own plane; he was dedicated to managing his list of things to do before and after any flight. No matter how many times he flew the plane, he would walk through the list religiously, even though he had it memorized; and he would check things off. I compare that experience to another friend who was also a pilot and at the end of one particular

As a kid we used maps to find our way around the mountains. Trading charts are a bit like maps...there are points on the chart where probabilities can be visualized. One of my early mentors told me: buy the probable and sell the improbable. Charts can help us to do that...but they are not the only thing. They can help us to see probable and improbable opportunities. What kind of charts do you use to make investment or trading decisions? Are they charts based on time, or do you use charts based on price movement. What works for you? There are benefits to each. I personally use a combination of both. For making trading & investing decisions I use multiple timeframes and I look at market structure within those time frames. However, I also have tick and range-based charts, with the purpose of illustrating price movement where time is a 2nd class citizen. These kinds of charts are excellent for show channels of price movement. I don't specifically make a trade or investment decision from them; but they serve a

One night while hiking to get back to my camp in Colorado, there was a small moon out, not too much light. I had my backpack, my compass, plenty of batteries for my light, and a GPS system. However, as I proceeded through the dark I could see the outline of the mountain ridge. The way in which the land was contoured told my eyes, and my brain, that I wanted to go to the left to get down. But my GPS system was saying I needed to go to the right; although everything I could discern in the dark was that it would lead me further back up in the mountain. After some time thinking it through I finally determined to follow my instruments; thankfully I did that. Early in my trading and investing journey I focused on what can I earn or how much money will I make. Of course we all want to know that. I have learned over the years there is a fundamental issue with thinking this way. The issue with this is that we often will see what we want to see and will ignore other elements or factors that don't support what we want t

Picking the right stock and the timeframes for investing is driven by several factors including: - personality - appetite for monitoring My investment strategy ranges from looking for opportunities during the day, to finding those longer-term investments that don't require much hand holding. The level of information in the market can be daunting; and you can spend a significant portion of your time looking for those situations. I have found myself in that category; and while I love to invest and trade, I also want to be able to do other things in life. This led me to develop a solution that lets me see the high probability stock opportunities quickly. I focus on a subset of the largest, most liquid stocks. Once I see these opportunities I log them...and my system notifies me via text and email of the opportunity, or opportunities. As the investment opportunities mature, I update my log with the result and my solution keeps track of the history of the stocks opportunities. For me stock investment timeframes ma

When I was a kid my mother had made something called Swiss Chard, a dark green leafy vegetable. To me, as a kid, it was disgusting, I could barely swallow it without initiating a gag reflex. One night while we were eating dinner I was attempting to gag down another mouthful of that and my dad, who was tired of watching me wrench in pain said, "Ok, enough, you don't have to eat anymore of it!". And with that I promptly spit out what was in my mouth. To which my dad retorted, "I didn't mean for you to spit out what you were already eating!!". But I was relieved! I'm looking at Bitcoin...who isn't!!? And there are two sides to that coin; there is an irresistible pull to jump in on the ever-higher price and try to get some of that for yourself. And then, there is the other side, which might initiate a gag reflex; with no regulation, or history of funding illegal activity, and so forth. I prefer a two-sided market where there are opportunities to participate in such great trends. After years of working with invest

Some years ago I was backpacking with my sons in Colorado. In our party was a young man who was preparing for a mountain race; he was in particularly good shape. As we hiked I noticed his walk was casual and non-strenuous; often times walking with his hands in his pockets. At the end of a particularly long day of hiking on this trip I asked him about his apparent ease of walking while the rest of us were gasping for air. He stated that part of his "secret" was the weight of his pack. I tried it out...it was only 10 pounds, while the rest of us were carrying 40 - 50 pound packs. He smiled and walked away. Using technology to our advantage for investing can lighten our investment packs, so to speak. Of particular interest is using algorithms and block chain. Block Chain of course is being used in crypto currencies like Bitcoin, which we wont' go into here. Multiple firms are testing out algorithmic trading with Block Chain. I recently read a scenario from a Deloitte article, which I will reference here. It stat

I was doing some math homework the other night with one of my children and was showing how we did math in the old days. "That's not the way my teacher showed me how to do it!", was the response. It's funny how things change over time, and yet, how other things seem to be constant. In my previous podcast I spoke with Jeff Crystal regarding how the world of investing and trading can be impacted by technologies such as BlockChain. As you may know, this is a technology that provides a visible and audit-able ledger for business transactions. Listen to that podcast for a further discussion on that. Going back to my conversation with my child the other night, it reminded me of how things change, and what else is changing to affect investing. One of those is algorithms. These are techniques where patterns are automated in software to influence market direction or perhaps to help an organization establish a position. My background is in software, and I have worked to use that to help me identify key opportunities. Wha

Jeff Crystal discusses how trading is changing and gives tips to traders to operate in the new world of BlockChain and other technologies.

