Friday, August 10, 2007

Dinosaur Trader Provides Market With Liquidity

How I found time to trade 173,000 shares and blabber and make jokes all day on Wallstreak is confusing to even me. I think I type really fast.

Anyway, check out some of these graphs.

In the beginning, there was PCP.



See that third bar? That's where I bought. At $123.50 and $124 and $124.50. Now, in hindsight it looks great, but it had to be one of the scariest trades I've been involved in, ever. Why? Because I bought 500 shares to start, was filled at $123.50 and then the bid dropped to $115. Mentally, I wasn't really prepared to lose like $5,000 in two minutes. Why I immediately bought more is confounding. I guess I had lots of confidence that the stock would bounce at it's 50-day moving average.

It was extremely tempting to sell it all after it ran up to $127. But I was good and just gave the market dribs and drabs of my position all the way up until $132. It was my second best stock of the day, I net just under $4500 in the trade.

Here's another crazy one I got involved in only with far fewer shares.



I mean, what the fuck? Seriously!

I got long at around $106 with 400 shares. I sold half before $107. The other 200 I sold over $112. Then, to be piggish and greedy, I got short at $112.50 and covered around $109. It was wild.

But as the volatility can work in your favor, it can just as easily work against you. For example, I lost $1900 in TNH today playing it with 300 share positions.



And then there's TFX...



Stewie called this one out. These "Streetsmack" plays, or parabolic short scalp plays have been working like a charm recently. However, I got involved with TFX a little too early and perhaps too heavy at around $74.50. I had to cover around $76.25 for a big loss.

Then I got short again at around $77.50. Thing is that I got short less when it actually started to work. At one point I was down a few thousand in the stock and managed to trim my loss to -$1403. I'm short 400 into the weekend. The only thing that would drive this stock up 15 points in this environment is a fund having to unwind a short position... that's just a guess of course. I'd love to get anyone else's opinion.

Anyway, I just hope I don't become further fuel for that squeeze on Monday. We'll see.


Meanwhile, there was loads to watch all day. The fertilizer stocks (besides, ahem... TNH) were strong. Lots of money seemed to be moving there. The financials also bounced. In fact, my best stock of the day was AMG.



I was in and out of him aggressively all day long, trading over 22,000 shares of it alone. All of my profits came on the long side, most in the bounce between 11:00 and 12.

We'll see where this market takes us. Based on some of the wacky moves I witnessed today I feel like there are some funds being forced to cover positions. I expect more bad news to come out on the financial sector. I mean, all the banks and brokerages seem to be hiding the truth from themselves, their investors and the media. That doesn't sound good.

And I don't put much thought to the market when I'm not trading it, so I don't have any clue about what the Fed move means today, throwing dollars at the market like that. It smacks of desperation, that's all I can read. I mean, 3 moves in one day like that is "unprecedented?" That can't be good, right? They threw more liquidity on the market today than they have since right after 9/11. Odd, if everything is just fine, no?

(Note to Wallstreakers: I couldn't get on after 3pm or so...)

Anyway, here's the stats:
P&L,
$10,528
Best, AMG, $6492
Worst, TNH, -$1892

shares traded, 173,000
44 stocks traded, 25 winners, 19 losers
708 trades

10 comments:

artha said...

Holy Dinosaur! Nice numbers!

Just curious, what is your one day personal best? Do you face any distractions trading from home (e.g., your daughter or wife, solicitors knocking on your door or calling, etc.)?

Dinosaur Trader said...

artha,

Trading at home can be distracting. It's much more difficult to be really "tuned in" although today I was pretty in there.

This was my best day in over a year. I made $35k one day in 2000. That stands as my best.

It's important to note that while I had a big day, today accounts for 25% of my yearly earnings. I've had a really bad year. That's easily forgotten when I throw up a number like today, but it's true.

-DT

bloggerdotcom said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
FX said...

Congratulations DT!

THE TRUTH TRADER said...

NICE ! Super numbers DT!

Congrats on the big day, with the market volatility I'm sure you will grab a few more five figure days before the year is out.

Enjoy your week-end....and I'm sure you will :^)

wincity said...

We often trade the same stocks. I shorted the crazy TFX today also. Twice. Almost shorted at the top if today's not Friday. The toad's simply freaky.

I feel stocks like this are just traders trading. It certainly got momo and could go higher if the market helps next week. Look at the chart. It's just unreal.

I noticed PCP as well but at the time it already bounced $5 from the bottom.

Dinosaur Trader said...

Thanks a lot, guys!

I stepped out for a few hours there to celebrate and came back to all these nice comments.

A nice way to end the day. I appreciate it.

-DT

Narrow Edge Trader said...

nice work DT and always good times at wallstreak. All you need is 4-5 days like this is a year and you're good to go. You are the man!

stewie.

Jawbreaker said...

Good job DT. I hope you have many more days like that. It seems like you are really starting to adjust to the Hybrid. Congrats my friend. tony

Dinosaur Trader said...

Stewie,

Wallstreak is a blast. I only wish the site didn't go down so much. I couldn't even get it to load after 3pm on Friday....

Tony,

Thanks! I don't know if it's adjusting to the Hybrid or just benefitting from the volatility. I won't feel like I've adjusted to the Hybrid until I can make money when it's slow... pre-hybrid I was always able to make money even on the slow days, if only a little. No long dry spells like I've had since Hybrid. We'll see.

Have a relaxing Sunday guys, Monday could be a doozy.

-DT