Weekend Open Thread

I guess I'm feeling kind of dark. Darkish?

Anyway, here's another chance for you to show your wit with a Wise and Otherwise quotation.

Finish the following:

There's an old Slovakian saying:
If you win put away, if you lose...

If you fool can guess the saying that is closest to the correct saying you... win... 3... billion... dollars! That's right. We'll be choosing the winner Sunday night. Enter as many times as you wish, no purchase necessary.

Also, I'll update this thread throughout the weekend with interesting links. If you think you said or thought something that was interesting this week, feel free to leave a link in the comments section.

1. First of all, there was my Peanut Gallery submission... hopefully you didn't miss that. Go give it 5 stars even if you don't like it.

2. A great post from Dr. Brett about "questionable things" he hears from traders.

3. "The Rage" has a nice post on the Golden Cross. Not to be confused with the Golden Shower, the DIrty Sanchez or the Watusi.

Radiohead, "Videotape"

Now let's see what College Trader posts...

He and Noise Trader both post good music. Unlike "the Fly" who posts complete crap.

Happy November Is Over

November was a messy month for me. It featured my worst trade ever, (losing 55 points in FSLR short) and also one of my worst intraday givebacks ever (over $5 grand in under an hour).

In the end, I have been making money more consistently, even if I haven't had huge up days recently.

I don't really feel like writing about my day. It wasn't bad, but that FED trade really pissed me off and I just want to turn off the computer right now.

The Hybrid Market is a disaster even if CNBC won't talk about it (since they broadcast from the floor of the NYSE I guess that could be awkward.) I have hope however, that it will get better.

Have a great weekend.

Virtual Office, $2666. Dow, +59.99, 13,371.72.

Dehtrader, $1726 on 3720 shares traded.
Sanglucci, $526 on 22,200 shares traded.
Me, $414 on 17,600 shares traded.
Akalawoo, no trades.
Evolution, no trades.
Misstrade, no trades.
Wincity, no trades.

I guess the VO members are so rich they don't have to work anymore...

Very nice to see Dehtrader up at the top today. He's showing some great resilience after getting smoked a couple of days back. That's not an easy thing to do... trust me.

In other news, nothing much happened until the very close... that's when we traded like 300 million shares in 5 minutes. I was all set to complain about volume and then it all came on the close. Must be an expiration or something. Anyway, volume during the trading day was crappy.

For all of the big talk coming from the bulls after the parabolic rise in the indexes, I'd love one of them to point out where the leadership is coming from. Looks like a bounce off of oversold levels in weak stocks if you ask me... not the thing raging bull markets are made of. Also, if this were the start of a real, new rally, you'd expect to see volume balloon. Instead, it was merely good, not great.

But we'll see. I expect us to be quiet these next couple of weeks. I welcome this quiet. I'm happy to see November behind us... it was a little too crazy, even for this trader.

Meanwhile, Sanglucci got his numbers in on time today... love that guy.

I will have a Weekend Open Thread featuring a little "Wise and Otherwise" up this weekend.

Come play, over 3 billion in prizes will be awarded. Honest.

The NYSE's Hybrid Market Sucks

Fuck you traders! That's what the Hybrid Market is all about.

I go in to buy FED at 3:42 or so, no indication, a 2 cent spread in the quotes and I'm filled over 2 points higher on a print of over 70,000 shares. Next trade is for 600 shares over a point lower.



It's sad and laughable. It's bullshit and they need to fix it. Half my daily profits gone in 2 minutes because their system is a piece of shit.

The Shining, Recut

"Troubled Subprime Borrowers"

This is a funny phrase being used over and over on CNBC.

I picture millions of poor Americans, "troubled" by their inability to pay back their mortgages.

I don't think that's the case. Instead, I think they're probably quite happy.

They're sitting there in their unpaid-for-homes while Wall Street freaks out. They don't have any investments, so, they win. And lets face it, they probably hate Wall Street people and "the rich."

Yep, "the subprimers" are out picking up their 6-packs of Bud while we speak.

Party on subprimers, party on.

The "Rally" Buyers

This Rally Is Silly.

Ridiculous also comes to mind. I'm happy I'm not short. By Tuesday however, I plan on nibbling short again.

Daily Show Remembers Alan Greenspan

So it's 2 years later... it's still funny. Especially the bit about him dropping rates 3/4 point in 1998.

Damn writers strike...

Spoon, "Jonathan Fisk"

Market Digests Gains; Dinosaur Trader Suffers Indigestion

What a boring day.



I actually made money between 10 and 12 but decided to place stop orders instead of selling positions at market. Almost all of my stops were hit as the market declined into the afternoon. Unfortunately, the money I made was only offsetting losses that I took at around 9:45 when the market dropped like a rock for 3 minutes.

See that big red bar at 9:45? Fuck the robots.

Anyway, my best stock of the day today was JLL.



I caught some of the trend, but only with a few hundred shares. This stock is thin and can sometimes drop (or rise) precipitously for no good reason. In the afternoon, all of the financial names continued their squeeze. I guess people got nervous going into Uncle Ben's speech tonight... anyway, that would have been a great place to make money in the afternoon. Unfortunately, I was already put to sleep by the market and just not feeling like getting actively involved.

Looking back, I should have been involved because all of the financials rallied into the close.

My worst stock of the day was EXM, which I tried to short in the morning.



You can see why that was a mistake. The good news is that I screwed up the trade and didn't keep at it with revenge trading or anything. I let it go. 300 shares traded, a half point loss, move on.

