Fucking Cats

Hello, my name is Dinosaur Trader and I've had bearish thoughts....

(pause)

Whew! Well, I'm glad I got that off my chest. It's important, because the last time I got all bearish, after the friggin blowup in February, it took me months to get over it... truth be told, I may not be over it yet.

Anyway, today is the worst kind of day for me. Friends and family alike will listen to the news, see that the Dow was up 187 points and ask me expectantly, "So, did you do well today?"

NO! I SUCKED! AND FOR THE RECORD, JUST BECAUSE THE MARKET IS UP DOESN'T MEAN EVERY DAMN TRADER IN THE WORLD IS MAKING MONEY!

I have some anger issues today. I'm working on it. Fucking cats. He's down there, locked in the bathroom wailing away and to be honest, I don't give a damn. I can be a stubborn prick. He can stay in there until he learns how to use that goddamn box. If you're confused by this aside, read my post from earlier today. My entire house reeks of cat urine.

Anyway, what went wrong today? I just got chopped. No big disastrous losers, just too many medium sized losers. It feels ironic to say this on a day when the Dow ripped, but I just didn't see many easy opportunities today. Check the VO, I wasn't the only one...

Not sure how to explain it but I think on some level I just couldn't believe the market was ripping so much. So every time I got long, I looked for quick exits and didn't let my winners run. More often though, I was putting my stops too close and getting stopped out. So I suffered the death of many small cuts, not the death of one fatal blow to the skull.

My best trade of the day was a UBB long right after the Beige Book came out. But even in that trade I sold early. Later I bought back and got chopped. Sigh...



My worst trade of the day was in my old friend TNH. After the 11 am run-up, I thought he'd flay the shorts by consolidating and making a new high. Eventually, this is what happened. He just dropped much lower while consolidating than I expected. What was especially frustrating is that I sold 15 cents from the low of the move... I just missed being able to hang in there and avoid a loser. But, as it was, I took the loss.

Later, after 2pm, I would take over a point out of him on the long side. So we're good again. No hate for TNH today. Just a medium loss in him, $368.



Anyway, I know how the VO did but I'd love to hear how others did. Please feel free to share how your day went via the "comment" section. And if you're interested in posting to the VO, shoot me an email.

I'm still confused how I failed to find more winners today...

Here's the stats:

P&L, -$484
Best, UBB, $304
Worst, TNH -$368

shares traded, 49,600
stocks traded, 24, 9 positive, 15 negative (there's the rub)
total trades, 327 (too much churn on a day where I never had traction)