Procol Harum, "A Whiter Shade Of Pale"

"...although my eyes were open
they might have just as well've been closed."

"Philosophistal"

If I was a stock, I'd imagine the chart would look like hell. Gains in low volume and losses in high volume... the institutions are clearly selling.

Not much to explain today, I barely traded. Here's the stock that accounts for 85% of my loss.



Here are my trades in CF:

9:34:35 Short 200 @ 58.40 (-200)
9:43:56 Short 100 @ 58.31 (-300)
10:03:24 Short 100 @ 58.95 (-400) *note adding to the losing position
10:58:36 Short 100 @ 59.22 (-500)
11:06:57 Short 100 @ 59.56 (-600)
11:23:13 Buy 200 @ 59.70 (-400)
11:24:48 Buy 200 @ 59.74 (-200)
11:41:43 Short 100 @ 59.60 (-300)
11:51:08 Short 100 @ 59.89 (-400)
11:58:58 Buy 200 @ 60.27 (-200)
12:02:16 Short 200 @ 60.24 (-400)
12:25:56 Short 100 @ 60.10 (-500)
14:17:30 Buy 100 @ 59.89 (-400)
14:18:32 Buy 200 @ 60.13 (-200)
14:20:14 Buy 100 @ 60.08 (-100)
14:32:13 Short 500 @ 59.83 (-600)
15:30:21 Buy 500 @ 60.45 (-100)
15:32:20 Buy 400 @ 60.48 (300)
15:32:26 Buy 400 @ 60:48 (700)
15:34:18 Sell 300 @ 60.17 (400)
15:34:26 Sell 400 @ 60.16 (flat)

That, my friends, is about as bad as you can get. I was short the stock all day long, practically from the open until the close and all the stock did was go up.

When I did get long, at 15:32:20 it was all about anger and revenge and I paid the price for that too.

Here is a line from a book I am reading:

"Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us."

The book, incidentally, is not about trading stock, but whatever.

What I feel like after a day like today is that I am making the same mistakes over and over. Kind of like, well, coming apart at the seams on these days. I think it was yesterday that I short stocks all day long while they went up. What am I doing?

I think I am facing a type of annihilation. I am annihilating the trader that I was by recognizing this shit. The next step is correcting the mistakes. Perhaps once this happens I will find those "indestructible" qualities in myself that made me a good trader for all those years. And when I do, perhaps I will undergo some type of rebirth. Or, it's possible that I am killing off the trader in me altogether.

Or, if you're an idiot, you could just say that I suck as a trader, and while currently this "argument" may hold some water, it doesn't get us anywhere, does it?

It may be that I'm in for some period here of self-discovery where I just figure out that trading is not for me anymore. Of course, I can't be sure of that just yet. I'm clearly walking down a new path and I'm not sure where it leads.

But I have some hard realities to face in the coming months which I will be writing about. July is somewhat pivotal for me. When you see me slap up those goddamn Google ads, you'll know that a meteor is clearly heading towards my planet and that a big freaking dust storm is threatening my trading extinction.

When I urge you to click on the ads and put up a little "buy me a beer" widget then you will know that the meteor has hit.

Anyway, for now that is all. As my friend said to me the other day, I'm a "philosophist". I imagine that as I lose more money I will be getting more and more "philosophistal."

Here's the stats:

P&L, -$1544
Best, TNH, $110
Worst, CF, -$1278

shares traded, 8400
stocks traded, 8, 2 positive, 6 negative
total trades, 50

Virtual Office, $2088. Dow, -5.21, 13422.52.

Misstrade, $2267 on 8300 shares traded.
HPT, $1028
Evolution, $357 on 27,600 shares traded.
Denarii, $9 on 1800 shares traded.
OBAT, -$35 on 1600 shares traded.
Me, -$1544 on 8400 shares traded.

F'ed day! (No typo there.)

Anyway, the VO traded it's way to some gains today. Another day, another couple thousand dollars seems to be Misstrade's motto.

And by the way, if you think it's easy running a blog where you post others P&L and they consistently beat the crap out of you, you're wrong, it's not easy. It mostly sucks.

But, I try to stay positive. Good days for most of the players today. A solid bounce for HPT.

The big news is that OBAT is back from his long hiatus. Perhaps he can share a juicy story from his vacation down in the comment section. I'm sure we all have the same questions... Where'd he go? How many women were involved? Those types of things.

Entertain us OBAT, we've all been staring at the screens for too long.

China Is Poisonous

It started with the pet-food. Today it's toothpaste, and last week it was children's toys.

Does anyone else think this is some kind of crazy way to fix the trade imbalance or currency issues?

A negative PR campaign so that Americans are afraid to buy stuff manufactured in China? Heck, most Americans still think Iraq had something to do with 9/11!

So apparently, we'll believe anything if it's repeated a bunch of times.

I'm just spitballing here.

UPDATE: Chinese seafood to be inspected.

OBAT Is Back!

One Bad-Ass Trader is back from one long-ass vacation!

98 cents

This morning, after surfing, I stopped in the bagel shop to get some breakfast.

I ordered a Bacon, Egg and Cheese sandwich with a coffee (milk, no sugar).

I also bought breakfast for my friend and it came to $18.02. I gave the woman a $20 and she gave me $1.98 back. That's a lot of change to have sitting in your pocket. I pretty much decided to hate her then and there. I mean, eat the two fucking cents!

The worst thing is that my sandwich had no bacon on it and my coffee had sugar in it.

This was a sign to me... it was a sign that the rest of my day would suck. Others might have seen it as an early morning bottom, instead it was the beginning of a downtrend for me.

Perhaps this will change. For now, I am taking it easy.

Interesting Editorial

This from the Associate Deputy Attorney General under President Reagan.

The article was written in October of 2006, but with Vice President Cheney claiming that the office of the Vice President is not a part of the executive branch (lol!) and with Bush now refusing the overturn subpoenaed documents, it's pretty clear that they think they're above the law.

I posted it because I think it's good to see someone who served under a Republican president coming out against this administration.

It should be country before party, afterall. On that, we should all be able to agree.

"Sexchanges"

I just wanted to point out the changes made over at Hybridtalk.

When the Hybrid Market rolled out, I basically freaked. For an old school trader like myself who relied on tape-reading and counted on "inside fills", meaning being printed somewhere between the Bid and the Ask it has basically been a nightmare.

In early January, I googled Hybrid Market and along with lots of links about automobiles I also found the Hybridtalk blog run by Ray. To his credit, he has handled lots of criticism there, a real "shoot the messenger" type of situation, with great tact. I know a lot of traders who hate the Hybrid but everyone respects Ray and the work he has done at the blog. Everything I know about the Hybrid Market I learned from that blog. It has been a great resource for me.

They have now rolled out their new blog to reflect their changing business. The official name is Exchanges however I plan on calling it "Sexchanges" for the foreseeable future in order to help drive traffic that way. I hope the NYSE is cool with that, Ray.

Good luck with it and continued success, Ray. Please go pay a visit and welcome it's arrival.

Addendum: Ray, just because I'm blogrolled, don't expect me to stop the Freaky Hybrid Trade Of The Day posts! :)