Richard Wagner, "Ride Of The Valkries"

"Trader P" choice, and an excellent one at that.

Back in the day, like 8 years ago, "Trader P" would blast this whenever the market was taking a dive. That was back when the tech bubble was bursting, so we heard this one a lot.

Joe The Plumber

I'm really, really looking forward to Jon Stewart's take on "Joe The Plumber."

The RO Report, "R.I.P Market" Edition

Hours after the dust has settled on my trading day, I'm having a hard time accessing the emotional swings that I went through. I think this is mostly because right after the close I had a nice surf session with "Trader Z" until after the sun set.

There's nothing like a sunset surf session to clear the mind.

"Trader Z" has some sick board skills. Also, he's a really good surfer.

Anyway, what can you say about this market other than it's coming apart at the seams. I can't spin today's action in any positive way. The best I can do is say that we did rally 950+ points on Monday and that something similar will happen again... eventually.

A bull market will come again, I promise.

I'll say this about trading in general... the most important thing you can have is an open mind. All day long, until 3:30, I was buying stock and getting completely killed. Once I switched my bias and stopped fighting the trend, I made back all my cheese and became a Boss.

And I cannot overstate the amount of help I received from "Trader P." Never, in my entire 10 year career, have I put so much trust in another trader.

The end of the day really deserves its own post, but I'm too exhausted. To summarize briefly, at 3:30, I had no positions and was down 5 grand. My entire day had been a brutal beatdown... also, I lost lots of money. A mere 20 minutes later, I had built a little over a million dollars of short exposure, and I was making money faster than you can say, "Jim Cramer sucks."

In short, if you want to "be right" all the time, you're going to lose money trading.

Today deserves more of a post, I apologize, but I'm shot. Eventually, I'll have to write a book about this all and you'll just have to buy it, okay?

Out of 27 traders today, 16 traders were gross positive, or 59%. 11 traders finished up over $1,000 gross while 7 traders finished down $1,000 gross.

I was number 5 of 27 or, a motherfucking Boss.

Here are today's Bosses:

"Lucky Pierre" - Trader P, $34,755 on 282k shares traded.

2. Trader B, $28,853 on 517k shares traded.
3. Trader Z, $16,307 on 198k shares traded.
4. Trader C, $13,297 on 338k shares traded.
5. Trader S, $11,640 on 133k shares traded.

And the Manservants:

"Chambermaid" - Trader D, -$20,014 on 472k shares traded.

2. Trader H*, -$11,968 on 5,400 shares traded.
3. Trader 6*, -$4,727 on 0 shares traded.
4. Trader I, -$3,081 on 26,400 shares traded.
5. Trader M*, -$2,230 on 0 shares traded.

NOTE: There are a few swing accounts in the office. From here on out, I will mark swing accounts with an asterisk.

How It Felt To Be Bullish This Morning...

Complete Smoke

I got too big in CHK, couldn't take the pain, and sold the lows. Classic.

Another Person Who Shouldn't Trade

Failure to fully understand cause and effect relationships is a strong negative for prospective traders.