Tuesday, October 21, 2008

My Chemical Romance, "Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge"

Trader A with the spray.

The RO Report, "A Mixed Bag" Edition

So the thing is, from a trading perspective, you always want more volume. It just means smoother markets, more liquidity. It's always possible to make money in a low volume market, it's just harder, and the risk/reward ratio gets skewed. I think today's RO numbers perfectly illustrate that point.

We gave back more than half our gains from yesterday, but remarkably, on even LOWER volume. What this tells me, is that we're probably stuck for awhile, in a range that we're currently determining, until another bank fails or something.

But we've all been busy and it's probably not a bad thing to be able to breathe a bit. Regain your perspective.

In other breaking news, I have no new plans for this blog ever. Apparently, I'm going through a bit of a "dry spell" as far as my "creative" posts are concerned. I'm just not feeling it lately. Perhaps the market sapped me of all my creative energy... I don't know, fuck you. Some kid stole my daughter's pail at the sandbox and I wanted to kill it... maybe I need to write a post about that, to work out some anger.

Anyway, the RO was mixed. Out of 25 traders today, 15 were gross positive, or 60%. 7 traders finished up over $1,000 gross, and 6 traders lost over $1,000 gross. I was #9 of 25, which I'll take. If I can continue to stay green and make some money as the market slows, I'll be very happy. The bosses barely did it today, but they end up "on top."

Here are today's Bosses:

Lucky Pierre - Trader A, $8,558 on 198k shares traded.

2. Trader Z, $3,422 on 65,200 shares traded.
3. Trader B, $2,899 on 96,200 shares traded.
4. Trader F, $2,881 on 64,200 shares traded.
5. Trader E, $2,475 on 64,800 shares traded.


And the Manservants:

"Chambermaid" - Trader J, -$6,523 on 73,200 shares traded.

2. Trader D, -$4,400 on 89,700 shares traded.
3. Trader C, -$4,159 on 120k shares traded.
4. Trader V, -$1,657 on 60,400 shares traded.
5. Trader 6*, -$1,600 on 0 shares traded.

See you tomorrow.

Watch Your Ass



That's an hourly chart of volume on the NYSE. I drew a horizontal line after the first 4 hours of trade today to illustrate how volume has completely, and rather suddenly, dried up.

In short, it has taken us 4 hours today to get to where we were volume-wise in 2 hours most of last week.

We've quickly moved from a market where you were rewarded for "pressing your bets," to one where you can easily get smoked in low volume chopfest.

Trade accordingly.

Trader D Wins In A Landslide

I tell you what, "Trader D" didn't really need another victory, but he comes away with a rather convincing rout over the rest of the RO.

Now it's just a matter of providing "incentives" so that we may receive a nice post from "Trader D." Developing...

Here are the final results. The percentages don't add up to 100 because you were allowed to vote for more than one trader. The question was, "Which ROer would you like to see write a post?"

Trader A, 17 votes or 11%.
Trader B, 49 votes or 38%.
Trader C, 10 votes or 6%.
Trader D, 89 votes or 60%.
Trader E, 4 votes or 2%.
Trader F, 8 votes or 5%.
Trader P, 8 votes or 5%.
Trader Z, 14 votes or 9%.