Beach House, "You Came To Me"

No Follow Through

I'm busy tonight, so this will be a very quick post describing my loss for the day.

Basically, today I got chopped. My biggest loser was for $67, but the problem was that my largest winner was also for only $67. I just couldn't get any follow through in my positions.

I had a couple that initially worked in my favor only to reverse negative. These included AGU at $89, BEC at $69, and MON at $125. In each of these trades I bought the stock, made a dime or so, and then got out as they quickly reversed through my buy points.

My worst stock of the day was ATW... this one I did as an "over lunch" hold. I short at $104, put my buy stop at $104.25 and went with Judy to watch our daughter's swim lessons. While I was out, the stock dropped all the way into the deep $102s, only to reverse strongly and stop me out at $104.34. A bummer, but not a bad play. I did have buy limits in, but they were below $102.

Close...

Sorry for the runty and humorless post. Enjoy the night.

Here's the stats:
P&L, -$249
Best, BHI, $67
Worst, ATW, -$67

10,800 shares traded.
12 stocks traded, 4 winners, 8 losers.

Virtual Office, -$1135. SPY, +1.80, $142.57.

Denarii, $44 on 5000 shares traded.
OBAT, -$37 on 14,000 shares traded.
Me, -$249 on 10,800 shares traded.
Timmay!, -$413 on 4000 shares traded.
Tokyo, -$480 on 113 shares traded.

Here's a good trading rule... don't trade hungover.

Well, looking at the VO, I may not have been the only one out on a Wednesday night... in fact, this must be one of the lamest VO boards of all time... hopefully I'll be able to announce some changes next week. It's still developing.

However, I have to say, I was a little underwhelmed by the response I got from last night's VO post, asking for some nicknames/historical characters etc. to name potential "ghost" VOers. Not that I don't have plenty of ideas, I just thought I'd get some good feedback.

Again, the volume sucks... again, energy and ags were on the move... this market is really getting dull. As we head into the end of May and Memorial Day, I expect it to get a little lamer. My real office was about 50/50 today in terms of up traders to down traders... a couple of guys had big days... I'm guessing they made good money on the oil stocks. A couple of oil names had crazy ranges. But in a good trading market, my office would be more like 80% green. This isn't a very forgiving market.

Crude oil was all over the map today, enjoying a $6 intraday trading range. WTF?

Anyway, lets hope for a more interesting day tomorrow.

"Groggy-Eyed And Fried"

Vagina, 2008.

About ten years ago, this essay was published. I read it, and liked it enough to remember it, but I didn't really get the full meaning.

Everything is on a scale, of course, but last night, while drinking a little bit more than I'm accustomed to, and enjoying the company of a new group of people, I thought of the essay again.

Judy and I had an excellent time. I'll work on a post describing the whole scene, but right now, I'm just focused on recovery. I will relay the following... the hosts made a gigantic tray of paella. The diameter of the tray was at least 3 feet. Honestly, I'm not even sure how you store something like that. But anyway, the tray was overloaded with huge clams and mussels.

A girl next to me picked up a clam that was slightly open and gave it an odd look. "I mean, how do you eat something like that?" she asked, "It looks like a vagina." In real life, as is often the case on this blog, I'm blessed with the gift of "smart-assism." However, that comment caught me a little off guard, and was actually, too much of a layup. I let it pass.

The girl quickly corrected herself, "Not my vagina...."

Judy and I ducked out of the party early and head to a local watering hole. We played backgammon and drank. The table next to us, was filled with Germans. They were being very rude to the waitstaff. I wondered, with the dollar as weak as it is, if that wasn't a glimpse into the future, as more Europeans take advantage of the exchange rate to vacation, or even buy second homes, here.

Perhaps soon, we'll be complaining about "loud and obnoxious Europeans" in the same way that Europeans now deride us "dumb Americans."