Thursday, May 10, 2007

Blonde Redhead, "23"

Whew!

Well, it's about time. Today, I made up my losses from March ($300), April ($1200) and May ($600) in one swoop and managed to actually get green for the first time since the end of February. That's right. If the month ended today, I would walk home with a check for $400. It's been a long time since I was paid.

Worst part about being in a trading slump is that you feel like you're working harder than ever but you're not getting paid. It's awful.

Anyway, I had a couple of good trades today. The first came right off the open. I saw that CBI was gapping up. I heard from Denarii that it was because of Cramer and so I figured that was as good a reason to go short as any. So I sold short off the open. What's annoying is that I wasn't filled at the opening price (I wasn't "entitled to those shares") but instead at 39.32. That was annoying because immediately after getting a fill I was squeezed. I sold again, this time 1000 shares, at 39.81. After playing around for a few moments, the stock broke.



I covered half at 39.50, but then immediately short a couple hundred more there. I covered some more at .40 and some more at .24. Then, I short 300 more at 39.22 and covered at 39.12 and 39.06. From there, the stock headed south and I was able to cover the rest at 38.62. It was a nice trade and it ended up being my best on the day, netting me over $700.

Other notable shorts were in AGU and Misstrade's excellent short call in FWLT.






My worst stock of the day was, again, TNH. And it's a shame, because at one point, I had some good paper profits in him. But paper profits are worthless. I was waiting for the thing to crack wide open, I was short 700 shares from above 88 when he broke 87 but I thought for sure that he was going to break and I was going to have a real sizzler. Instead, he ripped my face off. But really, because I had such good entry it never hurt me so bad... it felt worse than it was in actual terms. I lost almost $300 in the stock. He's a lunatic. I'm beginning to doubt if the stock will ever drop again.

Although, Cramer talked about it tonight...



Anyway, we've had the house painted all this week so I've been locked in this room with the windows closed all day. That's why I've been getting out of here immediately after the close, so it's been difficult to blog regularly.

By the end of next week, things should be back to normal around here.

Anyway, here's the stats:

P&L, $2508
Best, CBI, $707
Worst, TNH, -$293

shares traded, 65,800
stocks traded, 23, 16 positive, 7 negative
total trades, 353

Virtual Office, $8897. Dow, -147.74, 13215.13.

Misstrade, $5330 on 8100 shares traded.
Me, $2508 on 65,800 shares traded.
Dehtrader, $1148 on 14,700 shares traded.
One Bad-Ass Trader, $167 on 14,400 shares traded.
Denarii, -$4 on 2400 shares traded.
EvolutionTrader, -$88 on 33,300 shares traded.
NYSE Scalper, -$164 on 34,000 shares traded.


A pretty darn good day for the VO, some good gains and no big blowups. Unless you consider the Dow. About time we had a down day, no?

Misstrade continues to laugh in the face of the market, taking money from it and scoffing at P&L gravity. I have had a choppy week but today was on the right side of the trade. Dehtrader, back from a short hiatus, came back strong. OBAT was once again, quietly green.

I haven't heard from Scalper which is highly unusual. I'm assuming he took a day off, never a bad idea every once and a while.

My daily post will come later this evening. Sorry, been busy lately.

UPDATE: NYSE Scalper is alive and well. I've updated the post with his numbers. 8:31pm.