Neil Young, "Ohio"

"Four dead in Ohio..."

Same Ole Story...

Great entries, poor execution of my exits.

There really wasn't much to look at today, and I planned on taking it easy. However, SLB opened up with good volume, and since he was hovering above $100, I decided to watch him closely should he start to show weakness.



Look at that... I made $50 in the stock... meanwhile, the thing never looked back from my second short entry at $101.47. Depressing.

I took another trade in GES and received an awful fill on my entry. For the last two days, I've really felt a lag in my esignal quotes, and today I think it cost me about 20 cents on this trade. I went to sell when my esiggy quotes showed 38 and was filled .22 cents lower... given that I was looking for a run down to $37.50 before the stock hit some support, this kind of took the steam out of the trade. I covered 100 immediately at a small loss, and then the other 300 when the stock bounced off of the $37.50 level. So I made nothing, but I seemed to have the right idea.



Other than those two, I had a lot of small losses. The volume was really light today and with the holiday looming, it's not surprising that there wasn't a lot of follow through. The other stocks I traded, IPI, WFC and DHR didn't have great movement, and I didn't miss out from my entries. I took small losses in each which isn't a problem.

The thing I can't take is the missed opportunity in the SLB. I absolutely must learn how to hold these winning trades when they come or I'll never break out of this +200, -$200 grind I currently find myself in.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the three day weekend. I don't plan on posting much, if at all. However, the mysterious Internet force known as Bloggerdotcom contacted me with tales of a new post... I will let you know when it will drop. Presumably next weekend, but I guess it could happen this weekend as well... you never know with bloggerdotcom.

I plan on going to a lot of barbecues this weekend. I told Judy, "Listen, take any invitations and accept them all."

So we've already got one tonight and tomorrow to attend. If I can't make money, at least I can mooch off friends for free meals. I also plan on watching my normally quiet town get taken over by "cityots" (mix of city and idiot). I will sit in town, sip a coffee from a bench, and quietly take notes on their actions, like an anthropologist watching monkeys or something. They always do something entertaining. Hopefully, we get a blog post out of it.

Be safe.

Here's the stats:
P&L, -$60
Best, SLB, $48
Worst, DHR, -$60
7200 shares traded.
8 stocks traded, 3 winners, 5 losers.

Virtual Office, $165. SPY, -1.70, $137.81.

Tokyo, $221 on 2189 shares traded.
Denarii, no trades.
OBAT, no trades.
Retardo, no trades.
Me, -$56 on 7200 shares traded.

Well, we almost made a new low for the NYSE volume on the year. At least today it's not surprising, given that we're heading into a three-day weekend.

Not much action in the VO today, however, the market took it on the chin. Brokers got slammed, as people start freaking out all over again about "third-tier" companies like Lehman Brothers, and Goldman Sachs.

Additionally, all of the energy leaders got pissed on... sell in May, indeed.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend. I'll have a daily post up in about an hour.

CHECK IT! MMMaria!

Funny Internet Comment

I was listening to this song on youtube and read some of the comments... one of them, was classic. Read below...

"jumesblant (2 days ago)

your beautiful words mixed with this music made me cry through my nose.from now on i belong to you xxxxxxx"

A Conversation Between Two Master Stock Traders

Stock bloggers kick ass because you could (in theory) learn good stuff. Fuck CNBC and their idiots. This right here is the future.

Here's a brief excerpt of a conversation I had with Jamie over on his site. As you know, I'm attempting to become more like him. He takes the same trades I do, yet he makes more money doing it. This doesn't mean he's smarter, and it doesn't mean Canada isn't pure evil...

(Note that I put his quote in a pretty shade of pink (mine is a masculine shit brown color). Sure he makes money, but that doesn't mean I won't try to emasculate him and ruin his self confidence. Stock trading is a zero sum game... and as far as I'm concerned, Jamie is my enemy.)

I said:

Nice trade in V... I mean, I had your entry, but you kicked my ass with the exit.

I noticed that you use 15-minute graphs to explain your trades. Do you use them as well when you're making your entries? I figure you have to use a smaller timeframe intraday, right?

I still need loads of work with my exits and I'm wondering if I should be focusing more on longer time frame graphs once I get my entry... because I tend to jump on profits... perhaps the longer timeframe would help me stick out the trades.

Have a nice long weekend.

-DT

Jamie said...

Yeah that V setup was a gift.

I use 4 timeframes daily, 1, (3 or 5), and 15 min. If the trade sets up nicely on all 3 intraday timeframes and has room to move on the daily, I take the trade. If I have a lot of confidence in the setup, once it gets going, I manage the trade on 15 minute. If I'm scalping, I manage on 1 or 3 minute chart. Most of my gapper trades are executed on the 15 minute.

If you're trading to win based on a setup you have confidence in, you might want to let your profits run, or partial out after 3 WRBs or obvious S/R levels. If the setup is less than perfect, or the markets are choppy, then, I sometimes use the trade not to lose strategy. After the initial BO I tighten stop after each new high. So on a three minute chart, my stop is just one or two bars behind the current price bar. This strategy usually insures a win unless the BO is a complete head fake, but if the stock really takes off, you want to give it more room, otherwise you'll get stopped out on the first pullback. This last strategy works best with highly liquid stocks.

NYSE Trading Volume Plummeting

Nothing new here for my readers. I've been talking about this everyday for the last year...

Gotta love the Hybrid Market... or do you? Ray still has hope.

(h/t Stockhunter)

Art Cashin, May 23, 2008. CNBC.

Again, Art Cashin is one of the only regulars on CNBC worth listening to. Today, Erin and Mark asked him about the price of oil.

Art Cashin: Well, China and India keep subsidizing things. China just had a huge earthquake and they're not going to stop subsiding right now and risk a populist problem... So, oil demand is going to stay.

Erin: People look a the last few years, and oil has tripled, but stocks have also done well. What do you make of that?

Art Cashin: Well, it's like that old story. You put a frog in a cold part of oil and start heating it up. By the time the frog learns it's hot it's too late. People have been accommodating to the high price of oil so far, but it's getting hotter."