Friday, March 9, 2007

12:45pm EST

Sleepy day. Volume has been steadily dropping all week long. If today continues as it's going, it will be the lowest volume day of the week. Another low volume rally...

I'm still a little amazed this market is going up. I was really thrown a loop after the drop last week and then all the low-volume rallies this week. It's hard to trade effectively when you keep expecting the bottom to drop out.

My best trade so far today was getting short 400 TNH at around 53.85, 20 cents from the high. I screwed up on the covers though... I bought 100 back at 53.74, 52.65, 52.41 and 52.38. The stock is currently trading at around 51.15. Still, I net $424 on the trade. Since my worst loser on the day is -$169 (an overnight SPY short) I'm positive on the day. Sprinkle in a few other small losers and another minor winner and I'm up a whopping $185.

I just received a call from the home office. I don't have enough equity to carry overnights anymore. They are breathing down my neck. Cue the Wilco song "Company in My Back".

This is the first time in my trading career where I've even been on the radar of the Risk Management guys and I'm not happy about it. Need to regain my confidence and trade through this.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow, you've been shorting TNH since 53!!! Talk about fighting the trend!!!

Dinosaur Trader said...

I'm a daytrader, so I get long and short throughout the day depending on where I see the opportunity for a move.

A few times in the last month I've posted all my trades in TNH. You'll see I play both sides of the stock regularly.

But your comment puts the move in the stock into perspective! It's doubled since March!

Thanks, DT