John Lennon, "Imagine"

Moving On

I just severed my link with my company.

After 6 years of being with them (with 3 total down months, in March, April and June of this year), I guess I expected more than a phone call 2 minutes before the open and the threat that "should you lose much more, we'll shut you down."

I lost $700 more yesterday and today they shut my account down with nary an email or phone call.

So I called them.

"Send us another check and we'll be more than happy to open you back up," they said.

Nope. While I understand it's a cold business, I simply expected more.

While trading is about numbers, it's more about psychology.

I can only assume by their actions that they were basically asking me to walk away. Traders are people and if you have a business that revolves around traders, you need to learn to help them manage difficult times. I would have found it helpful simply to receive a phone call now and then, just so it seemed like they were watching and showing some type of concern about my struggle.

Instead, the only time they called me was when they wanted to shut me down.

Like I said yesterday, I had contacted them a number of times since April in search of help. They were always nice, saying things like, "If there's anything we can do to help, just call," but other than sounding helpful, they didn't help me at all.

The one thing that did help was when I put a loss-limit on my account. In the end, that didn't even help me, since none of my days this month were your typical trading blow up day (a la HPT ZING!) as Moom mentioned yesterday in the comment section, my recent downturn has been steep, but minor if looked at in the perspective of my trading year.

So whatever, fuck them, their loss.

I contacted an old friend and hopefully, I'll be up and running again by January 2nd.

Virtual Office, $1797. Dow, +65.27, 13,232.47.

Evolution, $4038 on 73,848 shares traded.
OBAT, $730 on 10,000 shares traded.
Sanglucci, $224 on 18,800 shares traded.
Denarii, $44 on 100 shares traded.
Me, no trades.
Misstrade, no trades.
Retard, no trades.
Wincity, no trades.
Akalawoo, -$181 on 6 contracts traded.
Dehtrader, -$3058 on 4116 shares traded.

Wow, a reversal day... I'm jealous.

Still, while you greedy bastards were sweating and trying to make 20 cents here, or a point there, I was enjoying time with my daughter.

Seriously people... there's so much more to life than making money. You "Wall Streeters" are greedy little punks.

Anyway, looks like it was a great day to trade. Some of the moves in the fertilizer stocks for example, were ridiculous. I'm sure these types of moves were mirrored in other areas as well.

It's very nice to see Evolution and OBAT up there near the top. They've been with the VO since the very beginning.

Your Christmas fruit baskets should be arriving soon, guys.

Million, Billion, Trillion

We hear these numbers thrown around every day. For example...

JJ, "the tellurium blogger," has lost millions.

Exxon Mobil makes billions in quarterly profits.

The Iraq War is going to cost our children trillions.

While that gives you some idea of what these numbers mean, Wall Street Fighter provides a great link that really drives home what these numbers represent.

Interesting stuff.