Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The RO Report, "Dead Dinosaur Bounce" Edition

Well, I just got smoked, so it's hard for me to have much to share right now that will be objective... I'm way too focused on the spanking I just took.

It's pretty rare to see the market turn on a dime so late in the day. Especially when all the imbalances are to the sell side and when "down volume" is completely swamping "up volume." But I guess it happens. And when it does, you don't want to be caught short.

Still, despite the late day rip in the indexes, the Dow lost over 500 points and the VIX closed near 70. The only good news there, at least for me, is that I should have plenty of opportunity to make my money back. However, that said, today was pretty dead until the last hour... so you need to stay patient in this market, despite the volatility.

Anyway, many of the ROers played it well and hence, the Bosses won the day.

Let's just get to the numbers. I have a new drug habit to start or something... oh, and as always, if you think you want to do this Godforsaken job, email me.

Out of 26 traders today, 15 were gross positive, or 58%. I was number 23 of 26, or, a Manservant. The top 9 traders finished up over $1,000 gross while the bottom 6 all lost over $1,000 gross.

Here are today's "Bosses"

"Lucky Pierre" - Trader D, $38,262 on 291k shares traded.

2. Trader A, $30,717 on 355k shares traded.
3. Trader Z, $24,747 on 142k shares traded.
4. Trader C, $18,256 on 146k shares traded.
5. Trader E, $8,128 on 101k shares traded.


And the "Manservants"

"Chambermaid" - Trader P, -$23,905 on 126k shares traded.

2. Trader B, -$18,939 on 276k shares traded.
3. Trader S, -$4,594 on 57,400 shares traded.
4. Trader I, -$4,075 on 17,700 shares traded.
5. Trader 6*, -$4,034 on 0 shares traded.

*swing account

5 comments:

Stewie said...

wow! never seen the RO so skewed. People must had very different opinions about market direction.

TL said...

It's amazing how different traders see things differently. I think today's market is quite downtrending... but I took a hit by that late rally too.

TL

Soullfire said...

I got this "forced buy-in alert" from my brokerage telling me that a portion of my shorts could be closed via a forced buy if they couldn't get the shares delivered to them by the deadline today. They said it was a recent "rule" change. Fortunately, the buy-in never happened but it may have for others which might have triggered the end of day rally.

So it looks like they aren't done giving shorts a hard time.

Anonymous said...

Soulfire,

If the brokerage allowed you to short stock without them having shares on hand to borrow, then you have/had a naked short position.

The rules have always prohibited such activity, but the SEC didn't spend much effort making brokerage firms find the necessary shares to settle those trades.

Based upon your comment, it sounds like the SEC is being a bit more diligent in this area, which isn't a bad thing overall. Sucks for you, but is healthy for the market in general.

Dinosaur Trader said...

Indeed, I have to "locate" the stocks I want to short pre-open, each day. Many times, I have to pay quite a little fee for this "service."

-DT