Spoon, "Jonathan Fisk"

Market Digests Gains; Dinosaur Trader Suffers Indigestion

What a boring day.



I actually made money between 10 and 12 but decided to place stop orders instead of selling positions at market. Almost all of my stops were hit as the market declined into the afternoon. Unfortunately, the money I made was only offsetting losses that I took at around 9:45 when the market dropped like a rock for 3 minutes.

See that big red bar at 9:45? Fuck the robots.

Anyway, my best stock of the day today was JLL.



I caught some of the trend, but only with a few hundred shares. This stock is thin and can sometimes drop (or rise) precipitously for no good reason. In the afternoon, all of the financial names continued their squeeze. I guess people got nervous going into Uncle Ben's speech tonight... anyway, that would have been a great place to make money in the afternoon. Unfortunately, I was already put to sleep by the market and just not feeling like getting actively involved.

Looking back, I should have been involved because all of the financials rallied into the close.

My worst stock of the day was EXM, which I tried to short in the morning.



You can see why that was a mistake. The good news is that I screwed up the trade and didn't keep at it with revenge trading or anything. I let it go. 300 shares traded, a half point loss, move on.

What more can I say? I spent the better part of the day drinking peppermint tea trying to recover from some gastro-distress.

Finally, Herb Greenberg is the kind of guy you don't want to get a beer with.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $17
Best, JLL, $293
Worst, EXM, -$157

26,600 shares traded.
21 stocks traded, 9 winners, 12 losers.

Virtual Office, -$4921. Dow, +22.28, 13,311.73.

Dehtrader, $305 on 7952 shares traded.
OBAT, $163 on 11,000 shares traded.
Sanglucci, $139 on 14,000 shares traded.
Denarii, $56 on 200 shares traded.
Me, $17 on 26,600 shares traded.
Akalawoo, influenza.
Wincity, -$35 on 100 shares traded.
Evolution, -$2566 on 45,600 shares traded.
Misstrade, -$3000 on 500 shares traded.

Clearly, the world must be about to self destruct.

Our resident robot, Misstrade, finds himself at the bottom of the pile today.

I never thought I'd see that.

Anyway, the VO got smoked. It was just one of those days where it was hard to make money. The futures were chopping around and there was no follow through. It just sucked.

Unfortunately, if you recall this is exactly what I expected. I don't think this choppy action is going away anytime too soon either. Might as well start your shopping because unless there's some type of interesting news, the market is going to suck until December 11th.

Go vote on my poll. Also, go vote on my Peanut Gallery post. "the Fly" has promised me $10,000 for each star.

Meanwhile, our new VO member must be some type of idiot for not getting me his numbers on this, his first day.

UPDATE: Sanglucci provided me with his numbers a half hour late... that makes him less of an idiot.

Melissa Francis >> Maria Bartiromo

She is so much nicer to listen to than Maria between 3 and 4pm, no?

Moths To The Flame

It's funny. People read this blog, they see the VO and they think, "Hey, I want to be a member of the VO. I want to share my stock market gains and losses with the world."

Then they join the VO and they get spit right out.

Well folks, we have a new member. This one seems a bit twisted, his name is Sanglucci.

I have no doubt that his tenure here will be short-lived, but I would love to be proven wrong.

Welcome to the VO, Sanglucci.

Tellurium Breath

I have written another post for The Peanut Gallery.

Clearly, I deserve to be paid.

Josephine Foster, "Little Life"

Great song for parents. Also great for ripping apart dead animals... try it!

Canned Goods For JJ

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I got smoked in my FSLR short and all I heard from JJ was that I was a jackass for covering at $219?

Well, don't look now but it's in the $230s.



Successful traders learn to take losses when they make mistakes, JJ. It's something you need to learn.

If you send me your address I'll start a canned-goods drive on this site so you can feed your (poor) family for the holidays.

Are You An Asshole?

Just in case you didn't check out Wall Street Fighter's daily links yesterday, here is a great one...

9 telltale signs that you're an asshole.