I think that everyone knows that the song Debaser by the Pixies is about the Easter Bunny. That and the Hybrid market.
If I had to make one CD with all the songs from my life, this one would be on it for the high-school years.
Anyway, it's a short week so I'm posting this today. Enjoy!
Again, we are hit with really low volatility and really low volume during the holiday week.
It was the kind of day where I was either up $100 or down $100 all day long.
Here are the stats.
P&L -$131
Best: TNH $168
Worst: RAS -$216
stocks traded: 15, 6 positive, 9 negative
total trades: 149
total volume: 25,500
You have to love that headline... I just couldn't resist.
Here's the link.
If Keith Richards were a stock, everyone and their grandmother would be short and getting squeezed. Can you believe this guy is still alive?
Well, a nice rally today even if it was on light holiday volume. So I guess I probably missed out some because I'm in non-aggressive, holiday-week, trading mode. Still, I had a good day that officially puts my account back into the green for the first time since my twin disaster days in early March.
My best trade of the day was in CF. In the morning the stock dipped below old resistance at 39 that seems to have become some new support. I picked some up around there and slowly unloaded the position all day. I had 4 other triple-digit winners which helped pad the profits and only 1 triple-digit loser.
P&L $1022
Best: CF $559
Worst: SQM -$109
Stocks traded: 13, 9 winners 4 losers
Total trades: 122
Volume: 22,800
Hey, I just discovered this blog Alphatrends that posts videos with some really well-done and easily understood technical analysis. Check it out!
I found it when I did my early morning drive-by of Wallstrip who covered EFX today.
Some rip today, eh? It's great but the volume is only slightly above yesterday's anemic levels so I'm not overly excited.
It was a long few weeks that followed my visit to watch Albert trade.
During that time, my job as a Sales Assistant went from bad to just downright awful. I basically spent my days in meetings with unorganized salespeople who treated me like crap but then expected me to help them. No matter how hard I worked for them they were always unhappy. I had already been turned down once when I asked for a meager raise.
One day my mom called my office. She was calling from the hospital where she was laid up with a broken leg. (Parking lot. Ice.) Was she okay? Yes, but she would need a ride home. She and my father were divorced, and my two older siblings both lived in California. I had no choice but to go. I went into my boss's office and told him that I had a family emergency and that I needed to leave early. He said, "Do what you have to do. But I don't have to be happy about it." Even though I had only $600 in savings and over $30,000 in student loans, I quit then and there. I drove down to Collingswood and spent the next week taking care of my mom. I also decided that I was going to take a shot at trading. But with no income or savings, how was I going to live? Albert told me that I shouldn't expect to make money for at least 6 months and even that wasn't guaranteed.
As it turns out the timing for this particular problem was perfect. My girlfriend (future wife) Judy and I had been talking about moving in together; the lease on my apartment was up at the end of the month. I could not wait to leave this particular apartment because all of my neighbors were crazy. I lived next door to a couple who fought all the time. When they weren't fighting, they were listening to the Madonna song "Ray of Light" and having sex. Upstairs, lived a woman who worked in the sex-trade and downstairs, lived 3 guys who played video games all the time. When they weren't playing video games, they were busy visiting the woman who lived upstairs.
Anyway, Judy had a nice stable job working as an administrative assistant for the CEO of a large publishing company. She said her salary could support us both until I was profitable. In a week, we had found a house to rent on Staten Island and I was preparing for my second visit downtown to become more immersed in the world of trading. This time, I wouldn't wear a suit.
It was a slow, sleepy, "nothing to see here folks, move along" kind of day here in the cave. The lowest volume in awhile and unfortunately, it will probably just get lower and lower as the week wears on because of the holidays.
I, for one, could not turn water into wine today.
P&L -$136
Best: POT $106
Worst: CF -$210 (I was stopped out just before the "rip" at the end of the day. GRRR!)
stocks traded: 17, 7 positive, 10 negative
total trades: 220
I'll probably get some spring cleaning done this week. It's gonna be a slow one. And why not get some rest? Earnings season will start soon and then things will get crazy.
While I'm at it, I figured I'd take a poll of what quote services you all use. I currently use esignal. It's okay, but I think their customer service is awful. Most of the time I don't have issues with their systems, but I have noticed slow opening price changes on some stocks and often their graphs load slowly.
