Dinosaur "V Bottoms" With Market

Today was not without it's dark moments, but in the end everything was great.

It started well, as I caught some nice short moves in the shipping stocks, most notably, DSX and ANW. I also made some money on the long side, in BEN.

But my favorite trade of the day came around 11:00 when MER ripped off the lows and I shorted it, right in front of a price I had written down this morning, $64.58.



I rode it down below $63 and covered, pulling in a little over $400 in the stock. What made me happy about the trade is that I almost felt like I had a "plan" when I made the trade. I don't normally trade with a "plan." In fact, I'm not really sure exactly how I trade, I think I've said that before.

Anyway, so I was up around $2,000 around 11 and I just really chilled out. I barely traded.

However, just after 2pm, it was very obvious that a real big buyer stepped into the market.



Normally, I'm pretty cautious when it comes to buying a market that I'm pretty bearish about when it's down close to 200 points, but not today. I stepped in and started buying stocks left and right. There was just a "feel" to the move in the futures that let me know it was the real deal. This is when things got interesting.

On Wednesday's, Judy teaches a "toddler yoga" class. As you know, our daughter has an ear infection and she was up ALL NIGHT last night. Normally, that's bad, but today it kind of worked in our favor because it meant that she would take an "intraday nap." (If you recall, last week on Wednesday I was watching Mary Poppins with my daughter and mother-in-law while trading... that was tough.) So today, I thought I was in the clear.

But she woke up around 2:15, just when I had loaded up and was carrying close to 10k shares of positions. Judy wasn't due home for another 20 minutes.

Normally, my daughter loves me. But when she's sick, she hates everyone except Judy.

So when I ran into her room and scooped her up out of bed, she was screaming for "MAMA! MAMA!" Since you can't really explain to a sick 3 year old that "Daddy is up to his neck in longs so you need to chill out" I didn't even bother. Instead, she sat on my lap screaming while I watched the market chop down... those 2 red bars at around 2:20 were unbelievably stressful for me.

Luckily, the market turned north again and I didn't have to do too much with my positions. Unfortunately, I couldn't do much to please my daughter either so she screamed until Judy came home while the market ripped higher.

Since today was bound to be a good day, the lord of the seas also graced us with some nice waves and a mild offshore breeze. Surf was better than it's been in weeks. I split right after work and head for the beach where I surfed until it was dark out. I will be there for sunrise as well... if it's really good, I may just stay there. We'll see.

Anyway, here's the stats:

P&L, $4302
Best, ANW, $1707
Worst, BIDU, -$344

92,000 shares traded.
39 stocks traded. 22 winners, 17 losers.
347 trades.