Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Zero 7, "In The Waiting Line"

A Long Conversation

So I had a bad day. My computer is off (my work computer) and I'm not going to dredge all that crap up again. I short UBB heavily and it spiked up almost a point.

But my day had a happy ending. I drove back out to the beach and had a great conversation with a perfect stranger. In my experience, people generally piss me off, almost immediately, so it was a refreshing change of pace.

Anyway, I did a lot of writing today, although not the kind I throw up here on the blog. Perhaps eventually it will work it's way here in some form.

For now, I'm off to bed.

I don't expect to trade much tomorrow.

Virtual Office, $555. Dow, -16.74. 13,291.65.

Misstrade, $1065 on 2500 shares traded.
Evolution, $1007 on 38,200 shares traded.
Akalawoo, $262 on 6 contracts traded.
Bubs, $139 on 1800 shares traded.
Denarii, $28 on 1400 shares traded.
OBAT, vacation.
Tapeworm, -$562 on 10 contracts traded.
Me, -$1384 on 33,600 shares traded.

The fucking market is going to sleep. SHHHHHH!

We traded a whopping 1,258,775,000 shares today.

The Jewish holidays start tonight, the Fed meets on Tuesday... I wonder if we break a billion shares the next 3 days. Shalom.

Try as I did to bring the VO negative today with my craptastic trading performance, it was impossible. The VO traders are too good to get bombed like that.

Meanwhile, how many days does Maria celebrate her damned birthday? Made a bad day worse for me, seeing her all happy and fake-giggling.

Anyway, guess what? I'm going to the beach. I'll be back later.

Red Tide


At the end of the day yesterday, I went to the beach to look at the surf.

We were hit with a "red tide" and the breaking waves had a bloody look to them. Bloody waves and strong winds made it look a little scary and I didn't go out.

This morning, I got to the break before sunrise and things had calmed a bit, but not too much. The red tide was still blooming but I decided to give it a whirl anyway, fully expecting to get punished by what the local surf report was describing as "gnarly" waves.

Paddling out was tough. I got slapped in the face immediately and spit out that red algae shit. It was disgusting. Making matters worse, I opted for the long board today since I thought the swell was going to dissipate a bit overnight. It's more difficult to get under large waves with a longboard than a shortboard. The swell hadn't dissipated at all. 4 and 5 foot waves were common with a couple rogue sets of 6+ footers out there.

I was turtle rolling left and right, huffing, puffing and paddling. It's amazing how much stronger my arms are now than they were only 2 months ago when I began surfing again. There was finally a lull to the waves and with a few strong paddles, I was "outside."

Normally, you do most of the hard work on the "inside" where the waves are breaking and rushing the shore. However, even "outside" there was a lot of work to be done today. I was getting pushed west very quickly and had to expend a lot of energy paddling east every 5-minutes or so just to keep my place.

The winds were too strong, the current fast and the waves choppy. I was getting tired. It was like trading 100,000 shares for $100 in profit. Tough and frustrating. I guess that's why it was just me and my buddy out there.

In the end, I caught one excellent ride and wiped out twice. As I paddled back in through the red sludge I smelled strongly of the tide. I walked out of the water and onto the shore. I removed my leash and took a look back at the angry waves. I was out of breath but I felt like I had accomplished something.

Anyway, "red tide" has also washed up on my trading desk. I hit my loss limit for the day... I am done. Score one for the "haters."

After my massive August I don't see any reason to piss money away during these low volume headfakes... soon enough the volume should return and make this a market worth trading again. Until then, I've decided to trade extremely lightly... hopefully volume comes back after the Fed meeting.