Slaraffenland, "Polaroids"

Interesting...

Falcor The Urinator

Since my cat recently started to urinate outside the box again, I got a kick out of this video. We called the vet and told him about the problem. He offered to bring the "blue juice" and end the problem (no kidding!) but we're not ready to kill "Doc" just yet.

So picture a small room filled with screens radiating heat. It's 90 degrees and humid. I'm sweating onto my keyboard and probably trading TNH. My daughter is having a tantrum downstairs because she wants "the red cup, not the blue cup" and the thick odor of cat urine is wafting up the stairs and sitting in the office with me.

Actually, it's not just sitting in the office with me... cat urine has more of a presence. It's kind of tapping me on the shoulder saying, "Hey, I'm cat piss and I'm the least of your worries". Just putting it all into perspective for me.

I offer that picture in case you ever thought about working from home.

It's not all clear starry skies. And with that, meet "Falcor".

The Besnard Lakes, "For Agent 13"

A rainy and grey song for a rainy and grey day.

I Bleed, The Market Bleeds

For whatever reason, I traded like a complete fool this morning.

First off, I tried to short CPL while it ripped up.



There are a couple of things wrong with this trade. The first, shorting strength, is obvious and it's a mistake I make regularly. It's not a recipe for making money unless you see some type of topping action. Shorting into spikes because you're expecting them to "spike right back down" is a losers strategy. I'm getting it now. So, while I made this mistake I realized it and didn't get overly stubborn. I traded it twice and lost twice for a total loss of -$133. Nothing awful.

The other mistake with trading CPL is that it's just too "thin". Pre-hybrid market I found a real advantage to trading "thin" stocks because the tape was always really easy to read. Buyers couldn't hide and neither could sellers. Large "bids" moved thin stocks as did large "offers". I made a lot of money trading these stocks in the past. However, with the advent of the hybrid there is no longer an advantage to trading these stocks. In fact, there's a disadvantage because the spreads are often much wider than on thicker stocks.

Another bad trade was made in CPA. I made all of my trades in this stock between 9:45 and 10:15. Okay, now take a look at the graph... see anything? Nope. Me neither.



I made the trades in this stock for another bad reason... I told myself a story. The story went like this. TAM Airlines had that awful crash yesterday in Brazil. For that reason, people are selling TAM which I guess could have some justification. But then they went and sold GOL and CPA too.

This I felt, was unjustified.

So I got into the trade because I thought people would realize this was a silly reason to sell and buy the stock. Instead, I should have waited until there was some actual buying occurring, or until some sort of trend developed. As you can see, between 9:45 and 10:15 there was nothing but chop. And I, accordingly, was chopped.

Let's talk about a good trade.



I noticed pretty early on today that ARD was not joining in the big oil bounce that happened today. Stocks like WNR and NOV gapped down and then powered forward all day. ARD traded down and stayed down and then went into a flat base until the late afternoon. I actually bought this stock early, like around 11:00 when it first popped above $57. However, instead of panicking and selling when it dropped below $57 I held and added more when it finally popped around 3:30pm. So, I recovered from an early loss in the stock and managed to make it my best winner of the day, at $254.

Anyway, I'm never happy with losing money but I can live with $100 loss.

Here's the stats:

P&L, -$104
Best, ARD $254
Worst, CPA -$153

shares traded, 16,400
13 stocks traded, 5 winners, 8 losers
total trades, 88

Virtual Office, $3379. Dow, -53.33, 13918.22.

Misstrade, $1982 on 7800 shares traded.
HPT, $1000 on 57 contracts traded.
Evolution, $410 on 34,400 shares traded.
Bubs, $78 on 400 shares traded.
OBAT, $9 on 4400 shares traded.
Denarii, $4 on 400 shares traded.
Me, -$104 on 16,400 shares traded.

It was a good day for the VO though largely quiet... volume was down.

Earnings season has finally kicked in which is providing some entertainment if nothing else. The name of the game today was "Energy". Oil stocks moved as did the solars. If you were in those areas today, you were in the right place.

Like I've said in the past, it's always good to see the large majority of the VOers in the green. It means this is a good market to trade.

Apologies on the late post. I've had a crazy day.

Ass Pennies

Gash

I ripped my right arm open this morning while surfing.

Right now I have it all taped up but I'll have to go for stitches later.

The point of this is, as a trader, your arms and fingers are very important. Moving my mouse is painful right now. Amazing, in that 12 hours ago I never thought I'd have a hard time moving my mouse...

I remember in the 1980s, Mary Hart from Entertainment Tonight had her legs insured for like, $1 million each.

Perhaps while I'm in this slump I can get my arms insured really cheap...