What more can I say? I spent the better part of the day drinking peppermint tea trying to recover from some gastro-distress.

Finally, Herb Greenberg is the kind of guy you don't want to get a beer with.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $17
Best, JLL, $293
Worst, EXM, -$157

26,600 shares traded.
21 stocks traded, 9 winners, 12 losers.

Virtual Office, -$4921. Dow, +22.28, 13,311.73.

Dehtrader, $305 on 7952 shares traded.
OBAT, $163 on 11,000 shares traded.
Sanglucci, $139 on 14,000 shares traded.
Denarii, $56 on 200 shares traded.
Me, $17 on 26,600 shares traded.
Akalawoo, influenza.
Wincity, -$35 on 100 shares traded.
Evolution, -$2566 on 45,600 shares traded.
Misstrade, -$3000 on 500 shares traded.

Clearly, the world must be about to self destruct.

Our resident robot, Misstrade, finds himself at the bottom of the pile today.

I never thought I'd see that.

Anyway, the VO got smoked. It was just one of those days where it was hard to make money. The futures were chopping around and there was no follow through. It just sucked.

Unfortunately, if you recall this is exactly what I expected. I don't think this choppy action is going away anytime too soon either. Might as well start your shopping because unless there's some type of interesting news, the market is going to suck until December 11th.

Go vote on my poll. Also, go vote on my Peanut Gallery post. "the Fly" has promised me $10,000 for each star.

Meanwhile, our new VO member must be some type of idiot for not getting me his numbers on this, his first day.

UPDATE: Sanglucci provided me with his numbers a half hour late... that makes him less of an idiot.

Melissa Francis >> Maria Bartiromo

She is so much nicer to listen to than Maria between 3 and 4pm, no?

Moths To The Flame

It's funny. People read this blog, they see the VO and they think, "Hey, I want to be a member of the VO. I want to share my stock market gains and losses with the world."

Then they join the VO and they get spit right out.

Well folks, we have a new member. This one seems a bit twisted, his name is Sanglucci.

I have no doubt that his tenure here will be short-lived, but I would love to be proven wrong.

Welcome to the VO, Sanglucci.

Tellurium Breath

I have written another post for The Peanut Gallery.

Clearly, I deserve to be paid.

Josephine Foster, "Little Life"

Great song for parents. Also great for ripping apart dead animals... try it!

Canned Goods For JJ

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I got smoked in my FSLR short and all I heard from JJ was that I was a jackass for covering at $219?

Well, don't look now but it's in the $230s.



Successful traders learn to take losses when they make mistakes, JJ. It's something you need to learn.

If you send me your address I'll start a canned-goods drive on this site so you can feed your (poor) family for the holidays.

Are You An Asshole?

Just in case you didn't check out Wall Street Fighter's daily links yesterday, here is a great one...

9 telltale signs that you're an asshole.

Is Daytrading Gambling?

I thought this would be a fun poll question since it's a debate people often (foolishly) engage me in.

Go vote.

REM, "Fall On Me"

Dow Gain Is Largest In 4 1/2 Years

Isn't that silly? C'mon. Are things that good? Has the dollar suddenly regained it's footing? Has everyone who was poor gotten rich overnight so that they can pay their mortgages? Is Maria Bartiromo going to take off forever?

Unfortunately, the answer to all these questions is "no."

I didn't get short into this rally even though I think it will ultimately fail. I mean, when the Dow finds the strength to rally almost 600 points in 2 days it throws enough bullishness into the mix to make the bears doubt their situation. It's kind of like Exxon spending all those billions to make people doubt global warming. But the reality is, things haven't suddenly gotten better (and indeed, global warming exists).

Instead, in a few months, we'll look back on these 2 days and say, "Man, that was a great spot to get short. Remember that? BIDU at $368? And hey, remember snow?"

Anyway, I didn't do too much today. I bought ALB at the open and held for a point and made a little over $500 in him.



I did the same in MTG and KMT and I was up a little over a grand by 10:30.

Then I went surfing.

Before I left, I bought a little OSK, CNS, and KMT expecting them to trade higher. My plan was to get home by 2:00 when they released the Beige Book. Unfortunately, all of my positions sucked and when I got back, I was up about $750.

I assumed with the market up a gazillion points into the Beige Book that it would have to sell off a little after the release. I short a little FLR into the number.



Wrong again. After that, I decided to stop trading and be in a bad mood.

Anyway, here's the stats:

P&L, $648
Best, ALB, $527
Worst, FLR, -$197

9600 shares traded.
8 stocks traded, 4 winners, 4 losers.

Virtual Office, $3179. Dow, + 1Gazillion, 13,289.54.

Evolution, $1592 on 109,400 shares traded.
Me, $648 on 9600 shares traded.
OBAT, $188 on 8600 shares traded.
Akalawoo, $78 on 2 contracts traded.
Denarii, $63 on 600 shares traded.
Wincity, -$32 on 100 shares traded.
Dehtrader, -$2295 on 4000 shares traded.

I feel it coming... the market is ready to go into "suck mode."

It's gonna suck from here until that damned FED meeting which, no doubt, CNBC will remind us about every 5 minutes until December 11th.

Fuck CNBC and their cheerleading "anchors."

Anyway, what a nice day, huh? America made money, you walk outside and it smells like leaves and burning fires, Maria Bartiromo was off again...

Actually, I think today sucked and I'm in a bad mood. It's the whole thing about people asking me how I did and me feeling like I did shitty because the market is up a gazillion points. And now, suck mode. You heard it here first.

See you in January, market.

Ah... I Miss The "Fake News."

