Streetwide Issues

Well, today was a slow one. The volume on the NYSE was just above what it was the Friday before the Memorial Day holiday. Perhaps it's because between 10:30 and 12:00 there were "streetwide issues" that made trading risky.

I personally had a number of orders hung and I couldn't get anyone to tell me the status of those orders. So I basically had to sit on my hands and wait... perhaps that was for the best because I had a hard time finding stocks that were moving today.



My best stock of the day was TNH although, I hardly traded it at all. Here are the trades:

9:34:22 Buy 200 @ 87.99 (200)
9:34:53 Sell 100 @ 88.44 (100)
9:35:05 Sell 100 @ 88.53 (flat)
10:09:03 Buy 300 @ 89.46 (300)
10:09:56 Sell 100 @ 89.72 (200)
10:39:20 Sell 100 @ 89.80 (100)
12:17:07 Sell 100 @ 91.13 (flat)
15:45:44 Short 200 @ 91.92 (-200)
15:46:42 Buy 100 @ 92.14 (-100)
15:53:03 Buy 100 @ 91.61 (flat)

Notice the gap between 10:39 and 12:17... that's when the trades were all screwy on the NYSE. Funny thing is that not being able to sell during that 1.5 hours probably helped me out!

Also, one note about my short at the end of the day. Everyday, at 3:40 trade imbalances are published. Mostly you see them in big cap names.

Today, TNH had a very small buy imbalance, for 14,600 shares. Normally, I don't mess with imbalances I just watch them. However, I knew that people would see this imbalance and try to buy ahead of the closing price. I also knew that the imbalance was small enough that it would almost definitely be filled by the time the confirmation came out at 3:50.

So, at 3:50 when the the news wires said, "No Market On Close Imbalance" in TNH I figured it would force the mooks who bought at 3:40 to panic and sell. I was right about everything except my entry on the trade... I shorted the stock too early.

Anyway, just figured I'd let you in on my thinking on that particular trade. It was an imbalance play. Occasionally, they are worth trading.

I'm happy to start June in the green... even if it is just $116, it's a psychological victory. I did a good job at keeping my losers small. Besides AMR, which I was trading with fairly large size, I didn't have one loser over $100.

If I can string some winners together at the beginning of the month and have a "buffer" against going into the red, it will open me up to start taking more risk again.

Hopefully, the extra risk-taking will pay off.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $116
Best, TNH, $331
Worst, AMR, -$253

shares traded, 31,400
stocks traded, 17, 7 positive, 10 negative
total trades, 166