Hi Everybody, this is Grant! Since talking recently with one of my mentors it caused me to reflect on the roadmap for my investing journey that I started over five years ago. Some parts of my journey have been intentional, and some have been opportunistic...call it fate or whatever you want to meet the right people at the right time. At other points in the journey insights are discovered that add the next piece to the puzzle in your journey. There are 5 simple steps on the roadmap to high-probability financial control that I want to discuss today. 1. Assess 2. Set A Goal 3. Remove Non-Essential Elements 4. Save & Invest 5. Reduce Debt, Achieve Goals 1. Assess Determine & grow your knowledge level of investing Investor Knowledge Quiz Examine your budget, debts, income Create a budget, there are some easy to use online tools such as: Mint Personal Capital Quicken Yodlee 2. Set A Goal Now that you have looked at where you are in terms of your budget, income, and debts it is time to set a goal and create

I've been watching the recent rise in oil futures and thought we should take a look at how the Market Engine and the Market Effectiveness Chart provides signals. Let's take a look at the two charts that I've put on financialinvestingradio.com. Go down to the Podcast Charts & Video section and open the charts for FIR #24. On each of the charts I have placed corresponding numbers that are mapped to gear shifts. Now, let's take a look at each one of them. GEAR SHIFT 1: Remember, these gear shifts occur on the Market Effectiveness Chart; but they don't represent a trade entry. A gear shift on this chart is when the red line on the Correlation study spikes down and hits the 0 line or lower. Which is where I have placed the numbers on the Market Effectiveness Chart. We look for trade entries based on the bias of the Market Effectiveness Chart and trend line breaks on the Trading Chart. Before we look at the Trading Chart, look at one more thing on the Market Effectiveness Chart...what is the bias of the Market

Hi everybody, this is Grant! I am very excited today because I have one of my mentors with me today, his name is Anthony Drager. I met Anthony almost 4 years ago; I was impressed with his ability to read current market conditions. He mentored me through his work with Market Delta...and is a strong, disciplined trader. Anthony runs a trading group still today. I reached out to Anthony and asked him to join me today...thanks for doing that? I have some questions for you!! Is that ok if I start going through some of those? As part of introducing yourself, will you talk about how you got started trading? You started in a Prop Firm right? Can you share your back story? Where did you first get introduced to trading? After all the years of trading; what are the consistent, reliable pieces of information you use to make trading decisions? How would you describe your trading strategy? What tools do you use? How do you prepare for each day of trading? What is one lesson, albeit a painful one, that changed your trading?

Hi Everybody this is Grant, it's early July 2017. I will be doing a WebClass on July 8, 2017 @ 12pm Pacific Time - discussing how to get started on the investing & trading journey. You can register at www.financialinvestingsecrets.com.   The E-mini futures and also the SPY have been chopping around the last couple weeks after making highs. The Nasdaq futures have retraced and touched the 89 EMA. And Oil futures (CL) did a large bounce up starting about 6 days ago. Meanwhile Apple (AAPL) dropped about 2 weeks ago and is also sitting on its 89 EMA. So, which way is the market going? I am interested in your thoughts...email me at: grant@financialinvestingsecrets.com. Recently I had the opportunity to interview one of my mentors, check out episode 21. This caused me to think through the process of selecting a mentor. There are several things to consider when selecting a mentor, including: 1. Plan your roadmap to financial control (I will cover this in an upcoming podcast) 2. As part of your roadmap set goals

Tim, you were a big influence on me with trading when I was getting started. I wanted to re-connect with you and first thank you for the impact you had on my trading. I remember about 5 years ago when I started, I was doing a strangle on an earnings report...you probably don't remember; but I didn't set my positions out far enough, I think it was on NFLX...and I got thumped!! - how long have you been trading - what got you started - what are your tips for someone just getting started - what are your favorite techniques for trading (or setups) - market engine/mkt effectiveness: how do you determine probabilities? - I have learned over the years that my consistency is driven by hitting base hits; any time I try to: - set really wide targets - get too close to risk - pull the trigger before my confirmations I GET THUMPED Today I trade with a blended strategy; that was first inspired by you with options trading. My general strategy is a two-pronged approach - options - futures Options: use of credit spreads, I g

I spent some time living in England many years ago. For a while I drove a Mini...it was a very small car with excellent handling. You could handle the small country roads quite well and cornering was a snap...it was a peppy car!! Sometimes the NASDAQ futures reminds me of that car...zippy! In this podcast we are looking at the NQ futures Market Effectiveness Chart and the price chart. Many of the same characteristics apply as what you see in the E-mini futures charts. We are taking a look at June 26, 2017; and we start with the Market Effectiveness chart...as you know..we are looking for a gear shift to let us know about the opportunities for a trade. Go to financialinvestingradio.com, look for FIR #20 and you will find charts and videos there which accompany this podcast. I am going to illustrate 6 opportunities that are associated with the gear shift during the first two hours of trading. As you open the charts take a look at points A and B on both charts. Price had initially been going up at the open, but