This Week’s Battle Plan

• January 21, 2002
• Larry Connors

TM’s Three-Year Anniversary

This weekend marks the third
anniversary of TradingMarkets. What
started out as an idea to provide top-quality information to semi-professional
and professional traders has now emerged as TradingMarkets being the largest
site in the world for traders. For the
many of you who have been with us since inception, I say a heartfelt “thank
you.”  And for those of you who
joined us along the way, or are new to us, I also say “thank you.”

The world has changed quite a
bit since we launched in 1999. The stock
market (especially the NASDAQ) went crazy, then imploded, and is now on the
upturn again. Many, many companies who
started when we started are long gone. Many
were far better capitalized than we were, but for many different reasons they
are out of business, and we are still growing. We
run this company seven days a week. The
day starts at 5:00 am for our editorial staff and usually ends 22 hours later
when our Director of Technology finishes his day.
And at the end of the day, our success is interlinked with yours.
We need to help you make money. We
hopefully help you see the markets from a professional’s point of view.
Analysis from journalists who don’t trade or information from salaried
employees of brokerage firms has never helped traders make money.
History has proven that. But when
you have a chance to learn this game from the likes of traders who ran Fidelity
Capital Markets’ trading desk, or were ranked #1 by Nelson’s World’s Best
Money Managers, or are the only options trader featured in Market Wizards,
you are learning from the best. These are
the types of guys I want my children to learn from should they enter this
business, and these are the guys I wish I had mentoring me 20 years ago when I
started in the business.

The
New TM Site

As you can see, our site is
completely redesigned. The old site got
too big, too fast. We couldn’t find
half of what was on it, and there was some great money-making information buried
deep in the site. We have lots of changes
for you, and here are a few:

In my opinion, TM
University is the best thing we did. Now
you can easily find the hundreds and hundreds of in-depth lessons specifically
by topic. Segmenting the site was another thing we did.
Guess what? If you daytrade,
your needs are different than if you are an intermediate-term
trader. And if you short-term
trade, your needs are different than if you’re an S&P
trader. Now, no matter what your trading style is,
you have your own section of the site. And
even better, over the next few months, each of these sections will be built out
even further. 

Some of you like TM but use the
site especially because of a favorite trader or two who is part of the team. Many of you asked
for more sector information…it’s now all there on our indicators
pages. Last week, we added our TraderTalk
session to let you learn directly from some of the traders on the site. This
week, we are launching a new service called PremiumLive Alerts!
Many of you have asked if there’s a way you can get the 60 to 100 breaking
intraday alerts and analysis that we put out each day in our TradersWire. With
PremiumLive Alerts!, now you can. This
includes our hourly audio updates, new News Analysis features, and all the
critical price movements that occur during the day that keep you ahead of the
rest of the trading community. In two
weeks, we’ll be launching an intermediate-term daily trading report from Tim
Truebenbach, and an E-Mini trading service from Lewis Borsellino. Plus, Don
Miller is launching an online, interactive QQQ training center with us.
We have even more than this coming, but this is a good place to start.

The bottom line is that we will
continue to be in the forefront of daily trading information and education. And
most importantly, we’ll continue to provide you with information that
hopefully helps you make money. Otherwise, all this is simply a waste.

This
Week’s Market

Last week we talked about two
things affecting the markets and creating opportunities.
The first was the Barron’s effect (which pretty much turned out to be a
non-event, likely because of the three money managers they focused on).The other thing we talked about
last week was earnings. This turned out
to be a big event, as one would expect. On
the surface, the week felt very heavy and Wednesday and Friday were downright
ugly. But let’s focus on the sectors
and stocks defying the weakness (and let’s not look at defense issues that
should have done well on a week like the past). Let’s
focus on where the strength was. If you
click on our Stocks
Indicators page, and then click on the Top Sectors/ETFs, and then go to our
Top Sectors section, click on the 1-week
RS. Here you will find the ETFs and sectors that performed the best over the
past five trading days. What is significant about this list to me is the fact
that the Financial Sector and the Banking Sector are among the strongest. 

Now, let’s go one step
further. Let’s look at our new 60-day
High on Double Volume list found under the Uptrending Section in our
Indicators page. Top stock there is Heartland Express, a trucking company.
You’ll find another trucking company, Oshkosh Truck Corp., making new
highs at the same time (found in Mark
Boucher’s Top Relative Strength / Earnings New Highs list).If these industries and stocks
are showing strength when the NASDAQ has its second biggest loss since late
September, what will they do when the market bounces back? 
Hmmm…(if you don’t know what I mean by hmmm…you’re either new to
my column (read the archives) or I haven’t beaten this theme into your head
hard enough). Stocks move with sectors,
sectors move with markets. When they don’t, they are talking to you. Again,
watch for combined strength in the XBDs and the SOX. When they’re both painted
strong green, that’s your confirmation for what’s to come.

Thank You

Before I end this column, I
need to send a special thank you to the people who have been with me at
TradingMarkets since inception: Raul
Pallares, Kevin Haggerty, Mark Boucher, Dave Landry, Conrad Kalil, Michelle
Pilch, Danilo Torres, Claudia Stehle, and Eddie Kwong (who joined us just after
we launched). My gratitude for your
devotion and commitment to TM and for your friendship can never be expressed in
words. The exact same message goes to the
rest of the TradingMarkets team who I’m lucky enough to get to work with every
day.

And a special thank-you to all
of you who sent us your suggestions for the new site. Many of your ideas were
implemented and over time many more will be implemented. 

Best of luck with your trading
this week. If you have any questions on
how to use the site or wish to correspond with me directly, please e-mail me at lconnors@tradingmarkets.com.

Enjoy the new site, and have a great week
trading!

Larry Connors and
Brice Wightman

Larry Connors is CEO
and co-founder of TradingMarkets. He is also the author of four books on
trading, including Street
Smarts,
co-written with Linda Raschke, Connors
on Advanced Trading Strategies, and his latest release, Trading
Connors VIX Reversals.

Brice Wightman is a
Market Analyst at TradingMarkets.com.