Vetiver, "Been So Long" (live)

One of my favorite bands of the last couple of years.

Virtual Office, $3455. Dow, +91.20, 13,448.94.

Evolution, $1327 on 30,600 shares traded.
Misstrade, $900 on 6000 shares traded.
Bubs, $557 on 1400 shares traded.
Me, $429 on 3200 shares traded.
OBAT, $268 on 7600 shares traded.
HPT, $139 on 65 contracts traded.
Denarii, sitting on a beach, no trades.
Tapeworm, -$165 on 6 contracts traded.

Volume is still light out there. We traded 1,313,936,000 shares today on the NYSE.

I guess things won't really pick up until next week. I make this mistake every year... I think right after Labor Day that the market will be back to "normal" but then we suffer for one more weak with paltry volume. In fact, I'd venture a guess that the first week of September has been one of my worst year in and year out.

Still, the VO did okay today. I mean, no one had huge days and no one got killed but the majority of "the players" made some money.

Volume on Dinosaur Trader will now pick up however... my vacation is over. That said, I won't be posting a daily post tonight. I spoke of my day in an earlier post today and I need to forage for dinner...

Good News For Stock Traders

Of course, I'll wait and see how this really develops and effects trading, but it's a good sign.

The NYSE is going to change the way specialists are compensated. This may mean more fluid, liquid markets again. Since December and the implementation of the hybrid market if you've been trading the NYSE, you may have noticed that fluidity and liquidity haven't exactly been hallmarks. I mean, I've noticed...

Thanks Ray for keeping that blog up and running. Perhaps Tony and I finally had our voices heard through it.

Surfing, Doctor's and Moths, Oh My!

I left the house at 5am today to get to the break early. The summer crowd has largely dispersed and when I arrived at the beach there was only one guy out in the water, barely visible in the dull pre-sunrise light. The waves were small, maybe waist-high with some slightly larger peaks to be found. The winds were from the west, so it was a little choppy. I had a good session and got home by 8:30 to find my wife and daughter eating breakfast.

I got to my screens but didn't do much research. I knew I'd only be placing one trade because I wanted to go to Judy's doctor's appointment. I read that AG was upgraded and that DE had it's estimates raised. So I placed one trade this morning. I bought 200 shares of DE at $136.86 and then head out to the doctor's office with my wife.

There was good news on a couple of fronts. First, the doctor wasn't too alarmed by her extremely high fever from the weekend and basically said that as long as she's hydrated and not hallucinating that fever isn't a big problem and just the body's way of fighting illness. They took some blood and will be testing her for all the tick-borne diseases.

We got home and my Dad showed up to watch our daughter so that Judy could rest and I could trade. I turned on my screens and was happy to see my DE position up a couple of points. So I was able to feel like a good husband and still make money. Very nice.



So I was eating my lunch, looking at all the good stuff I missed (specifically the fertilizers) when my wife called from downstairs, "There are moths in the rice."

As you probably know, I'm a birder. I search rare birds out and I also feed the more common ones in my backyard. I have 20 pound bags of sunflower seed and peanuts in a downstairs closet. A few weeks back, I noticed lots of moths in this closet. About 2 days ago, I noticed that they were eating the bird seed. Freaky, right? Like out of the movies. I threw all the seed out and figured I had solved the problem.

Nope...apparently, they have invaded our human food supply too. When I went downstairs we found them in basically any bag that contained anything "grainy." These moths love quinoa.

So that has been my day thus far. Not an ideal way to come back from vacation, but I'll take the easy trade in DE for now and hope to be more active in the afternoon session.

Thanks all for putting up with the sub-par and spotty blogging of late. I should be back now.

Back, But Tenderly

I have a sick family... specifically, a really sick wife.

She had a temperature over the weekend that hit 106 so needless to say, my blogging will be light until we figure out what is wrong with her. She has a doctor's appointment at 10 so hopefully, we get some answers.

We suspect Lyme disease...

So I'll be trading this week, but distractedly. I have lots to report but it will have to come in dribs and drabs until all is normal here again.

UPDATE: We'll be back at the doctor on Friday for the blood results. Good news is that if it is Lyme, we caught it early and it shouldn't be a big problem. Her fever, thankfully, is gone.