Friday, June 15, 2007

Iron And WIne, "Boy With A Coin"

From Black Flag to Iron and Wine. Dinosaur Trader has you covered.

Black Flag, "Nervous Breakdown"

This just about fits my mood.

Insanity

You may be sick of me breaking my trading rules all of the time and then whining about it. Imagine how I feel... it costs me money.

I don't have much to say about today. I had some good trades early in ARD (short) and LAZ and AB long. However, once again, I ate those profits up with lots of small losers. So at lunch, when I walked away, I was up a little.

I went to the park for a few hours and got to enjoy some time with my wife, daughter and some friends. I had a great time, it's perfect weather here.

But when I got back to my desk at 3 I was reckless. I started buying MON when I thought he was popping out of a base to the upside in the 65.10 - 65.20 area. He never got above 65.21 but I kept buying even as he went against me for 20 cents and broke the fig. I finally washed out of the position in the 64.90s and decided it was time to short.



I got short in the 80s and watched the stock descend to the 70s. Then it popped back up into the 80s where I short more. This time, it didn't break .80... it just hung around. Then it popped up and I got out of my position at .95 losing a dime. That wouldn't be a bad loss, but for some reason I was trading MON (both long and short) with more size than I normally do. I lost $500 in the trades altogether. An awful way to end what was otherwise not an awful week for me.

Like I said in the VO post, Einstein definied insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

When I am done with this post I am going to write that quote on a piece of paper and hang it on the wall behind my screens. I need something to change the way I'm doing things around here. Because really, I'm just spinning my wheels these last few months and I'm sick of it.

One step forward and two steps back gets old fast when you have a family to support.

Here's the stats:

P&L, -$520
Best, AB $151
Worst, MON, -$752

shares traded, 36,800
stocks traded, 18, 8 positive, 10 negative
total trades, 182

Virtual Office, $1275. Dow, +85.28, 13639.00.

Misstrade, $1160 on 6800 shares traded.
Evolution, $704 on 47,600 shares traded.
Denarii, -$69 on 2000 shares traded.
Me, -$520 on 36,800 shares traded.

A mixed day for the VO.

Another day where the indexes gapped up and then chopped around. However, once again, there were some interesting individual movers among stocks among them, AB and TNH.

ET had a nice bounce day off his renegade trader loss from yesterday. I was flat all day until the last hour of trading when I threw $500 down the toilet because I got stubborn with a position.

I think Einstein said insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result... he might have been onto something.

One VO note: Dehtrader will be on hiatus for awhile. Just about half of the VO is on hiatus. Summer doldrums indeed!

Have a great weekend everyone. Enjoy the weather.

Ron Paul on The Colbert Report

Mojave 3, "In Love With A View"

Another gap up and chop around. Less a trend and more like an explosion. Thus far anyway... we're only an hour into the trading day.

Thank goodness for HANS. A tip of the hat to "the Fly" for that call.

Anyway, I always have tough times trading on days like these so I'm taking it easy.

Here's a song. If you're a Wilco fan you'll probably like this tune.