Happy New Year!

Today we turn the calendar and as far as the market is concerned, nothing has changed. Making trading profits is not about forcing your opinion on the market, but to listen objectively to the message of the market in order to uncover and exploit low risk, high potential opportunities as they are presented. I do not have a grand theme for 2009, to me a guess as to where the market will finish one year from today is irrelevent. My goal each day is to seek out the low risk opportunities and cut losses quickly if the market does not agree with my analysis, or ride the winner for the bulk of the short term move. I choose to focus on finding the trades where I can make money and that will be my game plan for 2009. It is the same approach which has served me well for the last sixteen years of trading.

If this message sounds FAMILIAR it should.

We remain in a bear market, how long it lasts shouldn’t matter to traders. Trading is a skill that you can exploit in any market environment and 2008 gave us tremendous opportunities in both directions (see table below with SPY moves of at least 10%). I want to wish each and everyone of you the best of success in everything that is important to you 2009!