A good day... finally!

Well, it was bound to happen eventually.

I took advantage of a freaky hybrid trade in CF this morning and caught a good short. Later, I caught a good long in WCG as it bounced off of it's 50-day moving average.





And I just missed what would have been an excellent trade in CMI. Instead, it was my worst trade and my worst stock of the day. I got short a little early up at 105.85, put my buy stop at 107 and was stopped out near the highs of the day. After that, the stock tanked. Well, it happens.



Anyway, after I got "poleaxed" yesterday (to borrow a term from "the Fly" ... Who would think he could build my vocabulary?), I'm pretty happy with today's outcome.

I'm not going to go crazy with analysis here. I'll say that everyone who has suggested I take my P&L off the screen were right. Even yesterday when I lost money and traded close to 100,000 shares something felt right again. I know that seems strange, but something clicked.

So I'm taking this Friday win and running with it. I've stopped worrying about the fact that I'm having my second down month in a row and my second of my 8-year trading career and focusing on the positives. These last 2 days I've traded again. I was in and out. I only thought in terms of opportunities and not in terms of dollars and cents. I quit worrying about how I'm going to manage to feed my family 10 years hence and just worked.

Tomorrow, I'm taking a meditation class. First time. I've been in a base for a long time. I need some catalysts to break me out of it. This blog and the VO have been two positive developments a quieter mind will be a third.

Then I'm really gonna start pulling some Jedi crap out of my bag.



Here's the stats:

P&L $1843

Best, CF $1236
Worst, CMI -$357

shares traded, 42,800
stocks traded, 26, 11 positive, 15 negative
total trades, 248

Have a relaxing weekend, all. Thanks for reading.

Virtual Office $6687, Dow 15.44, 13120.94.

Misstrade, $5030 on 24,600 shares traded.
DinosaurTrader, $1843 on 42,800 shares traded.
EvolutionTrader, $628 on 32,600 shares traded.
One Bad-Ass Trader, $554 on 26,600 shares traded.
NYSE Scalper, $398 on 33,400 shares traded.
DenarriTrader, $118 on 2600 shares traded.
TradeWhileWorking, -$729 on 2400 shares traded.
Dehtrader, -$1155 on 16,800 shares traded.

A choppy day for the VO. Although most members were in the green and that's always good.

Without the gains of Misstrade, we would have had a very lackluster day. However, if you read this post daily, outsized gains by Misstrade are becoming the norm. I had a nice bounceback day after my trouncing yesterday and ET and OBAT had nice days again. The Scalper wasn't really feeling it today but still had a nice green day while Denarri kept up with his quietly green way of being.

On the downside were disappointing days for TWW and Dehtrader. Go check their sites to see what went wrong.

Have a great weekend. Tomorrow I'll have a list of non-trading links posted. I'm still working on my next history post. It's been a challenge this week to find time to write. Hopefully, this weekend I'll have some time.

-DT

Buffalo Springfield, "For What It's Worth"

Haven't we traded this market before?

Virtual Office, $7552, Dow 15.61.

Misstrade, $4286 on 19,800 shares traded.
Dehtrader, $1579 on 38,000 shares traded.
One Bad-Ass Trader, $1168 on 14,600 shares traded.
EvolutionTrader, $900 on 22,400 shares traded.
NYSE Scalper, $682 on 34,000 shares traded.
TradeWhileWorking, $381 on 1800 shares traded.
DenariiTrader, $83 on 1400 shares traded.
DinosaurTrader, -$1527 on 91,800 shares traded.

"Some folks float and some are buried alive." Lyrics courtesy of Wolf Parade, "Shine a Light".

A lot of floating in the VO today, probably one of the best days yet. Congratulations!

Misstrade is consistent and has had a great feel for his trades lately. It's showing. Dehtrader had a sweet day on some good volume. If OBAT was a stock, he could have been purchased a couple of weeks ago nice and quietly. In the past few sessions though, volume is picking up and the stock is moonshotting. Nice day again, OBAT. ET and the Scalper are trading like professionals. Each day coming in and pulling nice money out of the market. TWW has shown great resiliency these past few session after getting hit last week. Denarii is the quiet green guy in the corner.

