It’s that time of year when the activity in the markets begins to wane. When thoughts turn from double-tops to crop tops, from shorts to beach shorts, and from breakouts to summer breaks. Summer is here in the northern hemisphere, and traders everywhere are starting to take it easy. Including me. Which is why I haven’t posted any trades for a few days!
I’ve spoken many times about how for me, trading was never about the money but about time freedom it offers. Obviously money is part of that — it’s easy to take all the time off we want when we are making good money the rest of the time — but it’s only part of it.
However, not everyone wants to or can stop trading for the warmest couple of months of the year. Fortunately, just because large swathes of city boys are packing up and heading for the coast, does not mean there is not money to be made. It does mean that some days it’s a bit harder to find the opportunities though.
This is when having a great list of core stocks on our watchlists really helps. The daily list can get alarmingly short in the height of summer, and lower volumes can mean even the shiniest of candidates can be a let down when the critical moment arrives. But the core stocks, those we watch every day because we know them like reliable old friends, can often be relied upon to put bread on the table of the summer trader.
And so to today’s trade, which was on old fave NVDA:
It was almost textbook, just on lower volume. A nice simple trade though, with a clearly signaled entry and an obvious exit. Those who like to run things to the limit could have taken another dollar out of this pretty painlessly. For me, that first easy dollar was enough, putting more than a thousand dollars in the bank and leaving me to end the day by 11am.
Whatever the time of year, whatever the market conditions, and no matter who’s left for sunnier climes, there are always opportunities in the stock market, every day that it’s open.