Children & Pesticides

I'm a bird guy, I love birds and so I hate pesticides because they directly or indirectly kill many birds.

But I'm also a Dad and I really love my daughter. I can't believe how many people in my neighborhood still spray their lawns weekly to kill off such minor nuisances as canker worms or gypsy moth caterpillars. As a Dad, it really pisses me off because me and my family have no choice but to breathe the stuff in.

The laws simply aren't strong enough to protect neighbors from pesticide use.

It amazes me because while they are saving their trees, they are directly causing harm to their families. "But the worms may kill the trees." Whatever! The pesticides are slowly poisoning your family!

Certain types of pesticides are now being directly tied to the amazing increase in autism (1 in every 160 children being born have autism now... that's crazy!) and in Parkinson's disease.

Read more about it here. Think before you spray.

Forget About Robots, Fear The Zombies!

http://view.break.com/345028 - Watch more free videos

Bruce Springsteen, "Nebraska"

Fugazi, Bruce Springsteen... whatever. This is an amazing song.

Floater

Bartender: "You want a floater with that?"
Me: "Absolutely!"

That's just a snippet of a conversation I was having at around 2:30 this afternoon when the market decided it wanted to freak out without me. I was on my way back from buying a new rash guard (wetsuit season is now over with ocean temps above 70 degrees) and my friend wanted to stop and get a drink.

So I sat in the sun, drinking this nice frozen drink, checking out the fancy cars, laughing with other people who are here on vacation, completely oblivious to the fact that the market was about to offer loads of opportunity. I'm not even going to post a graph of specific stocks. They all moved massively. Here's a look at the S&P 500 futures.



That move is simply tremendous. There is no other way to explain it. Days like today, I wish I was still trading in an office.

Anyway, so I can't really get into what happened to the market after 11:30 this morning when I decided things were "dead" and that it was time to take a break.

I will say that by 10:07 I was up a couple thousand dollars and feeling pretty good. I caught a nice longs in TNH, CT, RWT, ITU and CNS. I was specifically happy about my trade in TNH. Why? Because I've been watching the stock quiet down these last few days and I expected a real pop soon. That's exactly what happened in the morning.



I bought below $89 and got out at $92. I only had 100 shares. "Wincity," I hope you had more.

However, here's the trade that made me decide to exit for awhile. As I said, I made money on the long side of CNS in the morning.



But what happened at around 10:30 is that I got sucked into the stock again near the top as I expected both an intraday breakout and a breakout of a longer term downtrend that has been in place since June. I bought a nice position for this rather thin stock, 1000 shares, and watched it melt downward. And, I got stuck like a moth to a light bulb. I lost about 75 cents on the trade, or close to $750 dollars. So a stock that was a morning winner became my worst loser of the day, at -$339 dollars. I got stuck because I "believed" in the position too much. I liked the story... it was breaking out TWICE! YAY! and I got screwed.

Conviction is not always the friend of the trader.

Anyway, so that's that. I missed the fireworks today but I still managed to make some money. I'm very frustrated that between Monday and today I've only managed to make a relatively little amount of money however, at least it's money. I'm still working up my confidence. I hope this volatility lasts until I can really take advantage of it.

Time to try out the new rashguard.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $1356
Best, LAZ, $848
Worst, CNS, -$339

shares traded, 32,000
21 stocks traded, 13 winners, 8 losers
163 trades

Virtual Office, $10,528. Dow, +152.17, 13656.47.

Misstrade, $6780 on 5000 shares traded.
Me, $1356 on 32,000 shares traded.
HPT, $1300 on 104 contracts.
OBAT, $815 on 3600 shares traded.
Bubs, $277 on 1800 shares traded.
Denarii, no stock trades.
Evolution, on vacation.

Needless to say, if you left in the middle of the day to go buy some new surf gear and get a drink with a friend, as a certain somebody I know did, you made a really, really stupid decision.

This market is gangbusters for traders.

