Genius, "I Gotcha Back"

"Trader D" selection.

The RO Report, "Orderly Panic" Edition

I have to say that for all the pictures you'll see tomorrow of aggrieved traders, and even with the $VIX spiking to its highest level since its inception, it didn't feel too panicky out there.

Also, the fact that the market rallied 400 points on even the hint of a rumor about a special G8 meeting, is laughable. In fact, the market was so orderly today on the downside, that I'm starting to get the awful feeling that we'll need to get below 8500 on the Dow before this is all over. That's just my feeling... no lines or anything to give me that number... it's just where I think shit would be really, really scary.

The best case scenario, from a trading standpoint, didn't happen today. Had we pinned ourselves to the lows at the close, down over 1000 points or something, and set ourselves up for a little more of a wash tomorrow morning, I feel we could have made a bottom. It would have been perfect. Europe and all the overseas markets would get crushed again, we would have gapped down tomorrow, sold the first hour and then bounced. Just after we started to bounce, the FED could come in and cut 50bp and we would have had a 600 point rally.

The end of day rally today muddied that scenario a bit and I'm not sure what to think now going forward. I think we have, yet again, forestalled the inevitable.

It wasn't a classic day for the RO. There was good money made, but also some heavy losses. At no time today was it "easy" to make money and every trader... even Trader D, visited the dark side today at some point. In fact, Trader D was down close to $30,000 at one point.

Out of 26 traders today, 19 were gross positive, or 73%. That's good, but given all the movement today, I'm surprised it wasn't better. Still, the "bosses" reclaim the top position... the RO was nicely positive today overall. 12 traders finished up over $1,000 gross. I was #10 of 26.

Here are today's Bosses:

1. Trader D, $107,836 on 738k shares traded.
2. Trader C, $30,088 on 579k shares traded.
3. Trader Z, $14,564 on 377k shares traded.
4. Trader E, $8,974 on 147k shares traded.
5. Trader L, $5,587 on 114k shares traded.

And the Manservants:

1. Trader F, -$27,081 on 185k shares traded.
2. Trader K, -$23,121 on 362k shares traded.
3. Trader A, -$11,797 on 556k shares traded.
4. Trader N, -$4,656 on 46,000 shares traded.
5. Trader V, -$1,617 on 59,500 shares traded.

Get good sleep tonight. But before you close your eyes on the day, give us your thoughts on what will happen tomorrow over in the comment section.

NOTE: Volume on the NYSE was under 2 billion shares today. That seems light given the action. I don't think we've seen the bottom.

The Cramer Bottom

Jim Cramer is telling investors to get out of the stock market.

My guess, the stock market will be now bottoming sooner, rather than later.

Trading ETFs

I've been trading more ETFs lately. Accordingly, I wanted to share a couple of important ETF resources with you, respected reader.

Here's a useful link to a PDF file with all the ETFs listed. You can print it out, memorize it, and then start making jokes to your friends about the hot new "Wound Care" ETF, HRW.

Or, you can click the Yahoo Finance ETF Center link over on my blogroll. That's useful too. I sort by volume. I mean, there are loads of ETFs, but only a small group that you'd want to actively daytrade.

Definitely don't trade that HRW...

Terrorists Don't Love Free Speech Either, Mrs. Palin

With Palin basically calling Obama a terrorist this weekend for being a member of a charity board with an old member of the Weather Underground, I thought I should point that the McCain campaign is against free speech.

Why not? One exaggeration deserves another, no?

From Yahoo:

Reporters weren't permitted to wander around inside Coachman Park in Clearwater to talk to Palin's audience, the St. Petersburg Times reported.

When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head to where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out, confront him or her and say, "Can I help you?" and turn the person around, Times staff writer Eileen Schulte wrote on the paper's Web site. When one reporter asked an escort, who would not give her name, why the press wasn't allowed to mingle, she said that in the past, negative things had been written, Schulte reported.

What Kimbo Slice Has In Common With Our Financial System

I dunno, nothing I guess. However, there may be something to it afterall.

I'll let you decide.

Art Cashin On CNBC, October 6, 2008

Note: Art was wearing a vintage Dow 10,000 hat... below is a paraphrase of his brief comments this morning.

Worried about what's going on in Europe, and it may spiral out of control.

Some concern in the market, did we wait too long?

Maybe we get a good capitulation sell off today, then a little continuation tomorrow morning and then a sharp reversal. That would be one right out of the trader's handbook.

Doom Descends On Wall Street

Looking at close to a 300 point gap down in the Dow pre-open. World indexes are all down 5% or more. Russia closed after their index dropped 17%.

No worries though... they'll cut 50bp today to squeeze the hell out of any remaining shorts.

Then we'll drop another few hundo tomorrow.

Nothing is "oversold."

Pailin Debates Biden On SNL

This was dead on.



Check out the Sarah Palin debate flow chart. Hilarious.

And here's a link to the real debate... (h/t "Trader K")