The Big Bad Bounce

I thought maybe we'd be up another 50-100 points today...



300+? That's a little rich for my taste. This reminds me exactly of September... remember we had a big run-up into the FED meeting and then they surprised everyone with 50bp and we ran a little more... all on lighter volume.

Of course, everyone knows what happened next, we plummeted back to the August lows. Why? Because ultimately, FED cuts can't save us. So really, to use a technical trading term, this rally is "silly." Of course, you'd also be "silly" to fight it.

Let the market take a dump and clean the slate. You can't fight psychology forever... however, I guess you could try really really hard to change it.

Anyway, I made some early money and then managed to park my money in 3 of the lamest stocks for the last 100 points on the DOW. OSK, KMT and CFC...

I mean, how do I manage to lose money while I'm surfing when all the market did was go up? Sigh. Anyway, I'm happy to be up because as I've mentioned here before, I hate days where we gap up big.

More importantly, I got some good surf in. "Cleaning my slate" so to speak...

The Robots Win Again!

Apparently, my suspicions after 10am yesterday were correct. That was some real buying we saw yesterday, not just short covering.



The way it works (at least according to IBD) is that we now would need to see a "follow-through" attempt to confirm yesterday's rally. A "follow through" would be an advance of more than 1% (I think, maybe 2%) in any of the indexes over the next week or so on juicy volume.

Naturally, this nascent "rally" would be declared dead if the major indexes undercut yesterday's lows.

We shall have to wait and see. Now will either be a great time to initiate new short positions or initiate new longs. If you get on the right side, you win a new house... if you choose wrong, all of your worldly goods will be taken from you and your friends will stop hanging out with you.

Radiohead, "Jigsaw Falling Into Place"

Trading Lightly

I've been losing money lately trading the open, so today, I traded very lightly for the first few minutes. I took small profits in MBI (long) and MTW (short) but mostly watched.

At around 10:00 am, I noticed BIDU made a new high on the day, but on light volume. So, like the big trader I am, I short 50 shares at $339.



Why does it happen that on trades where you throw down small size you catch the big moves? I covered around $330 and kicked myself for not "going crazy" and shorting 100 shares.

At approximately the same time, I made a nearly identical trade in FSLR. The only difference is that I held FSLR for slightly longer and covered a few points off of the bottom.

The bounce in these two "former" leaders convinced me of the strength of the rally today and removed my bearish bias pretty quickly. The problem was that I hadn't gotten long, I had only covered my shorts. At this point, I was up around $1100 on the day.

For the rest of the day, I threw money away in dribs and drabs as I tried to get long stocks only to be shaken out and watch them go higher. Case in point, FLR, my worst stock of the day.

Truly, at around 3:00 I "knew" this stock was heading higher. It had broken the downtrend it had been in since 1pm on strong upside volume. The fact that I couldn't get in, add to and hold my position highlights perfectly what is currently wrong with my trading.



In fact, I traded FLR so poorly that it ended up being my worst stock of the day as I lost $152 in him. Here are my trades:

14:28 Buy 200 @ 133.50 (200)
14:29 Sell 100 @ 133.25 (100)
14:33 Sell 100 @ 132.50 (flat)
14:58 Buy 100 @ 132.90 (100)
15:04 Buy 100 @ 133.14 (200)
15:05 Sell 200 @ 132.80 (flat)
15:07 Buy 200 @ 133.19 (200)
15:08 Sell 100 @ 133.17 (100)
15:10 Sell 100 @ 133.43 (flat)

The patience thing... I still need big work there. Clearly, on my first trade I was too early. Trading the way I do, I should never take a point loss on a stock. However, I was trading with very small size here so I was trying to trade with some conviction.

Pretty much, you can see me going crazy there. The worst thing is that it closed at $136.21. What can I say? I just fucked it up. I'm getting in and out of stocks too much when often I am "right" about what moves they're going to make. I'm simply getting shaken out.

I think reviewing my trades each day will start to help me regain confidence in the decisions that I'm making.

And the big silver lining of the day was that I didn't add to a losing position once. This really helps positions stay "light" psychologically. I mean, when you start adding to a losing position, you're getting attached to it and "hoping" which is exactly what you don't want to be doing when you trade.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $626
Best, BIDU $423
Worst, FLR, -$152

13,400 shares traded.
16 stocks traded, 7 winners, 9 losers

Virtual Office, $4880. Dow, +215, 12,958.44.

Dehtrader, $988 on 5590 shares traded.
Me, $626 on 13,400 shares traded.
Akalawoo, $442 on 6 contracts traded.
Evolution, $433 on 65,200 shares traded.
Wincity, $48 on 100 shares traded.
Denarri, -$32 on 200 shares traded.
OBAT, -$125 on 16,400 shares traded.

I'm confused.

I mean we have volatility today yet the VIX was down over 2 points. We also had decent volume with about 1.6 billion shares traded on the NYSE, with over 1.1 billion of that to the upside. Score one for the bulls.

But there is something nagging me about this market. Never have I been so correct on which way the market is going to move but felt so powerless to profit from those moves.

Whereas in August the market volatility yielded traders gobs of money, this volatility has a different feel altogether. Why is this market so difficult to trade?

I blame the robots.

Humans don't bid the futures up 10 points in 10 minutes. It just doesn't happen that way without some type of news event. Robots however, are fearless. If their "program" or whatever, tells them to buy futures, they buy, stupidly, spiking the market this way and that.

I've said it many times before. Fuck the robots. Then again, who knows? Maybe in 20 years robots will send my kids to college.

