John-Paul's Blog

Its March Madness!  Yes!  March madness is one of my favorite times of the year. I’ve picked Ohio State to squeeze by Florida to win it all on accout of two freshman, 7 foot Greg Oden and guard Mike Conley Jr.  But Florida’s team with Jehoikim Noah is definately a contender. A win by Florida this year would make the Gators back-to-back national champions, something that hasn’t happened since Duke’s seasons of 1991-92.  All 5 of Florida’s starters returned from their national championship winning season last year.  So it is tough to pick against them.  Georgetown and UCLA have enough talent to pull the upset and win it all, but as they are 2nd seeds, they are the underdogs against Florida and Ohio State.

Fortunately, my picks have gone quite well this year, as I correctly picked 7 out of the 8 Elite Eight teams and 3 out of the 4 Final Four teams.

To correctly pick a game in March Madness, you have to know each team. And if the teams are closely matched, you might even need to know each individual team member. So it is in the world of business.  You need to know the match up in the venture and all of your business team members, partners or advisors.

Not even Jehoikim Noah or Greg Oden could win the National Championship by himself, so let’s not try to go it solo and play all of the positions ourselves in the world of business.  We need to build a national championship team around us, to become winners in the field of business. 

Tell me who your pick is this season and why.

For the last two weeks, I have been refreshing my trading techniques with Mr. Craig Davies’ Peak Performance Mentoring Room at the  Online Trading Academy. There is so much to learn; I am constantly amazed and excited. Every day brings deeper understandings of the market and of the overall economy. Now instead of trading and virtually making $300 in a half-hour worth of trades, I have been able to accomplish $300 on a single trade. The top three tips I think that could benefit any trader’s trade production are: 

1. THE TICK: The TICK is “The heartbeat of the market.”  If the TICK is positive, that means that the market is up and vice versa.  But the $0.00 mark is like a rubber band, so when the TICK is negative, it will almost always bounce back up.  So if you are interested in buying a stock, check the TICK. You want to buy if it is negative, because that indicates that the market is due for an upward bounce, which will lift your stock and put you in the profit zone.

2. VOLUME: Volume is what moves the market.  If there is no volume, there will be no movement.  A key indicator is the average volume per day. If by 10:00 the volume for that particular day is higher than its average volume per day, that stock is truly a “hot stock.”  Having no volume or having volume is the difference between walking (no volume) and a speeding train (volume).  Even if, as the train begins, you can walk as fast as it moves, it will always gain momentum and go farther and faster for longer. Volume is momentum.

3. CHART PATTERNS: Chart patterns are to stocks what road signs are to roads.  They will both tell you where you, or your stock, are going.  I memorize patterns constantly and if I see a double top, I know that the stock overall will be going down. If I see a double bottom, I know that the stock overall will be going up. If we were trying to get somewhere in a car, we would pay attention to the road signs. If we would like our stock portfolio to get somewhere, we need to know the signs that will bring it where it needs to be for financial  SUCCESS! (www.onlinetradingacademy.com).