“Words from the Wise” this week comes to you in a shortened format as I do not have access to my normal research resources while on the road in Europe (also see my post “Gone A.W.O.L. - to Slovenia and Switzerland“). Although very little commentary is provided, a full dose of excerpts from interesting news items and quotes from market commentators is included.

While investors’ hopes of an economic recovery might have got ahead of reality, the cartoonists continually reminded us of worrisome issues …

Source: Signe Wilkinson, Washington Post,  June 18, 2009.

The past week’s performance of the major asset classes is summarized by the chart below - a mixed bag so to speak.

Source: StockCharts.com

A summary of

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MyECheck Inc. is a financial electronic transaction processor and provider of alternative payment solutions for internet and mobile commerce. In the past two days the stock has risen 35.38% and 19.32% respectively. A $10,000 investment on Monday would have resulted in a return of $16,153.85 in just 48 hours.

The consumer services sector has actually lost over 2% as a whole in the same two-day period that MyECheck has shown the impressive gain of over 61%. Monday’s 35% gain took place on 89,882 shares while today’s 19% gain took place with 97,717 shares traded. In that short window of time, the recently volatile Dow Jones Industrial Average has gained only 38 points on below average trading volume.

One advantage to the services offered by MyECheck Inc. is that they are mutually beneficial to both the buyer and seller. Their

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There's a couple of good articles over at TraderFeed, Dr. Bret Steenbarger's widely read and essential blog for the self-improving trader.Both articles compliment each other: one post discusses a checklist of elements to consider when making a transition from one trading style to another (make sure to read the helpful reader comments too). The other post discusses some useful exercises to perform when things hit a bump in the road. The exercise helps with a trader's confidence and a rightful sense of control one should have.The Doctor's useful posts are a treasure trove of information, I recommend never letting too much time pass between regular visits to not only read the posts, but read the engaging comments other traders leave.

The point of showing my order book yesterday was to emphasize how my number one focus is always risk management. At the time I entered many of the stocks, I expected them to continue to trend for most of the day. Even with expectations for continued movement higher, I sold partial positions into strength early on. I tend to go in aggressively as momentum builds and then scale out into continued strength. It is never my thought that I am selling at the top, instead, I am trying to reduce risk by realizing some profits and reducing my exposure. There are many times that a stock will continue to go higher without me and I am comfortable with that because, as we saw yesterday, the market can reverse quickly and erase all profits if you do not aggressively manage open positions. Some people say ...

UPDATE: Here is Dave himslef talking about his presentation: http://blog.stocktickr.com/2008/02/08/presentation-on-automation-at-traders-expo/If you are attending the upcoming NY Traders Expo beginning Sunday and lasting until Tuesday next week, you'll want to see one of our subscribers, Dave Mabe of StockTickr, use Trade-Ideas to fatten his portfolio. Dave is one of the nicest guys you'll meet in a place like this or anywhere else. What you see is what you get with this guy. Here's what you'll see:

This session will explore how discretionary traders can use technology to automate much of their trading routine without necessarily automating their actual orders. There are huge benefits to using automation without having a computer actually "pull the trigger" on your trades. Automating your daily trading routine will make you more efficient, allow you to find and trade more opportunities, and give you more confidence in your trading system-all while doing less

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