Anyway, it was a pretty good day for the VO. But man, you just know Dehtrader wanted $12 more dollars...

Strong Bounce

In fact, strong enough that I'm done being short for awhile.



I caught nice downside moves in BIDU and FSLR. However, seeing them all bounce so strongly leads me to believe that there's a lot of money on the "buy side" of the market today that will be buying the dips. That means trade will be "squeezy."

Better to be the squeezer than the squeezed.

Citigroup Sells Stake To Abu Dhabi Group

Big news.

However, before you get all excited, don't forget that when Bank Of America bought that chunk of CFC it seemed like a good idea at the time.

As it stands now, they've lost 858 million on that deal.

Still, this should at least show us a temporary bottom.

3 Daytrading Rules

After going through my trades today, I've distilled what I learned into 3 well-known trading rules.

1. Don't add to losing positions.

My big losers today came when I added to positions that I should have exited because they were going against me.

2. Add to winning positions and have the patience to let them run.

I had some great trades that I failed to capitalize on fully because I never added to my initial position. When you have a position move in your favor, you need to "pyramid" into it in order to maximize your profits on your winning trades. Too often today when a stock moved in my favor I "locked in gains" instead of adding to the position at a smart place and "letting it run."

3. Analyze past trades.

Most importantly, today I remembered how important it is to analyze past trades. I hate doing it because it's boring, but if you want to trade full-time and expect to make money doing it, there's no better way to learn from your mistakes.

Quiet Riot, "Cum On Feel The Noize"

The lead singer died yesterday. Surely, he is looking down from heaven happy that he has been immortalized forever on this fine blog.

I just remember being 10 and dancing around like an idiot to this song. Naturally, that was before I had impeccable musical taste.

It Hurts

I mean, I've seen this coming for a long time. Since August I've been saying "we're going lower" and "look at the weak volume on the up days."

Blah! Blah! Blah! I made $39 dollars today. It hurts to suck that badly when you're "right" on the general direction of the market.

And frankly, I'm sick of it.

Truth is, I don't quite realize what it is I'm doing wrong. So, instead of rushing this post, I'm going to delve into each of my trades today and see what the heck I do here, sitting at the computer all day. Really, I have no idea.

If I figure anything out, such as, how one can make money being on the right side of the market, I'll share it here.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $39
Best, BIDU, $338
Worst, AB, -$327

33,800 shares traded.
22 stocks traded, 10 winners, 12 losers.

Virtual Office, $2143. Dow, -238.09, 12742.79.

OBAT, $125 on 12,800 shares traded.
Wincity, $98 on 400 shares traded.
Me, $39 on 33,800 shares traded.
Akalawoo, no trades.
Denarii, no trades.
Dehtrader, -$128 on 5280 shares traded.
Evolution, -$991 on 132,348 shares traded.

Hello everyone, it's good to be back. That said, today sucked.

I mean, if the VO is net negative (minus Misstrade, of course) on a day when the Dow plunges 238 points, then perhaps we (the VO) should stop trading and instead consider starting to sell Arbonne goods or something.

"Relationship marketing" is where it's at. Fuck trading.

But seriously, we traded 1.5 billion shares today on the NYSE. Not too bad. Take a gander at this though... about 1.3 billion of those shares were "down volume." Grim indeed.

I dunno. I think we're in a bear market. While "the Fly" may punch my eyebrows off for making such a statement the fact is there is absolutely no leadership to lead this market higher. We need stocks forming bases and busting higher... instead, on the days we're up it's due to beaten down stocks squeezing shorts.

We're going lower.

Note to CNBC...

Please put MCC back in the 4am time slot. Thank you. Until then I will watch Bloomberg.

Hummer Drivers Have Low IQs

Countdown To Market Implosion

Okay, hiatus over. A big thanks to Dehtrader for manning the VO in my absence.

A Wombat Type Of Thanksgiving

Again, this week I will be on "light blogging mode." I just bought a new winter wetsuit, upgraded my computer (coming Wednesday) and basically, will be taking it easy trading.



I look forward to getting back to full-time blogging mode a week from today. Expect a couple of posts this week, but nothing more.

Hope all is going well for you out there. Thanks for your patience as I "chill out."

Message To "The Fly" From The Peanut Union

"Error establishing a database connection," indeed!

All your base are belong to us, bitch!

R.I.P "I Bank Coin" November 19-24, 2007.



UPDATE: 4:43pm, Saturday. I have brought "the Fly's" blog back online. Hopefully, he has learned not to tangle with "the Dinosaur."

Fox News Porn

I interrupt this labor rally, hiatus and weekend to bring you some hot pornography, courtesy of Fox News.



Power to the Peanuts.

Unionizing The "Peanut Gallery"

I am interrupting this "hiatus" to announce my intention to unionize the "Peanut Gallery" over at "the Fly's" new nightmare of a blog, I Bank Coin.

While he plans on "crushing" all of the "third tier" bloggers via the Peanut Gallery, I am calling for a boycott of said gallery, until we are paid for our efforts.

Watch the news Mr. Fly? See what's happening over in Hollywood?

In time, your blog will lose it's shine without the "the Gallery" as people tire of Woody's posts on technical analysis (he's Southern, and therefore suspect) and realize that "Mini-me," or, Danny, is just like you but a little dumber. Meanwhile, it's my strong suspicion that "Mr. Bilderberg" is no more than a friend of yours that you used to play wiffle-ball with when you were a kid. He's living with his parents still... I'm sure of it. Jeremy seems legit, despite his poor taste in music.

