Virtual Office, $379. Dow, +2.36, 13,551.69.

Dehtrader, $277 on 2700 shares traded.
Wincity, $80 on 400 shares traded.
OBAT, $54 on 6800 shares traded.
Akalawoo, no trades.
Evolution, no trades.
Me, no trades.
Misstrade, no trades.
Retard, no trades.
Sanglucci, no trades.
Denarii, -$32 on 800 shares traded.

Wow. I guess the big story of the day is the smoking Denarii took. That's hard to take, right after the holidays and all, but I hope he gets his game back soon.

It looks like most people stayed out of the market today, choosing instead to curse whatever new gadget Santa brought. Others spent the better part of the day at the doctor's office. Apparently Santa's elves are nasty mofos who give good children ear infections.

I hate elves... they've been known to make robots.

Anyway, we traded a whopping 838 million shares on the NYSE today. Still, despite the low volume, there were some stocks that made nice tradeable moves today. Check out the insanity in LNN for example. The fertilizer stocks also moved.

Mistletoe

On Christmas Eve, Judy sent me out to buy some mistletoe.

"It'll give the house a fresh, 'Christmasy' kind of feel," she explained.

So I drove to the local garden center and asked the somewhat "fish-eyed" looking girl behind the counter if she had any mistletoe.

"We sure do," she said with a decisively southern twang.

Now, her accent should have indicated that something was seriously wrong. Like most northerners, I hear a southern accent and I think "Oh, this person is an idiot," or, "Jerry Springer." But since it was Christmas and I was feeling somewhat charitable, I hung around and let her show me the mistletoe.

From a cardboard display that looked like it once housed car deodorizers, little plastic bags marked with the words "Fun Time Mistletoe!" hung.

The counter girl started with the hard sell. "It's real mistletoe...they just freeze dry it so it stays fresh longer," she said. "The berries are fake because they're poisonous or something."

I picked up a bag and looked closely at the product inside. The plastic crinkled. The "mistletoe" was hard and an unnatural color of green.

"This is real mistletoe?" I challenged.

"Yup," she said. "Just freeze-dried. They stick it in a freezer. Makes it last longer."

"And when I take it home," I said slowly, "it will 'spring to life' and look 'Christmasy'?"

She started to get defensive. "Yup, it should... I don't see why not. It's real mistletoe."

So I ponied up the $2.17 and took the plastic package home. Needless to say, Judy wasn't impressed. However, it made my daughter very happy.

She stood under the mistletoe doling out "Christmas Kisses!" for the better part of the day. Even the cats got their share.

Still Sick

Man, that "rogue cold" I was hit with last week has stuck around in the most unwelcome way infecting not only myself, but Judy and my daughter as well.

So it was a quiet Christmas.

More on Christmas later... I just wanted to get the blog up and running again.

So far, trade looks extremely choppy.

Ferts are (as always) strong, the 4 horsemen are stable, solars are mixed and financials are down. Overall, the market feels heavy.