Blitzen Trapper, "Furr"

From their new album. This is a live version, but the quality is pretty good. Enjoy.

The RO Report, "Relatively Quiet" Edition

Well, two trends continued today... The last hour of trading continues to be for crack-addicts, professional gamblers, and idiot savants. Also, while some traders are making money in the RO, an equal number are losing.

There is loads of volatility, but something has changed which has made it more difficult to be on the right side of the trade. I mean, take a look at a chart of the Industrials today... we had a solid 200 point range, up and down, but in the middle, we also had 100 point shakeouts. So we're trending, and making big moves, but the counter-trend rallies are deadly.

In other words, if you're not getting good entries, you're getting shaken-out or taking lots of pain.

Also, volume was a little lame today, under 1.4 billion.

I've got loads of shit to do, so I'm cutting to the chase. Out of 25 traders today, 14 were gross positive, or 56%. 11 traders finished up over $1,000 gross, but 7 finished below $1,000 gross. I was #5 of 25, or bossy.

Again, these numbers aren't great. Perhaps the "go-go" days of late September and early October are officially behind us and we're moving solidly into the holiday season.

I will be taking it easy until after the election now unless we get some interesting market news.

Here are today's Bosses:

"Lucky Pierre" - Trader B, $10,474 on 487k shares traded.

2. Trader C, $5,942 on 76,800 shares traded.
3. Trader T, $3,739 on 3,700 shares traded.
4. Trader E, $3,645 on 89,800 shares traded.
5. Trader S, $2,397 on 27,000 shares traded.

And the Manservants:

"Chambermaid" - Trader D, -$15,065 on 326k shares traded.

2. Trader A, -$3,527 on 471k shares traded.
3. Trader I, -$3,124 on 20,600 shares traded.
4. Trader Z, -$3,123 on 92,000 shares traded.
5. Trader H*, -$2,217 on 8,800 shares traded.

A Couple Of Trades, Some Squiggly Lines

Like I said in an earlier post today, I miss speaking directly to you, cherished reader, about the actual trades I've been making. Largely, I've been pressed for time, as I haven't had any time intraday, to work on posts since the market has been on crack.

However, after my nasty loss yesterday, I find myself up a little this morning, and not looking to press my luck, I'll discuss a trade or two that I made, and also talk about some squiggly lines that I find helpful of late.

I didn't have any strong feel about direction today, after yesterday's extremely fucked up close, so I decided to simply watch my most up and most down filters, and just take the opposite sides of extreme moves with small share size. I used small size because I assumed I'd go out of the money a bit before the stocks turned in my direction.

My best short of the day, came in WLL.



My best long, was in WFR. However, I really screwed this one up a bit...



I liked this strategy today, because I didn't have a feel for the market move. I kept my size small so I wouldn't get "tilty." I had no idea why the stocks were making the moves they were making... it wasn't really important. It's more like playing a mechanical move... things can't go up or down at that pace forever, so start small and just look for a counter move to take back your shares.

Now, about the squiggly lines... a few months ago you may recall that I was trading the HCPG way. This is breakout trading, mostly, as you're looking at a specific level and hoping the stock trades it and never looks back. This market hasn't really been rewarding classic breakout trading.

Anyway, a few months ago, "Trader B" told me to watch the Bollinger Bands "to get good prices, yo." This has helped me immensely because I have taken to a recent strategy of scaling into positions instead of buying a chunk at a certain level. I think, though maybe it's just because the market has been working this way recently, that this strategy makes far more sense in a Hybrid environment.

I will delve into that idea deeper in a later post. It deserves more attention from me since this blog originally began due to my consternation with the Hybrid system.

Barack Obama On The Daily Show

Jon asks Obama if his "white half" is going to have trouble voting for his "black half." Classic.



Meanwhile, you gotta love the major division in the Republican camp.

Blog Maintenance

Wow, time flies when you maintain a blog.

I spent two hours of my life last night cleaning up my bloated sidebar. That's a bit awful.

Anyway, I removed all the individual stock symbol labels. I don't think anyone was clicking on them, and it really lengthened that label list. Then, I merged the following categories:

-"interesting words" into "vocabulary"
-"weekend walk" into "weekend reading"
-"wallstrip" into "stock market blogs"
-"ape assholes" into "ape anatomy"
-"book quotes" into "books"
-"stock earnings" into "stock earnings season"
-"stock research" into "stock trading ideas"

I've also added a few blogs to my blogroll. First of all, while browsing Jamie's blog, I noticed that Trader X is back in the game. So I changed my link from his old charts to his now updated blog. Jamie also had a link to The Zen Trader. I've never read it before, but I will now, if only to see what happens when the dude blows up. I mean, I really want to know how the "Zen people" handle losing all their money. Or, as an experiment, I may just go there everyday and leave obnoxious comments, to see how "Zen people" handle assholes.

I also added the "classics," The Big Picture, The Daily Options Report, and Afraid To Trade.

(Brief aside: If any of you recently blogrolled bloggers are reading this post due to a massive surge in traffic, feel free to return the favor. Actually, feel obligated to return the favor. More to the point, should you fail to return the favor, you will be de-blogrolled in less than a week.)

Finally, looking back on some of my old posts, I realized I kind of miss writing the "daily trading statistics" posts, so I'll try and do more of that again.

I'm open to suggestions and always searching for interesting blogs to add to my blogroll.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Pro-America Vs. Anti-America

We're getting down to the wire in the election. You could get your "news and views" from the main-stream media (MSM) if you wish, but face it, us bloggers do it better.

For example, would you find a handy chart dividing "Pro-American" behavior from "Anti-American" in the MSM?

Answer: "No."

However, depending on which channel you watch you might be "Anti-American" already.

Make sure you check it out before you go to the polls next week. It is from my friend "Jon Swift" who really isn't my friend at all, despite the fact that he's linked down there on my blogroll. It's just that I've heard McCain say "my friends" during the course of the past year so many times that I call everyone my friend.

UPDATE: I'll toss a bone to the MSM for this fine article contrasting the differences between the Democratic and Republican rallies.