In short, pay the "Peanut Gallery" or be crushed by it via bad PR.

"Power to the Peanuts."

NOTE: I will be back, "full time" after Turkey week is over. Until Thanksgiving passes, I will be posting only sporadically. Thank you for your patience as I practice yogic breathing and reconnect with my "inner Dinosaur."

Hiatus

After "taking the weekend off" from blogging and being around my computers, I have decided to go on a little hiatus.

Not sure how long it will last, maybe a week, maybe more.

As you know, the market is extremely volatile right now. My attention needs to be on it, not "Blogistan."

And no, I didn't "blow up."

Enjoy the volatility while it's here, that's the message.

NOTE: Starting tomorrow, Dehtrader will be hosting the VO until I'm back on board. VOers, please email him your results.

Poll Closed. VO Spits Out Stewie

48 of you voted. Here are the results to the question, Who will the VO spit out next?

Akalawoo, 2 votes, 4%
Dentrader, 7 votes, 14%
Denarii, 6 votes, 12%
Dinosaur, 5 votes, 10%
Evolution, 3 votes, 6%
Misstrade, 5 votes, 10%
OBAT, 4 votes, 8%
Stewie, 11 votes, 22%
Wincity, 5 votes, 10%

As you can see, my prescient readers believed that Stewie couldn't handle the pressure of the VO. Indeed, this was the case.

Stewie sent in his "letter of resignation" last week. You can now ignore his blog again.

"The Fly" Is ALIVE! Dead Weekend Open Thread

Have fun! Talk to us. This market is in trouble, let's hear your thoughts.

As for me, I'm in the city all weekend staying at a friend's apartment who is away. I'm loving it.

I'll try to throw some comments up, but until then, talk amongst yourselves.

UPDATE: Monday morning after a crazy weekend and I'm up to my eyeballs in shit. Meanwhile, "the Fly" is suppossedly "burning his blog to the ground" at 10:00am.

If true, I'll miss stuff like this a lot...

"In many ways, we are all stupid fucktards, trying to find our niche, our special skill-- to make enough money so that we can fly to the moon in a monkey suit."

-"the Fly"

Sweet.

Virtual Office, NYC Edition. $15,089. Dow, -223.55, 13,042.74.

Evolution, $3728 on 140,000 shares traded.
Me, $2281 on 86,700 shares traded.
Dehtrader, $1555 on 3000 shares traded.
OBAT, $255 on 12,800 shares traded.
Akalawoo, $114 on 3 contracts.
Wincity, -$62 on 300 shares traded.

What a wild friggin day.

I left the market at around 3:00 or so when it was down 92 points. I was extremely angry with myself for missing what I thought was going to be an easy rally to the close. I had to leave early today, to get to the city.

Anyway, I can't believe it sold off so hard that last 40 minutes or so... crazy stuff. Glad to see that next week will be another interesting one because I messed up some huge opportunities today.

I won't be posting a daily. I'm amazed I found the time to post this. Why do I feel a weird responsibility to this blog?

Congrats to the VOers for posting a great day.

Have a good weekend. I'll throw an "Open Thread" up. Please babble away.

Market Weaker Than Congressional Democrats

Perhaps this will change into the close, but for now, the market blows.

Should we close at the lows, stock up on food this weekend. And visit your local Walmart to pick up some assault rifles in order to protect your family from the "American refugees."

NOTE: After giving $2000 back to "mother market" I've lost my mojo. We'll be in the city all weekend and I may make an early exit. In that case, the VO will be very late tonight. I'm currently up $2150. If I drop below $2000, I'm gone.

Bloomberg Speculation... Again!

Now, if there was ever a year when a third party candidate had a real chance of winning this is it. Especially a third party candidate with a billion bucks to blow.

I mean, people hate Bush and people now hate the Democrats for not standing up to Bush.

We need a third party now!

The New Talking Point

The decline in the dollar doesn't matter for "real Americans," that is, those who buy their products in the US... unless they're out buying Gucci handbags.

I've heard that repeated by the talking heads all day. While I'm not an economist, I'm sure that's an oversimplification and that there are other ramifications.

REM, "Drive"

Stock Market Volatility

Yesterday I was, in a word, "de-balled." I just want to briefly touch on what it was like to be squeezed for over 50 points in FSLR.

It sucked.

Okay, moving on.

At around 3pm, my balls were handed back to me by "mother market" and I was able to resume trading. Actually, I was massively short at 3pm and got badly squeezed giving back $1000 of my then, $2500 in profits. "Mother market" is one fucked up chick.

However, due to the strength of that squeeze, I realized that it was probably a buy program. I took a look at C and GS, which were rallying hard, took a deep breath, and started to buy stock hand over fist.

Funny thing is that I really bought the wrong stocks. My largest positions, DSL, FLR and MTG all either shook me out or didn't move in a way that allowed me to profit. Instead, I made good money in smaller positions in CMI and FXI.

Basically, you could have bought almost anything and made money. That's my kind of rally.

Earlier, I caught the bottom in DRYS with 300 shares. I mean, not "the bottom" exactly, but close enough. I bought around $91.80 and sold at around $95.



Now, you can be a dick and ask my why I sold so "early" but the fact of the matter is that at 1:00 we hadn't entered "rally mode" yet and it still looked like the sky was falling. I thought it wise to take some profits and get ready for it to go back to the lows.

Anyway...

So, I'm a little shot right now. I'm going to let this post die and go play with my kid.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $5179
Best, DRYS, $971
Worst, GHL, -$422

82,100 shares traded.
22 winners, 11 losers.
461 trades.

