Virtual Office, $1459. Dow, +37.06, 13383.84.

Misstrade, $707 on 3000 shares traded.
Dehtrader, $602 on 46,800 shares traded.
Me, $230 on 81,200 shares traded.
One Bad-Ass Trader, $150 on 22,400 shares traded.
Denarii, -$38 on 2000 shares traded.
EvolutionTrader, -$192 on 84,000 shares traded.

I think it's pretty clear from the numbers and share totals that today was a very choppy (and frustrating) day to trade. If I could do it all again I would have stopped trading at 11:00 am. That's what my instincts were telling me and I should have listened.

Anyway, good numbers from Misstrade and Dehtrader and no big blowups. Let's try again tomorrow.

p.s. Maria Bartiromo is annoying as hell.

Wacky Morning In The Dinosaur Cave

They're outside priming the house. Perhaps the fumes are getting to us. My daughter has been screaming all morning. I thought for those of you who have toddlers, that you may appreciate this recent exchange as my wife tried to get my daughter dressed so they could go food shopping. Conversations with toddlers are always interesting...

Judy: "Ok, let's put your shoes on!"
Unhinged Toddler: "I don't need shoes, Mom! No! I don't need shoes!
Judy: "Everyone needs shoes outside. Otherwise you can step on something and hurt your foot."

Long pause...

Unhinged Toddler: "No shoes! I DON'T NEED SHOES!!!"
Judy: "Okay (giggling nervously as she's about to lose her mind), how about we just bring them in the car then?"

Pause...

Unhinged Toddler: "No, I don't want to just bring them in the car!" Crying... foot stomping.

And all the while I'm trying to stay sane trading TNH and POT... sigh.

"I Am Good At Dealing With People!"

Giant Sand, "Shiver"

Great song, great album, great band.



p.s. the first 6 seconds of this video are just black screen

Fare Thee Well (for now) NYSE Scalper

I was a little shellshocked to receive email from the Scalper today informing me that he was suspending his blog for a little while.

He was the first person I invited into the Virtual Office and reading his blog inspired me to start my own, so I owe him some thanks.

Good luck Scalper! I look forward to seeing you resume your blog and only hope it's a short hiatus!

-DT

I Just Missed IT

My day was dominated by TNH, so I will post here all of my trades. This will give you an idea of how close I came to hitting this one out of the park today. I'm not taking anything away from my day today. I'm very happy with the results, but I just missed a real breakout for myself and I am a little frustrated. I'm sure that may sound a little obnoxious given the profits I made today, but when you trade day in and day out, it's also about trading well. I mean, just feeling like you did a good job, made some nice trades. There's a satisfaction in that separate from the money made. Yellow indicates short sales, my position size is reflected in the parentheses to the right of the trade.

9:37:33 Short 200 @ 99.72 (-200)

9:39:27 Buy 100 @ 98.88 (-100)

9:50:05 Buy 200 @ 98.85 (100)

9:50:17 Sell 100 @ 98.53 (flat)

9:51:54 Short 100 @ 98.50 (-100)

9:52:40 Short 100 @ 98.34 (-200)

9:53:59 Short 100 @ 98.06 (-300)

10:10:25 Short 100 @ 96.69 (-400)

10:13:45 Short 200 @ 96.95 (-600)

10:18:54 Short 100 @ 97.45 (-700)

10:30:56 Buy 100 @ 95.46 (-600)

10:33:06 Buy 200 @ 94.52 (-400)

10:35:07 Short 200 @ 96.20 (-600)

10:44:12 Buy 100 @ 95.26 (-500)

10:45:18 Short 100 @ 95.90 (-600)

10:52:01 Buy 300 @ 96.94 (-300)

10:58:46 Short 200 @ 96.31 (-500)

11:07:28 Buy 100 @ 94.83 (-400)

11:32:45 Buy 100 @ 96.20 (-300)

11:38:43 Buy 200 @ 94.99 (-100)

11:50:30 Short 100 @ 96.30 (-200)

12:00:41 Buy 100 @ 95.36 (-100)

12:50:38 Buy 100 @ 96.47 (flat)

13:27:03 Short 100 @ 96.79 (-100)

13:45:22 Short 100 @ 95.36 (-200)

13:52:35 Short 100 @ 95.68 (-300)

