The RO Report, "Mess" Edition

Today was a real chopfest. We gapped lower with lots of bearishness, but then ripped higher the entire first hour. After that, it was chop until a mild sell-off in the last hour.

Not fun trading action despite the impressive volume, over 1.8 billion traded.

I recall when the Bear Stears (remember them?) news dropped two Augusts ago that we were doing over 2 billion a day and sometimes close to 3 billion on the NYSE. If we start to see volume rise, it could be an indication that some kind of climax is approaching.

Or, perhaps volume is simply rising as stocks across the board get cheaper, making traders have to buy more shares to make the same profits. Who knows?

Anyway, we tested Dow 7,000 today. And no, it's not the bottom... so expect a nice 6,000 number sometime next week. My stomach churns for boomers locked into stupid retirement accounts.

The RO got clipped today. Out of 29 traders, 15 were gross positive or 52%. That's bad... worse, only 1 trader made over $1,000 gross and 9 lost over $1,000 gross. Were I not dead this year, I'd suffer from survival guilt with my #2 showing. As it stands, I don't feel guilty at all. I'll take the #2 and a solid close to my week.

The Manservants dominated. And "Trader D" pulled a rare "George Michael" today. (A "George Michael," for you n00bs, is when a trader's daytrading account and swing account are the worst two accounts of the day.)

"George Michael" - Trader D, -$10,783 on 281,000 shares traded.
Trader 10*, -$2,562 on 8,000 shares traded.

3. Trader J, -$1,981 on 30,000 shares traded.
4. Trader F, -$1,827 on 96,400 shares traded.
5. Trader N, -$1,501 on 97,800 shares traded.

"Lucky Pierre" - Trader B, $2,045 on 733k shares traded.

2. Trader S, $593 on 9,600 shares traded.
3. Trader O, $457 on 24,400 shares traded.
4. Trader R, $405 on 11,400 shares traded.
5. Trader T, $314 on 5,700 shares traded.