When you call to complain, they tell you that the problem must be local to your computer and that they aren't having any system trouble.
Then, they tell you to shut down and restart... yawn.
So, anyway. Which quote system do you use?
I'm in the market to subscribe to a new real-time news service. In the past I've used Briefing.com but even since they released BriefingTrader I feel like their Platinum service has stumbled.
Anyone use a news service that is good for NYSE stocks and has solid customer service?
I stepped out of the elevator and expected to see polished mahogany walls, leather furniture and an attractive but protective receptionist behind a huge desk. Instead, the elevator doors opened into a huge room that was chopped into smaller spaces by cubicle walls. In fact when I stepped out, I nearly bumped into a cubicle wall that extended without break in either direction as far as I could see. Apparently space was very expensive on Wall Street and not a bit was wasted on aesthetics.
There were no overhead lights on, but there was a glow. The glow of hundreds of computer screens.
I heard screams and clacking keyboards coming from the other side of the cubicle walls. It was disorienting. I followed along the wall for some time, lost, and was relieved when my friend peeked his head out from behind a door and waved me into his office.
This room was smaller but just as strange. It was darker and uncomfortably hot. Ten traders sat crammed elbow to elbow staring at their screens except one older man who had an entire wall and six monitors to himself. When I entered, not one person looked up to acknowledge that a new person had entered the room. Instead, the older man picked up his telephone receiver and began to pound it over and over again into the phone cradle. He did this for 10-15 seconds until the phone broke apart. I was the only one in the room who seemed surprised.
I wore a suit. That was my first mistake. Everyone in the room was dressed very casually, even sloppily as if they hadn't left the room and showered or changed their clothes in days. Albert was involved in a couple of trades but it was nearly impossible to follow what was going on. He tried to explain but it was all gibberish. The background on his screens was black and all the quotes were red or green. The quotes flashed rapidly. He showed me graphs, the execution system. He explained what a "bid" was, what an "ask" was. He told me the specialists screwed everybody... whoever they were. He introduced me to a couple of other guys in the room. No one looked away from their monitors for more than a couple of seconds. Apparently they all had similar or at least complimentary styles of trading. They called out ideas to one another. When they called out a symbol they wouldn't use the letters, they would substitute words or lewd phrases for the letters so that no mistakes were made. So, for example, GI wasn't called out as Giant Industries, it might be called out as "Gay Indian". DF wasn't Dean Foods, it morphed into "Dick Face".
The guy who sat in the corner, a mathematics whiz, began to react to a trade he was involved in. He was short 3000 shares of a bank stock. He called me over. We watched the stock tick lower and I saw how his p&l increased with each trade down (remember, this was back when the market traded in 16ths... so every 16th was approximately $180). It was interesting in a way I didn't think my parents would have understood. It was especially dark in the corner and I felt like I was in a war-room fighting a battle against some vague enemy. We were winning.
The door to the room opened (I had already forgotten that there was a way out) and an attractive girl entered carrying a platter with snacks on it. She brought it over to Albert, then to the older man, then to the math guy. The older man said something to the girl. Five minutes later she was back with the platter and on it was a new phone.
I left a couple of hours later, squinting into the sunlight. It was warm and I decided to walk back to my apartment even though it was all the way uptown. I took off my suit coat and slung it over my shoulder. A stranger called out to me, "My, my, aren't we comfortable today?". And I imagine I must have had a look on my face. I was contemplating a career change. I had a whiff of freedom there in that small dark room. When I would return a few weeks later to sit in again, I would catch a whiff of something altogether different but nonetheless compelling.
Well, I couldn't save my month completely, but I got damn close.
P&L $1274
Best: AGU, $685
Worst: POT, -$319
#stocks traded: 14, 7 positive, 7 negative
total trades: 361
There's been some discussion on other blogs lately about position sizing. My trade in POT today was a perfect example of why you need to know the stocks you trade. I lost that $319 on two separate trades with 200 shares each trade. So I lost like, 75 cents each trade, very quickly. Clearly a stock that I can't trade with my "full" position.
On the other hand, I had 2500 shares for the AGU trade. It can take AGU a full day to move a point, whereas POT can move a point in 2 minutes.
