The Trend is Your Best "Friend" in the Stock Market

Everybody's got an opinion about the stock market.

That doesn't make it easy for anyone who listens to anyone else, or worse, listens to everyone else, to get a clear picture about what's really out there.

Of course, I have an opinion too. And of course, I'm going to tell you what it is.

But first, let me say this about that.

I never start with an opinion. I end up with an opinion, after trying not to have one.

That means I know I don't know what's going to happen, so I have to look at what's really going on. And I get to my opinion by pulling back further and further until I can't see anything small.

I pull back as far as I can because I want the big picture.

And the big picture is all about the major trend. If you're on the right side of the major trend, you can't get killed. You might take a few hits, here and there, but you make money. And while making money is great, it isn't everything.

There's something more, something bigger than making money...

It is not losing money, as in, not getting hit so hard that you're hurting real bad, or that you get killed and are out of the game totally.

That's never happened to me. I always make money, every year.

It's not that I don't have losing trades; I have plenty of those. But I make money because I mostly ride the big trends.

Usually, my losing trades are my more speculative trades, where I try and jump on a smaller counter-trend within the major trend.

For example, I see the big trend as positive, so I'm mostly long (I'm buying), but I might think a stock is prone to a sell-off, so I'll short it. Sometimes that's a huge winner, but sometimes I will lose on a play that is counter to the trend because the major trend eventually overwhelms everything else.

My point here is this...

The trend is your friend, but within the major trend there can be opportunities riding mini-trends going in the opposite direction. Just don't get greedy on those plays; the major trend will eventually consume most smaller counter-trending plays.

So, here's what I see, and here's my opinion about what I see.

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About the Author

Shah Gilani boasts a financial pedigree unlike any other. He ran his first hedge fund in 1982 from his seat on the floor of the Chicago Board of Options Exchange. When options on the Standard & Poor's 100 began trading on March 11, 1983, Shah worked in "the pit" as a market maker.

The work he did laid the foundation for what would later become the VIX - to this day one of the most widely used indicators worldwide. After leaving Chicago to run the futures and options division of the British banking giant Lloyd's TSB, Shah moved up to Roosevelt & Cross Inc., an old-line New York boutique firm. There he originated and ran a packaged fixed-income trading desk, and established that company's "listed" and OTC trading desks.

Shah founded a second hedge fund in 1999, which he ran until 2003.

Shah's vast network of contacts includes the biggest players on Wall Street and in international finance. These contacts give him the real story - when others only get what the investment banks want them to see.

Today, as editor of Hyperdrive Portfolio, Shah presents his legion of subscribers with massive profit opportunities that result from paradigm shifts in the way we work, play, and live.

Shah is a frequent guest on CNBC, Forbes, and MarketWatch, and you can catch him every week on Fox Business's Varney & Co.

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