Something you should know…..

I thought about starting a blog when I was bored during the dull market action we experienced in March. I needed something constructive to do mid day and I had the energy to share some of my experiences. It’s funny how no sooner that I start posting, the markets started getting range.

While learning to trade I read every bit I could get my hands on. I absorbed some of what fit my personality and discarded the rest. I thought this blog might help others that were interested in learning and willing to do the worked that was necessary.

I don’t promote anyone’s product or service. I only once suggested a book to read but I was not asked to do so nor do I have any affiliation with the author or publisher. Promotion is not the intent of this blog.

If you are interested in learning more please e mail me and I will share with you some resources I found useful but I do not believe it is appropriate to make such recommendations publicly.

I only posted a link to this blog 3 or 4 times in other blogs and it is incredible that this generated such a large following especially in such a short period of time. I guess because I talk about something that is not unique or exclusive, but simply rarely written about in a free format such as a blog; market auction as it is applied to the S&P futures trading.

I live by, and teach my kids, 3 simple rules of life:

1. Don’t take what you didn’t earn or was given to you, don’t steal

2. Don’t hurt people; physically or psychologically.

3. Do what you say/ promise.

In order to be compliant with rule 3 I will tell you that you can listen to a service that will provide commentary of what occurs in the pit in a chat room at Think or Swim™. This is free to anyone who has an account with them or TD Ameritrade™. You can also purchase the service at Tradersaudio.com.

I was fortunate that I was being trained by a bond local at the time I started using this service. I also had the opportunity to stand ring side at the bond, S&P and crude pits observing first hand, for hours at a time, how the markets auctioned between paper and locals. It can be extremely confusing unless you have comprehensive knowledge of what is occurring in the pit and how to interpret this information from chatter to a useful trading tool. You also must listen at all times so you know the position of locals and how aggressive paper has been. It takes a long time to master and there is NO medium that I am aware of that teaches an individual the value of this service and demonstrates daily examples.

This blog is getting a bit more complicated than it was intended. It apparently is not sitting well with some folks who feel the information I disclose is proprietary or exclusive. Instead of looking at this as an opportunity it is viewed as an obstacle. That’s alright because the markets are picking up so I am pretty busy during the day and exhausted at night and I still have my own homework to do. Also the weather is getting nice so I like to spend time biking with the kids when I can. So I may not post as often. However I will try to make the post better quality. I still have a post about the Holy Grail…… It cometh.

There is one trading technique I want to share today. Yesterday the IB closed at 88.75. There should have been a bunch of stops built up above that because of the way we traded there the last few days. We ticked above it and came right back. That means there were no buy stops up there that stopped out weak shorts. If there were, the price would have “zipped” up as the stops turn to market orders and the filling brokers aggressively try to fill the buy orders. Instead there was nothing.

Joey Borsellino got short and started to push the market lower but that isn’t necessary for you to know to sell near the high of the day. All you need to know is how the market works and how to read the price action. I plan to share more of this with you in the future but we will need more rain and less biking.

I would like to thank many of you for all the positive comments. It was very encouraging and motivated me to continue posting even when it was just about the last thing I felt like doing after a highly active trading day.


Tim Mack


“The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.” - Andrew Carnegie