Felt Slower Than It Was

First of all, the day started out on a high note when I read that Karl Rove was resigning. I've dispatched an email to him to see if he'll guest blog while I'm on vacation, but so far I haven't heard from him. Surely, he is an avid reader of "Dinosaur Trader," so I'm hopeful.

Anyway, my take on today is that I was lulled to sleep early because of the "low volume" and thus, I fell into the trap of telling myself a "story" and took myself out of the game mentally. It pays to be mentally aggressive when trading... today I was not.

I started off getting smoked in my over-weekend short in TFX.



As you can see, it traded straight up 5 points. I was short 400 shares. Of course, I covered before $80, but still, it was unpleasant. Luckily, I stayed with this one and got short again in the $79s after it topped out. I ended up making all of my money back and then some, closing up $339 on the stock.

Another early trade was a long in CNS. I noticed on his daily graph that he was breaking above a downtrend line that I drew.



So, I bought and caught a nice 80-cent rip from $32.70 to $33.50.



On the downside, I screwed up BEN today... big time.



I started getting short around $124. My final cover of the day was up at $126.67... just before it collapsed. Frustrating. Luckily, I was trading it with only 200 shares at a time and thus limited huge damage. Still, losing almost $500 on a stock when you're trading with such small size means you messed up.

Besides that, I traded quietly today. I say that it felt slower than it was because there was a lot moving. I got stuck telling myself a "story" again, based on how I "felt" rather than looking at stocks "as they were." What I mean, simply, is that there were a lot of opportunities that I missed today because I lost my aggressive edge. I got lulled to sleep.

But take a look at any financial, at LZ, FLR or DSL and you'll see that many stocks had multiple-point ranges today. If you were awake, there were lots of trades to be made. If today meets the new definition of a "slow day" I'm happy to be trading.

Anyway, it's good to start the week with a gain especially since the day dawned on a down note. Happily, I have no overnight exposure and I can wake up tomorrow going into the market flat.

One word about tonight... I'm camping out on the beach to catch the tail end of the Perseid meteor shower. Camping with a toddler... this may end up working itself into a post.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $637
Best, CNS, $366
Worst, BEN, -$490

shares traded, 14,000
11 stocks traded, 7 winners, 4 losers
86 trades