Virtual Office, $14,940. Dow, -34.38, 13265.64.

Me, $5179 on 84,100 shares traded.
Evolution, $1542 on 125,600 shares traded.
Dehtrader, $967 on 3100 shares traded.
OBAT, $105 on 23,200 shares traded.
Wincity, $40 on 700 shares traded.
Denarii, $27 on 2200 shares traded.
Akalawoo, no trades.
Stewie, seen with a can of Macademia nuts... developing.

A "W" bottom.

Always nice to see the market get smoked and then come back almost 100%, no matter if you're bullish or bearish... it just makes you feel good.

I'd normally make fun of CNBC here, but I had my TV on "mute." I just couldn't stand to listen to Maria. Did she mention the MOC buy imbalances? If she did, I'll give her some credit but I kind of doubt she did.

Anyway, it was a good day for the VO as everyone finished in the green. And finally... we got volume. 2 billion shares of volume. Now, I'm not sure if that means we put in some type of temporary bottom or not, but I will say that the 1455 level in the futures was also important in August. 13,000 may also be providing some kind of psychological support on the Dow. I think we've used up our Wombat for the next few days.

For me, this is good as tomorrow I'll be trading only a half day. We'll be in the big city all weekend. I'll try and get the VO up, but no guarantees. As you can see, Stewie was found in the corner of the VO today with a can of Macademia nuts and mumbling to himself. You recall what happened to Bubs... anyway, something may be up.

Animal Collective, "Cuckoo, Cuckoo"

Go ahead, throw on a few large positions in your favorite crazy "momo" stocks and listen to this song at the same time. I dare you.

The Price Is Wrong, Bitch!

Sniff The Wombat

The $40 Pizza, Part Deux

Read part 1, here.

It's a running joke among my family and friends that without Judy, I'd be in big trouble or perhaps, already dead. It had only been 2 hours since she'd left and already I had botched a simple financial transaction and managed to lock myself out of our house.

Why? You might ask, did I not have my key? Because the day before was Halloween and I didn't want a lot of shit in my pockets when we went trick-or-treating. I don't like carrying shit in my pockets. I removed the house key from my keychain and then, I had forgotten to return it.

I put my pizza down on my back porch and secured it in place with some rocks, so that it would not be blown by the wind. I walked down the block to get a spare key from a friend. She's an old woman who lives alone. We hadn't visited her in awhile. She opened the door with a big smile.

She just bought a new car. She proceeded to tell me all about it.

"I mean, you won't believe it. I say 'XM5' and the radio comes on. I mean, isn't that something? Can you believe that? Guess what color it is? 'Midnight Moon!'"

It was clear she hadn't seen another human being, in weeks.

She continued... "It has a 'spoiler' and I told the guy, 'Look, 70 year old women don't need spoilers! HAHA! And he winked at me and said, 'No, but 50 year old women do.' I mean, can you believe that?"

This kind of talk went on for some time while I imagined my pizza getting colder and clammier. Still, there was nothing to be done. I nodded... I said, "Really?" I fixed her printer, hooked up her DVD player and patiently sat as she showed me a number of chain emails she had received in order to help her determine the credibility of each.

"Don't send the money to Nigeria," I cautioned. "I think that one's a fake."

Then we drank some scotch and she showed me nude photographs of herself taken when she was 23 years old.

Anyway, by the time I got out of there, key in pocket, the dwindling light had faded and it was pitch dark. Luckily, I live in a neighborhood that doesn't suffer from excessive lighting. we don't have street lamps and most people don't use obnoxious floodlights to keep their asphalt and grass well lit while they sleep. I walked home, enjoying the stars.

As I neared our house I got excited about my "Mardi Gras" again, even though it would now have to be reheated.

Take a walk at night and you'll notice that your footsteps seem to make more noise than they do during the day. With all of the recently fallen leaves and beech nuts on the ground, I sounded like Autumn itself as I walked up the driveway. However, this peaceful rustling of my feet was soon overtaken by a commotion and a cackling twitter, taking place by my back door.

I stopped to listen. "Hey!" I said, in a stage whisper. There was no answer... I walked closer.

Something ran by me and I noticed a strong odor in the air.

"Tabasco?" I said to the darkness.

My $40 pizza had been eaten by raccoons.

When I got inside I called Judy.

"Please come home," I pleaded.

Pavement, "Frontwards"

Moving on...

Nighttime Reading

I learned a lot from this article.

Turn off those useless outside lights!

A True Trading Disaster

For the record, this is the first time I've ever been 40 points out of the money.



I'm not trying to be flip about this trade or anything... I guess I got short at $164 or so.

It's almost humorous. Meanwhile, we got a "cheap pizza" tonight... no "Mardi Gras."

It's a bad trade, it blew up my swing account, and I'm moving on. There are two lessons I take away from this:

1. Things can always get worse.
2. Should they "get worse" life still goes on. Gotta keep moving.

I will keep making money in my daytrading account, re-fund my "swing account" and hopefully not make this type of fucked-up mistake again.

Odd Nosdam, "Kill Tone"

If there's one instrumental you listen to this year, let it be this one. Featuring birds and "baby-baby" my daughter's favorite doll.



Meanwhile, don't expect a daily post tonight. I'm turning my crap off.

Virtual Office, $5034. Dow, -360.92, 13300.02.

Evolution, $1448 on 91,700 shares traded.
Me, $541 on 41,300 shares traded.
Denarii, $130 on 800 shares traded.
Akalawoo, $48 on 1 contract traded.
Wincity, no trades.
Stewie, no trades.
OBAT, -$68 on 14,000 shares traded.
Dehtrader, -$135 on 3480 shares traded.