And on the downside... well, to keep with the OBAT stock analogy, let's just hope that my surge in volume today and minor blowup was some kind of bottom. Buy DT, he's a steal at these prices.

One last note, I apologize for the inconsistent blogging the past few days. It's been a busy week for me.

NOonglance

Okay, so I started out this blog a little over a month ago and I was obsessively sweating over my P&L... watching it for every little downtick. Then, I decided that I would remove it from my screen and just check it at noon. I would post the number here in a clever little post I liked to call the "Noonglance".

Well, now, with the help of my spiritual adviser Misstrade, I'm taking it off altogether and just not going to look at it anymore.

In fact, when the checks start rolling in from my company again, I'll just hand them straight to my wife and be done with them.

I'm looking to turn myself into an impassionate conduit for money. That is all.

REMINDER!!!

Go to EvolutionTrading for the Virtual Office stats today.

Cheers!

-DT

Daily Show with McCain last night

Not to get too political... but if Jon Stewart worked for CNN instead of Comedy Central, our country might be in a better place.

I could find no link to this on YouTube, but if you think about things, and by "things" I mean the Iraq war, then check out the interview from last night, here.

Have a good night. I'm off to an event for the rest of the day.

Virtual Office Hosted By Evolution Trader Today

Good afternoon.

Besides trading, I also eat. So this afternoon, I have to leave early for a dinner.

Evolution Trading is being kind enough to post the P&Ls of the VOers today.

So today, go check out his site.

The Noon Glance

Not too pretty today... I've taken too many midrange losers. This will be the last noonglance for at least a couple of days.

Going to experiment with removing the P&L entirely from my ES per advice from Misstrade who has been around the trading block a few times...

P&L -$282

A feel good type of day

Well, I'm just happy I was green for a change. It helped also that it was a beautiful day outside and I spent the late afternoon into the early evening on a picnic with my wife and daughter. It's hard not to smile on days like these.

But before the picnic came the trading. The daily battle with the market.

My last week has been tough. I've had 5 or 6 straight losing sessions in a row. Hard to take. But even though I was losing each day, I was losing small and not making too many bad errors of the type that would hurt my psyche.

Overall, I didn't have any huge winners today. I'm still keeping most of my positions very small. So my biggest winner was only for $206, but it was a nice trade for only a 300 share position.

The stock was ALB. I'd show a graph, but for some reason, my esignal graphs are down at the moment. Misstrade did a nice job of posting the setup on his site.

I bought the "bounce" early, at 40, 300 shares. I meant to stop all at a new low, but only put a stop for 200 there and got shaken out quickly for a quarter point loss on 200 shares. But the other 100 shares sat there and the stock quickly bounced back over 40 and I was able to sell the last 100 shares at 40.59 for a small overall gain on the trade.

Later, I noticed the stock stalling and then slowly beginning to roll. As Misstrade points out on his site, the stock made it to the bottom of the Opening Range and started to meet resistance. So I short 200 shares at 41.27 at around 12:30 and then added another 100 shares about 20 minutes later as the trade was moving in my favor. I covered at 40.76, 40.49, and 40.37 for about $200 on the trade. I was pretty thrilled with this because I almost never make any money between 12 and 1pm.

Other than that, the best thing I did today was catch a quick pop this morning early in OSK because I noticed the strength in CMI. They sometimes trade together. I also was involved in a nice CMI short with Misstrade.

But the real story of the day was keeping my losers in check. My worst loser of the day was AG for -$61. I'll take that any day. Especially because it was right off the open and I thought I got kind of screwed. I didn't make any "revenge" trades in the guy though and that was key for me.

Here are the stats:

P&L, $569
Best, ALB, $206
Worst, AG, -$61

shares traded, 22,400
stocks traded, 16, 9 positive, 7 negative
total trades, 130

Virtual Office, $3825. Dow +34.54 at 12953.94.

EvolutionTrader, $1653 on 51,200 shares traded.
Misstrade, $888 on 16,600 shares traded.
NYSE Scalper, $806 on 17,200 shares traded.
One Bad-Ass Trader, $679 on 26,400 shares.
Me, $569 on 22,400 shares traded.
Dehtrader, $500 on 13,000 shares traded.
DenariiTrader, $7 on 14,000 shares traded.
TradeWhileWorking, -$1277 on 7700 shares.

