Meta-Trader - More New Highs

Welcome back Meta-Traders.

Just a quick note to mark the end of Q1 2013.  It has been an incredible quarter with the SP-500 and Dow-30 up over 10% each.  After the past few years, a 10% gain for the entire year would be quite respectable.  Now we have had that in just the first 3 months of 2013!  So much for 13 being an unlucky number.

The chart on the left is the Vanguard Midcap ETF (symbol VO) which has been outpacing the SP-500 which is indicated  by comparison in in white.  Very few ETF's have outperformed SPY so far this year but VO is on that short list.

My overall portfolio made another new all-time high, but has not done quite as well as the indexes.  But  that's okay since its part of my trading plan which is to keep some cash on the sidelines to take advantage of special situations when the occur.  I might be able to make more money generally by just buying SPY and walking away.  But where's the fun in that?

And speaking of trading opportunities, I had a beautiful day trade in Biogen Idec (BIIB) on Thursday.  This was your classic Oliver Velez style day trade where you buy the first 5 minute bar of the day in the direction of the bar. There was news released yesterday, but it didn't matter since it was so big. So I bought the BIIB April 180 calls at $10 even.  I ended up flipping them out later in the day at $13.  Execution was good also with limit orders on both sides of the trade which was necessary since the spread was pretty wide.  Anyway, that's about a 30% gain in less than one day, before commissions.  I just don't know of any other asset class that offers those types of returns.

Is this a great time to be a trader or what?

Come back on Saturday for a weekend update and take care.