Like I said in my daily post yesterday, lose the story. Yes it's August, yes it's summer, but the time to trade is NOW. People will repeat this crap like broken records, that it's the summer and thus "slow" and trade is "thin" but the fact is that stocks are simply all over the map right now.

The amount of opportunity out there is simply staggering.

Keep trading. This is a stock traders market. See you tomorrow.

Autoscopy

This from the Wiccan Pagan Dictionary (yes, one exists...)

AUTOSCOPY - 1.vision of one's image outside the body.

2. vision of one's internal organs adj.; autoscopic.

Oh My GOD! I Missed So Much!

Curses!

I step out for a few hours in what seemed like a "quiet market" and look who showed up?



Is it too late to short! DAMN!

Freaky Hybrid Trade Of The Day! JLL!

My oh my... take a look at that. The stock opened on a print of 12,400 shares at 103.55. Exactly 200 shares later it was trading down over a point. 200 shares move a stock over a point? Let me repeat that... 200 shares moved a stock that trades over a million shares a day a FULL POINT!

C'mon! Fix the damn hybrid market already! That shit just shouldn't happen! Please, let Ray know about this... okay, I'll let him know. But be sure to stop by his site and let him know that traders just don't like this stuff. Really, the only way they're going to fix this stuff is if they hear from you. Please be polite.

Meanwhile, the stock trades straight down 3 points on no volume and then straight back up 3 points on no volume. Why? Ray, can one of your hybrid builders come comment on this and let us know why trades like this are possible? This is not how an orderly market operates.

Runner up, RWT.



Stock trades up over 2 points on no volume at the open and then crashes 2 points 10 minutes later on equally low volume... sigh... Also, check that action after the Fed call yesterday. Movement like that would be good, if it made sense. However, without bids and asks to help guide a trader it's really nothing but a momentum gamble. However people should be encouraged to trade the market, not gamble on it. The Hybrid Market is turning stock trading into a dice roll. Not cool.

FLASH: Erin is lighting Maria up in my new poll...

Lots Of Sharks In The Water Today

I've made some good trades today, but was burned badly once.

So, it's 11:30 and I'm going to take a long lunch. I think now is when volatility dies and we reconvene in the beginning of September to go nuts again.

Of course, I'll completely change my tune should we sell off today and end negative.

Meanwhile, is this picture a shark or a dolphin?



Click here to find out.

No waves today here so the only sharks I'll see today are in the market.

Fed Statement: The Day After

Wonderful analysis from Briefing this morning on what the Fed actually said yesterday.

Since it echoes what I said in the Virtual Office, I'll link it here. Don't get your your Dow 14,000 hats yet.

For the record, if you agree with me, the chances of being linked here increase exponentially.

Stock Earnings, 08/08/07

There are a decent number of earnings out today. So here it is, your stock earnings "cloud."

ALJ-ATO-ATW-CAR-FLR-FST-HRS-LEAP
MDR-ONXX-PCR-PCLN-RMD-UPL-GB
WMS-AGU-ALY-AVT-BRL-CVC-CRZO
FWLT-FTO-GEO-HANS-HSP-IDA-TEG
IDCC-JBX-LAMR-RL-PGN

Looks like the futures are up again... R.I.P correction? Discuss.

A New Poll: Maria or Erin?

Viewers of CNBC will understand the question. Maria or Erin?

Anyway, due to the success of the first poll, I have immediately launched this new one. I've gone a little lowbrow here, to try to bring in a few more "lurkers."

All voting ends at midnight on Sunday. This will be the M.O. from here on out. Each Monday we'll have a new poll to vote on. Because polling shows that people love polls.

Fugazi, "Merchandise"

The anti-capitalism, anti-ego anthem. Perfect for a stock market blog, eh?



FLASH: The bulls took the victory in the end, winning the first ever Dinosaur Trader poll, will the Dow see 12,500 or 14,000 next by a one-vote margin. Stunning.