Well it was a pretty solid day overall for the Virtual Office.

ET had another strong day. The lad is on quite a streak. He explains his trades very well over on his site. Check it out. Misstrade has made a real habit out of being green. Someone once said that the best traders do just that, they make it a habit to make money. Well done, MT. The Scalper keeps to his steady ways and enjoys the afternoon as well. Gotta love the spring. OBAT had another strong day. The trend in OBAT-land is up. I benefitted today from fellow VOers, MT and ET and had my first green day in a week. If I have a couple more of those I'll bump up my share amounts again... Dehtrader had another smooth ride greenward while Denarrii had a flat but green day.

One the downside, TWW had a rough day. Go and get the full story at his excellent blog. Even the best matadors are occassionally gored by the market.

One note. It's way too nice outside for me to do my daily post right now. I'll put it up later tonight. Probably between 9 and 10pm.

Top 10 Bush Moments, David Letterman

I thought, #4,3 and 2 were the best. I couldn't figure out #1...

The Noon Glance

P&L $379

It;s nice to be green. Unfortunately, I'm off of my highs which were over $600. Still, if I trade smart in the afternoon, I could score a nice win for the first time in awhile.

Quite a losing streak

In the grand scheme of things, I am in a small slump within a bigger slump. Lots of slumps. Great name for an animal, no?

Anyway, I lost a little money today. Actually, it's been so weird lately how I'm trading so much but coming right in around unched on many days. Trading not to lose and making it impossible to win? Perhaps. But today I had a fat loser that wiped away some decent gains elsewhere.

I'll talk about my good trades first.

I was thinking about ET's day on Friday when I saw oil began to rally this morning. That's when I figured he was probably shorting those airline stocks he loves. So I gave it a shot.



At 10:30 or so, I sold short 500 shares at 28.86 because I felt the general market weakening and oil strengthening. When the trade worked in my favor, I added 200 more shares to the position at 28.72. From that point on, it was simple. Oil kept rising, the market continued to weaken and AMR just slid slowly down. I covered a couple hundred in the 40s, some more in the teens, and then my last 300 at 27.80 at 3:36. It was one of the more relaxing trades I've been involved with in some time. And I remembered that when things work in your favor, this job is much more relaxing than when you're constantly battling.

I had a second good trade in the afternoon. This came in CMI. Let's forget that I missed the 10 points on the long side.



I short 200 shares at 86.91 at around 1:45 because well, for no other reason than I just couldn't believe the stock was up so damn much. I'm nothing if not honest. No reason to lie here.

Anyway, the stock fell immediately and I covered 100 shares a few minutes later at 86.13. Problem was that the stock them ripped straight up and I covered the other 100 shares at 86.95. That kind of hurt. It hurt more when the stock immediately went back down. Angered, I short 200 at 86.08. This was a mistake and I realize that I made the trade more because I was angry that I covered than because I thought it was a good entry. Stupid, but I realized the error of my ways and covered at 86.50 and 86.45 and took the loss. This was smart because the stock ultimately "squeezed" way up into the mid 87s. I was happy that I hadn't held.

But the squeeze into the 87s came on light volume and the stock began to collapse. When it broke through 87 on the downside, I got short again, 200 shares at 86.74. The stock dipped, the trade felt right, and so I added 100 more shares at 86.53. The trade from this point on was fairly smooth to the downside. I covered 100 shares at 85.72, 100 at 85.54 and another 100 at 85.74 making almost an exact point on all shares.

My bad trade of the day was in RAS. I hate to even write about this because this stock has been the bane of my existence for a week. I'm churning the stock. Perhaps writing about it here will help rid me of it's spell.



One lucky trade led me to make many bad trades in this stock. My normal entry size in stocks lately is 300 shares. For some twisted reason, I entered trades in RAS with 1700 shares (the lucky trade that worked in my favor), 2300 shares, 1400 shares and then 2200 shares. It's simple revenge trading. It's stupid and I will not be doing it again tomorrow.

