Friday, October 10, 2008

The RO Report, "Historic" Edition

I'm assuming you know what happened in the market today, but just in case you got drunk early, here's a quick rundown.

We drop 800 points in the first 5 minutes of trade. In the next half hour, we rip, and take back 600. By noon, we've dropped 700 off our highs. For the next 3 hours, we trade in a relatively tame 400 point range. Then, at 3pm, we're off to the races, jumping an amazing 900 points in 40 minutes. At 3:40, the MOCs come out predominately to the downside, and we drop a quick 500.

I won't say it was a "rollercoaster ride," because that implies it was fun. It was sick, and it was historic. If you traded today, you can say that you traded the single most volatile day ever recorded in stock market history. The high on the VIX was 76.94.

In short, it wasn't a day for the light-hearted... not even close.

The volume was big. 3 billion on the NYSE. I think it would have been even larger, but to make the day even more beleaguering, in the last 20 minutes, there were some street-wide data problems. A number of traders in my office got really, really screwed because of computer and data feed issues. On a day like today, that kind of goes with the territory, but it still sucks.

The morning felt very much like a bottom, but it came too early. The fact that we drifted back to the lows and then had that ridiculous rally at the end of the day, is a good sign. The one problem, was that nauseating 500 point drop in the last 20 minutes.

That shouldn't be overlooked and it's quite possible we need to go lower before this is over.

So going into next week, I have no strong feel. Given the close, I think that perhaps the best way to make this stick, would be to drop a few hundred points below Dow 7882, today's low, and then snap back to close at the high of the day. However, it's also possible that 7882 was the bottom afterall... sorry, but at this point, only time will tell.

Some good news over the weekend could help to clarify the situation.

Anyway, it was an excellent day for the RO, especially for Traders B and D, who sprayed, massively, all over the entire office. Out of 27 traders today, 17 finished gross positive, or 63%. 9 traders finished up over $10,000 gross, however, 9 traders also lost more than $1,000 gross. I'll take that ratio any day.

I was #5 of 27, or, a motherfucking boss.

Here are today's Bosses:

"Lucky Pierre" - Trader B, $299,723 on 1.5 million shares traded.

2. Trader D, $175,271 on 1 million shares traded.
3. Trader A, $61,677 on 558k shares traded.
4. Trader F, $41,831 on 315k shares traded.
5. Trader S, $23,140 on 120k shares traded.


And the Manservants:

"Chambermaid" - Trader V, -$5,526 on 95,600 shares traded.

2. Trader N, -$3,046 on 23,200 shares traded.
3. Trader Z, -$2,651 on 671k shares traded.
4. Trader I, -$2,083 on 53,200 shares traded.
5. Trader 6, -$2,022 on 100 shares traded.

Get some rest.

11 comments:

HPT said...

way to go DT. Well done. To think 5 months ago you were struggling to hit your weekly goal. Now you are killing it.

Dinosaur Trader said...

Thanks, HPT.

Yeah, the market is giving it up right now. I'm going to try very hard to not go back into "suck mode" once this volatility dries up.

-DT

LK said...

You are awesome. I read the blog everyday. So when are you going to share the charts with buy/sell signals :) j/k Have a great weekend.

Dinosaur Trader said...

Thanks LK... one word of warning though, I checked your blog and I don't think you'll like my politics! :)

But like I said last night, they're all assholes. Good people shouldn't be wasting their energy fighting about this shit, and the media is only stoking fear.

Fuck the media most of all.

Anyway, today was all about momentum. My best stock, amazingly enough nearly 10% of my day, was CX. Other big winners were XOM, WMT, and RIG. All longs. Perhaps this weekend if I have some time, I'll post some chats from the room.

Thanks for reading,

-DT

TV107 said...

what is your buying power ?
and whats the buying power of traders A, B, C, D?


but even more than buying power, what is their on average maximum exposure which is sometimes less..

if u dont want to give exact
can u give me a range

thks

toddstrade said...

DT,
I congratulate you on your performance in the current market. You were prepared and you acted.
I had your words in my head today when you wrote on your blog; "...what I'm going to buy once I see that first BIG green VOLUME bar come into the e-minis on the upside. That's your tell... when you see that gigantic volume come in... don't trust any rally before you see that volume."
Unfortunately I got burned before that happened, but tried to pull it together when it did occur.
I appreciate the little tidbits of veteran expertise you have provided me/us with in your blog this week.
You knew exactly what you were looking for and you pounced. You are zen master!
Have a great weekend! Cheers!
-todd

Unknown said...

today was a huge
http://naaaasty.typepad.com/naaaasty/images/2008/05/29/hugeass.jpg

tradeitup said...

Nice job DT. Good to see you killing it again. Seems like you are back on your game. I had some wild P/L swings today. Was able to come back from down almost 2k to finish the day up 1,500. The afternoon rally was weak. We may have to go lower before we go higher.
By the way I started studying for my 7 this week. Looking to get on with a firm next year.

TL said...

Congras DT! How many trades did you make?

TL

Soullfire said...

Looks like another stellar day for the RO. The last half hour sure was gut wrenching- any one snoozing would have given back most of the days gains.

I was curious- what do you think about the possibility of doing a "spotlight" of Top Trader from time to time where you make available their total Buy/Sell list of the day. That would be gold in looking at what they did and comparing it to our own methods of determining buy/sell points. Also the info provided about what indicators they use like when you got Trader D to leave a post.

Trader D is in the zone....he's been a near constant for the top 5....inspiring stuff!

Dinosaur Trader said...

Hey guys, thanks for the nice comments. I hope you all did well.

Soulfire,

Great idea. All the members of the RO can publish here anytime they want to to discuss trading... so far, there have been no takers. Thing is, when you stare at a screen all day, it's hard to want to sit after hours and stare at it some more...

And to answer TV's question, all of the big traders have at least 2 million in BP.

-DT