Wow, well we blew right past those lows from October 19th at 13,407.

It's hard to really read how serious this sell-off is though because at this point, it's clear that so much volume is trading off of the NYSE that the volume numbers I report each night are basically irrelevant. We traded about 1.6 billion on the NYSE today. Good, but not worthy of this market move. I'm sure there was tons traded elsewhere that would really blow these volume numbers up.

If you were silly enough to watch CNBC at the end of the day you were treated to Maria making a fool of herself once again as she breathlessly explained that the market on close sell imbalances which come out EVERY DAY were going to take the market down in the last 10 minutes.

"I can only tell you that things are going to get worse in the next 10 minutes," she explained. I guess that first 320 points had nothing to do with us losing another 40 more there at the close. It's called a "trend" Maria, and it's going down. Please, CNBC... do something about her.

The VO did okay today, but really, I thought we'd have some big numbers.

I have shit to do right after the close so my daily post will be late.

UPDATE: I just blew up my "swing" account by shorting FSLR into earnings. In retrospect, that was dumb. The stock is up $30 afterhours. I was short 100 shares. Luckily, I covered the other 200 I was short before the close.

The $40 Pizza, Part 1

The other evening, Judy took our daughter out to a "book party." That meant I had 4 hours all to myself. The first thing I did, was to call in a "Mardi Gras." The "Mardi Gras" is a pizza, but calling it a pizza is like calling Melissa Theuriau a "woman."

To be absolutely clear, the "Mardi Gras" is the best pizza ever conceived by man.

It's loaded with shrimp, jalapenos, andouille sausage, tabasco, and onions. It's truly a "man's pie." In fact, it once made a less manly friend of mine cry... true story. After I eat a "Mardi Gras" Judy will avoid me for a full day because you don't digest a "Mardi Gras" as you do normal food... Instead, you sweat it out... you breathe it out.

Anyway, I drove the 20 minutes to "Pizzacatos." I hadn't been there in awhile, but I found an old promotion punchcard in my wallet... one of those things where if you buy 10 pizzas, you get the next one free. Ours had been punched 7 times.

I handed it over with $40 to the girl behind the counter (the "Mardi Gras is a $24 pie). She looked at the card like it was some weird crazy thing that confused her. She cocked her head, made a WTF? kind of face and walked into the kitchen holding my card up to the light as if to verify it was a real object. She also took my $40.

I stood at the counter and stared longingly at my pie sitting atop the pizza oven. A TV was tuned to Fox News and some lobotomized looking man sat at a table, watching the show and nodding while practically drooling all over himself.

"Fucking lemmings," I thought.

A fat woman swung open the kitchen door. "We don't take these anymore," she said, holding up the promotion card as if it were a toddler's dirty diaper. I stood there, blinking wordlessly for a moment while she continued, "Oh yeah, we stopped using them a long time ago" in order to emphasize the fact that I hadn't dined there in so long that I was completely out of touch with their policies and therefore didn't deserve much respect.

She was a big woman with many "creases."

She reached up, grabbed the pizza box and slid the pie across the counter to me, all the while staring me dead in the eye.

Due to the confusion with the card, the intimidation by the "creased" woman or my elation at having the pie in my hands, I forgot to pick up my change. Like a pervert buying a porn mag, I made a quick exit while averting any unnecessary eye contact with the other patrons. I walked nervously to my car and sped off.

I didn't realize that I had paid $40 for my pizza until I was nearly home. I thought about turning around right then, but instead thought of "the creased one" and told myself that I'd just call the restaurant and pick up the money the next time I was in the area. I was really hungry and just wanted to get inside to be alone with my "Mardi Gras."

I pressed a little harder on the gas pedal and made it home in record time, narrowly avoiding a raccoon as I made a quick turn onto my block. I bounced over the curb and parked hastily in my driveway.

"Mardi Gras" in hand, I marched triumphantly and purposefully towards the back door. I grappled my keychain with my right hand while holding the "Mardi Gras" with my left, all the while balancing on my left leg as my right held the screen door open.

As I stood there balancing, I realized the real problem... I didn't have my house key.

Part 2 tomorrow.

Freaky Hybrid Trade Of The Day! FLR!

Yesterday in my daily post, I highlighted how the Hybrid Market has ruined trading in illiquid names like BAP. However, lest you think that the Hybrid Market only wrecks havoc in low volume names, take a gander at this 1 minute chart for FLR today.

Really, is going from $144.50 to $151.50 in 3 minutes an orderly market in a stock that trades millions of shares a day?

Short answer is "no." They Hybrid Market is an abomination on many levels. We're almost at the year anniversary and I can already hear the NYSE getting ready to tout it's success with a big PR bash. However, I still can't find any traders defending this joke of a market. Where's the much promised "price improvement and matching?"

Meanwhile, I made money shorting FLR this morning... so don't go thinking I'm just bitter or something. I just can't stand what has become of the NYSE.

Strong Oil, Weak Dollar. Time To Horde Food

Nuts, dried beans...



Meanwhile, I'm not even going to turn on CNBC. I can't imagine they're saying anything useful.

"The Fly" Shutting Blog, NYSE Vows To Remain Open

"The Fly" has announced that his blog will be shutting down "live" on Monday November 12th, at 10:00am.

While it's somewhat awkward for such an event to take place smack dab in the middle of the trading day, John Thain, CEO of the NYSE, was quoted as saying, "While we expect a significant drop in trading activity on Monday, we'll remain open for trade."