I lost $571 in RAS. That hurts on a day where I'm barely down. What it means to me is that absent all the boneheaded trades in RAS where I broke my rules, I would have had a decent day. Now for the stats:

P&L -$27

Best, AMR $441
Worst, RAS -$571

stocks traded, 16, 4 positive, 12 negative
shares traded, 38,600
total trades, 148

Virtual Office, $4636. Dow -42.58.

Misstrade, $2892 on 9300 shares traded.
NYSE Scalper, $712 on 20,800 shares traded.
EvolutionTrader, $653 on 56,600 shares traded.
Dehtrader, $447 on 42,000 shares traded.
TradeWhileWorking, $101 on 1700 shares traded.
DenariiTrader, $76 on 6200 shares traded.
Me, -$27 on 38,600 shares traded.
One Bad-Ass Trader, -$218 on 17,600 shares traded.

Lots of green in the VO today!

Misstrade started off this week where he let off at the end of last, with more green. The Scalper seems to be gaining some momentum with his disciplined style and EvolutionTrader had another nice gain. Dehtrader had a nice bounceback day and TWW has put a stop to the bleeding. And Denarri also found himself on the good side of the ledger.

On the downside, I had a weird day in that I finally had a few decent winners (I haven't been able to find any recently) but one bad loser and many small losers sabatoged my good trades. OBAT seems to have had that "one bad trade" that led to a down day.

All in all, an excellent way to start the week!

The Noon Glance

P&L $95

NYSE Downgraded

Given my heavy criticism of the Hybrid Market, I thought the GS downgrade of the NYX to SELL was pretty interesting today.

11:09 (Dow Jones) Nasdaq (NDAQ) will continue to take market share from NYSE-Euronext as the exchanges implement SEC's Reg NMS, Goldman Sachs says.Upgrades NDAQ to buy from neutral; downgrades NYX to sell from neutral. NDAQ will benefit from Reg NMS as a low cost provider and robust electronic trader,firm says. Sees NYSE continuing to lose hybrid market share as it implements the new regulation in an "increasingly challenging environment for specialists," Goldman says. NYX down 4.1% to $88.57; NDAQ up 3.5% to $33.27.(CWH)

In other news, a 6 mile long asteroid just smashed down near the Yucatan Peninsula.

Heavy dust clouds have blacked out the sun here and this Dinosaur is feeling a little chilly.

Swing trading may be in this Dinosaur's future.

The crap that drives me nuts and makes me poor

This is the stuff that's doing me in right here.

I saw that on Friday WCC was stabilizing and I thought there would be a little pop off the open as it broke a minor trendline that was in place for the past couple of trading sessions. I put in a buy stop at the trendline and as the stock opened above the line, was filled at the opening price of 62.35. To add to my conviction, the stock was upgraded pre-open.

On the opening print of 23,300 I was the 300. The opening print hit my tape at 9:30:53.

3 seconds and 2200 shares later, the stock is trading 61.86 and I am down a half point or, $150 on my first trade of the day. Thank god I've cut my size... I ask again, absent of not trading the open, how can a trader manage intraday risk in the Hybrid Market?

Pre Hybrid Market, stuff like this just didn't happen. How could I have avoided this loss?

Ray, from Hybridtalk, if you're reading, really, WTF?

I just don't know...

Earth Day

Well, it's that time of the year again. The time when everyone in the US sits back and reflects on how much carbon they've released into the atmosphere in the past year. Families get together, sit around the table and calculate their emissions, trying hard to imporove on their numbers from the previous year.

NOT!

Ah well, perhaps in the future. For now, check out this map of the US.

Click on your city to see how "green" it was in the last year. The cities are ranked from 1 to 72 or so...

Happy Monday!

I've been a bad blogger

Apologies. Nothing new to see here.

I had such a busy weekend socially (if you ever have the opportunity to try something called a "Tsunami Martini"... don't!) and it was such great weather that I just haven't had the time to sit and write my next "history" post.

I will flog myself tonight as a reminder that it's not about me, it's about you.

Expect an active week going forward. I'll try and get history #7 done by midweek.

For now, another classic song by Bob.