The Minutemen, "Corona"

Now that I'm surfing again, I can post all my favorites from when I used to surf!

Maybe We're Onto Something Here

I couldn't tell you the last time I traded and nearly made 50 cents for every share I traded... it's been a long while. I felt like Misstrade out there! Was it the surfing, the new trading style, or HPT joining the VO? We may never know for sure...

Anyway, the day started off with a bang as LNN reported excellent numbers and gapped up a couple of points. I stayed long 400 overnight into the earnings report.



It was my best stock of the day as I net $1281 in him.

My next best stock was AGU.



After the stock ran to new highs around 11am, it pulled back sharply. The reaction bounce at around 11:30 couldn't bring the stock to new highs, so I began to short. I short 400 at 44.80 and then 200 more at 44.77. And then I had to be patient.

I covered 100 shares at 12:16 at the price of 44.42 and was immediately angry with myself. The market was feeling weak, other AG names were showing signs of weakness and I knew I should have just held.

My next cover came at 1:38, 200 shares at 44.15. While in retrospect this too was an early cover, I didn't think it was too bad because the stock hit the figure and bounced sharply. Also, at that point, the futures looked to be improving.

I covered the last couple hundred shares very near the close, around 43.60. So this was a trade that I was in for 6 hours. That's a very long hold for this trader. I net $453 in AGU.

Anyway, I had similar trades in CF and DE netting about the same. Both trades were shorts and in both case I again didn't jump to cover. In short, I made good trades in the names.

It has always helped me when an entire group of stocks is acting strong or weak. Today, the entire group of AG names started acting weak at about the same time. Check charts of POT, TNH, CF, DE, CNH, AG and MOS. There was a lot of money to be made in a sector trade here today. When my confidence builds again, trades like that can be month-makers. Patience...

Anyway, I had one other good trade today in BEN. I caught a 4 point drop between 1 and 4pm. The only bad news about this trade is that I only had 100 shares. I had limits for more above where I got the 100 shares off but they were never hit. Still, I was very happy that I didn't cover into the spike-down at 3pm. I could have, but I decided instead to see if it would run further. It did and I made an extra $100 because of that patience.



As important as my winners were today it's worth noting that my biggest loser was for -$36 in AB. Also important was my winner to loser ratio, 8 winners and 2 losers.

So while LNN started my day off with a bang, it was less than half of my total gains. I simply traded well today and I hope I can keep it up tomorrow.

Anyway, here's the stats:

P&L, $2977
Best, LNN, $1281
Worst, AB, -$36

shares traded, 7000
stocks traded, 10, 8 positive, 2 negative
total trades, 55

Virtual Office, $8982. Dow, -146.73, 13488.69.

Misstrade, $4410 on 9500 shares traded.
Me, $2977 on 7000 shares traded.
HPT, $1006 on 36 contracts and 200 shares traded.
Evolution, $589 on 61,400 shares traded.

Crappy day for the market, excellent day for the VO.

Misstrade turned some shit (fertilizer joke, stay with me people) into money with a nice short in TNH. Keeping with the agricultural theme, I had a nice gainer with LNN which I held overnight into the earnings gap-up.

HPT had a solid day and even slummed it in the stock market for a trade. ET, went on a trading binge... ET buddy, you're overtrading! HAHAHA!

Anyway, another heavy volume loss for the market. Recently, the market shrugs off these losses with bigger gains. Kind of like the whole, "Hey, they knocked down the towers now we're just gonna build them BIGGER" mentality. Let's see if it works again.

My daily post and music video will have to come later this evening as I am busy immediately after the close.

Tick Bombs

They make me skittish. And really, with this new method of trading I am using I'm thinking about just removing that indicator from my screen entirely.

The ticks shoot up to 850 and I think, "well, maybe it's time to cover the shorts" and then a second later, they're -600.

More static than anything really...

Speech About Blogging, American Politics

Whatever your political opinions may be, I thought this speech was worth posting just based on what she says about blogging and about how the media has let us down in the last decade.

Blogging, in whatever form it takes, is here to stay. And I think that's a very good thing.

Boredom And LNN, Lindsay Manufacturing

Well, I had another nice morning of surf and then I hit the screens. I was relieved to see the favorable earnings report put up by LNN. I held 400 shares into the report and the gap up helped my mood a lot!

There is a gigantic short interest in this stock which was first pointed out to me by "the Fly". And of course, there was the Wallstrip episode.



I added to my position on the pullback this morning and then sold those shares during the conference call, which was short and sweet.

A couple of things I picked up from the call:

-declining steel prices help Lindsay
-positive economic conditions for farmers help Lindsay

Should be fun to watch the next few months.

Anyway, so I've stuck to the new trading style today. One problem I'm encountering is extreme boredom. I'm a trader, but really, I'd rather be out watching birds, reading books or playing with my daughter. Since I'm not trading a gajillion shares a day anymore I find I'm losing focus. This is something I'll have to work on. I guess I can use the new free time to scan charts and look for setups, but man, it's boring!

And yes, Woodshedder, I checked the link about trade setups you provided the other day in the comments section. Much appreciated, thanks!