He went on to say that the exchange would acknowledge the "passing" of "the Fly" with a moment of silence.

Ron Paul Sets One-Day GOP Fundraising Record

Not bad for a guy who has "no shot."

Who knows?

The Cure, "Fascination Street"

A Profitable Slumber

We had a late night. Saw Darjeeling Limited, really liked it and then had drinks with friends afterwards. Last time I had seen 11:30 on a worknight was in 1997, so I was hurting this morning when I woke up.

I planned on taking it easy today anyway, since I got so smoked yesterday. All day long I was trading with small positions, maxing out at 400 shares. I basically scalped all day... I hate trading like that, but I wanted to focus on taking profits and cutting losses quickly.

My best stock of the day was ABK.



They had a conference call at 10:00. It was pretty clear that they were going to come out and bash on the analysts who have recently been bashing on them... it was stupid of me to not load up more since I had good conviction on this play and it worked out.

Another good play I had today was DSX. This was a "darkside" trade... or short.



I noticed the relative weakness in this stock as compared to the other shippers at around 10:30 or so. The stock had a large bid (a rarity in the hybrid world) at $38.72 and I figured if he smacked it out that he would plunge a bit if the other shippers started to weaken. That exact scenario played out and the stock dropped nearly 2 straight points in short order.

Yesterday really messed with my head. I was so consistently off with my timing in the morning that it's hard to believe. Also, I lost about $800 in BAP in the first 15 minutes of trade. I'm posting a 1-minute graph here so you can easily understand the absurdity that occurs when you mix the hybrid market with thinly-traded stocks.



So, I got short right away, at around $72.85. I hated the trade and went to cover at what I thought would be a small loss. Instead, when I went to cover, the "ask" jumped above the $73 and I lost a quick $200. Worse yet, I screwed up and forgot to cancel my buy-stop order. So, instead of just covering my short, I also got long, up near $73.50. It was basically like I was trading with myself. There was absolutely no liquidity and the quotes were all 1x1 and spread wide. The stock quickly dropped over a point so I lost money on my short and then on my "accidental" long.

This trade made me so angry, so quickly, that really, I should have at least walked away from the computer for a few minutes. But I thought yesterday was going to provide good opportunity, so I kept plugging. Clearly, a mistake. Yesterday did provide great opportunity, but it was later in the day.

The point is, I'm happy I bounced back today but I traded really nervously. So, even though I "won" I feel like I "lost" a bit.

Hopefully, by the end of the week I'll be back on track.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $1074
Best, ABK, $556
Worst, CNS, -$155

25,000 shares traded.
15 stocks traded, 11 winners, 4 losers.
147 trades.

Virtual Office, $7568. Dow, +117.54, 13660.94.

Me, $1074 on 25,000 shares traded.
Dehtrader, $1027 on 3260 shares traded.
Denarii, $336 on 3800 shares traded.
Akalawoo, $48 on 1 contract traded.
Wincity, $34 on 200 shares traded.
OBAT, -$520 on 18,200 shares traded.
Evolution, -$2486 on 167,000 shares traded.

Okay, so I made it past 11am today. Unfortunately, it was the kind of day that puts a trader to sleep... choppy melt-up. So I didn't pay too much attention. I did chores, etc.

Unfortunately though, I passed my "blow-up cold" to OBAT and Evolution. Oh, and the supercomputer known as Misstrade made gobs of money again... but does anyone even notice anymore?

Meanwhile, is Guy Adami always stoned or does he just not give a fuck? And Maria with that 4:00 "Do you know where your money is?" thing... that's just annoying. "Yes, Maria, I know where my money is. Will you please shut up?"

Anyway, volume was decent today on the NYSE, we traded close to 1.5 billion shares. Better than the totals of a few weeks ago but hardly exciting.

I've been blogging lightly, I know. I'm having some computer issues. I think the guys from MtM threw a hex on my computer or something... My internet is "broken."

I think it's time for a new one... I priced out a Dell today with huge memory and dual-core processing. Perhaps that will help. $1049. Basically, today's profits for a new comp... we'll see.

Anyway, I have a highly researched post about "pizza inflation" going up tomorrow. Be sure to check it out.

Finally, GO ISLES!

Cell Phone Idiots, Beware!

Sure, these things are illegal in the US, but so is marijuana... and who hasn't tried that?

I wish I had one of these babies back when I was taking the train to the city everyday. Before cell phones, I was able to read a couple of books a week and actually enjoy the ride.

After cell phones, I stopped commuting.

Worst Person In The World

Roger Ailes wins due to his editing of criticism for his new, floundering, FBN.

Pretty damn funny!

America's Wealth Spectrum

Here it is.



That there is a graphical representation of said "spectrum."

What I want to know is how am I up near the top and still struggling?

I blame the hybrid market, and SWC.

Brief Foray Into Negativity

While I don't normally revel in the pain of other's trading losses, the blow to my awful day has been cushioned by seeing SWC down 15% or so. Sorry, JJ. Not really.



I guess it's a buy here?

A Musical Representation Of My Shitstorm

I don't feel like writing. Instead, here is a brief idea of what my day was like, musically.

First off, I was turned away at the gates of prosperity. In kind of a nasty, cold way.



Then, I took a drive. It was odd because I was happy to be heading to the beach for perfect surf with a full day ahead of me, but unhappy because I had to lose gobs of money to be in this situation.



Finally, a cleansing.



Now I'm off to watch the new Wes Anderson movie. Hopefully, that completes my escape from the day.

Back to your regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow. My apologies.