I initiated a short in AGU when it broke through 38 around 10:20 or so. The stock then sold off a little and pulled back up to the figure but couldn't break through. That's when I doubled my position. He chopped around for a little while and played with the trend line I drew but eventually broke and I was able to cover for a decent profit. Part of the reason I was looking to short AGU was because the other fertilizer stocks were selling off at this time as was the general market.
Anyway, I thought that today the issue of position sizing really was important to me making money on a good trade and not losing too much on a bad trade.
Have a good weekend. I'll post a history article this weekend and if I can get to it, a monthly review.
Although I had a good day, I missed getting to positive on the month by $300... so for the first time in 8 years, I had a negative month.
I'll post my daily stats later. Also, this weekend I'll be posting a new piece of "history" and a monthly review.
Right now, I'm getting away from the computer for a couple of hours!
Very catchy tune. Listen to it a couple of times and you'll be humming it for weeks.
You were able to draw a nice trendline on the futures today. The market basically sold off from the highs of the morning and bounced along this line until it broke it after 2pm today. After that, the market didn't look back, it just rallied. The only problem I have with the market from a short-term bullish perspective is that yesterday's sell-off was on higher volume than today's rally. As an IBD reader, that's not so great. Still, no one complains when the market is up 48 points... it's bad form.
I was able to catch a nice trade in CF because if you look at the two graphs, they are very similar. CF gapped up this morning and then trended down all day. Once the trend was broken, he rallied nicely. I had a decent amount of shares from 38.10 but sold a good chunk around 38.25 because I thought the trendline for the last 4 days or so would create problems. It didn't... so I sold out of a lot of shares "early". I'm not complaining though...
Daily stats:
P&L $560
Best: CF $450
Worst: ITG -$100
stocks traded: 18. 11 positive, 7 negative
total trades: 221
Tomorrow is the last day of the month. With my last 2 days of gains, I have a shot of NOT having my first negative month ever. It will take an excellent day. Still, I'm not going to do anything stupid. It would be nice to get to even, but I don't want to jeopardize the progress I have made or the confidence I'm slowly regaining.
I just can't get enough of this song. If you like 60s era garage rock, check it out. It's the second song on that list.
Hey, I checked Traderfeed this morning for Part II of his post that was started yesterday on self-sabatoge. On today's post he linked an older post that has some very helpful articles on psychology and trading.
If you've ever been in a trading rut (and who hasn't?) or are planning on getting yourself into one soon, I highly recommend checking these articles out. They're at the bottom of the post.
To quote the band Sublime, "hard work good, and hard work fine, but first take care of head." Of course, I don't think they were writing about trading... Still, the point is that you can look at 1000 graphs a night, but if you're stuck in some bad trading patterns, spotting opportunities probably isn't your biggest problem.
Volume is lighter this morning than it was at the same time yesterday. And I hate the action on days like today. The futures gapped up on the GDP data but then sold off. It's hard to get short days like this because even though the market is trading down, there's plenty of bullishness anyway so the squeezes can be quick and violent. At the same time, it's hard to initiate longs because a lot of stocks gapped up and then got choppy... good entries were hard to come by... at least in this cave.
So anyway, I took it easy this morning. I'm up a couple hundred bucks but I don't have a winner or loser that's greater than $100. I'm going to spend the next hour looking at charts and then take a long lunch. Hopefully, in the afternoon things will be more interesting.
I haven't even spotted any freaky hybrid trades... (sigh).
I finally had a day without much drama where I just made small, smart trades. I caught CF and AGU as they broke recent downtrend lines. Even though the moves weren't huge I didn't have any bad losers, so I had a solid p&l.
Overall, the market sold off. However, the volume, though higher than yesterday, wasn't huge. With lots of eco-data still on the way this week, things could get interesting.
Total: $998
Best: CF, $483
Worst: TS, -$86
16 stocks traded, 9 positive, 7 negative
298 trades.
I still have a long way to go to pull positive for the month with only 2 days remaining. I'm going to get to sleep early and do good research again tomorrow morning so I can stay focused and try to end strong.
The guys in my office had high expectations for more Stewart commercials after the first one with Mr. P. This, I believe was the only other Stewart commercial. The real-life Stewart ran into legal trouble or something and they stopped the campaign.
Since I've been sabatoging myself for the last year or so, I found this post, "Trading and Information Processing: Why Traders 'Sabatoge' Themselves" by Traderfeed very interesting.
I strongly suggest you check it out if you haven't already.