14:07:57 Buy 100 @ 93.48 (-200)

14:47:29 Buy 100 @ 92.24 (-100)

15:15:13 Buy 100 @ 92.24 (flat)

15:18:56 Buy 200 @ 89.10 (200)

15:19:06 Sell 100 @ 88.50 (100)

15:20:21 Sell 100 @ 89.36 (flat)

15:23:35 Buy 300 @ 88.80 (300)

15:24:26 Sell 100 @ 88.64 (200)

15:25:10 Sell 200 @ 88.41 (flat)

15:30:48 Short 200 @ 88.52 (-200)

15:35:35 Buy 100 @ 88.74 (-100)

15:36:09 Buy 100 @ 88.76 (flat)

15:47:49 Buy 600 @ 84.92 (600)

15:48:07 Sell 300 @ 84.56 (300)

15:48:31 Sell 100 @ 84.50 (200)

15:50:18 Sell 100 @ 85.53 (100)

15:50:35 Sell 100 @ 85.42 (flat)

Total Profits in TNH $2786 (net).

Anyway, so that was my day in TNH. For the record, I lost over $2000 in him on Friday. I was a day early on Friday. Looking back, that really screwed me up today because I was so nervous trading the stock. Had I not lost that confidence in him on Friday I may have had the nerve to hang on to more shares. It was so obvious to me today, even in the morning when he wasn't trading down aggressively that the buyers were gone. Bids would appear and then get hit, or step back. On Friday, a bid would send the stock up 80 cents...

This was a near miss. But I think I learned a lot between Friday and today. I hope it will benefit me next time I see a monster trade like this.

Anyway, here are the stats:

P&L, $3340

Best, TNH, $2786

Worst, AG, -$495

shares traded, 49,600

stocks traded, 17, 5 positive, 12 negative

total trades, 324

Virtual Office, $6807. Dow, +20.56, 13346.78.

Misstrade, $3730 on 2400 shares traded.
Me, $3340 on 49,600 shares traded.
Evolution Trader, $373 on 34,300 shares traded.
Denarii, $50 on 1000 shares traded.
One Bad-Ass Trader, -$305 on 14,500 shares traded.
Dehtrader, -$381 on 38,600 shares traded.

Besides Misstrade and Dinosaur there was not much happening in the VO today. For a beautiful spring Monday, there was some interesting movement, and that gives me hope that the volatility will begin to rise again. This is a strange market we're trading. Even today on a day where I felt the market was going down all day, it was up.

Something has to give soon... stay tuned and keep your ear to the ground.

Wilco, "Side With The Seeds"

I can't really explain this "video" that was put up on YouTube, but who cares, it's a great song. Their new album is due out soon, and even though Pitchfork panned it today, I still may pick it up. I just like this band.

Big Fish

Loved this movie... except for the part where you see Danny Devito's ass.

Jon Stewart For President

Okay, maybe that's going too far. But can he get an anchor position at CNN or something? It's ironic (and, I guess then perfect) that you can actually learn stuff about the world by watching the Daily Show. If you turn on MSNBC, FOX or CNN, you're probably getting news reports about a celebrity, a mass-murderer, or a lost child.

Anyway, great interview with Reza Aslan, author of "No God But God". They discuss Iraq and Iran and how everything we are doing right now in the mideast is just really the opposite of what needs to be done.

Maritesse

Sometimes laughter is the best medicine.

Arcade Fire, "Intervention"

Back to feeling dark.

Virtual Office, $513, Dow, 111.98, 13327.11.

Misstrade, $1623 on 7800 shares traded.
EvolutionTrader, $984 on 42,700 shares traded.
One Bad-Ass Trader, $245 on 7000 shares traded.
Denarii, -$95 on 200 shares traded.
NYSE Scalper, -$177 on 40,000 shares traded.
Dehtrader, -$591 on 7500 shares traded.
Me, -$1476 on 51,200 shares traded.

A choppy day for the VO.

I'm outta here, enjoy your weekend!

-DT

FIRST!

Blonde Redhead, "23"

Whew!

Well, it's about time. Today, I made up my losses from March ($300), April ($1200) and May ($600) in one swoop and managed to actually get green for the first time since the end of February. That's right. If the month ended today, I would walk home with a check for $400. It's been a long time since I was paid.

Worst part about being in a trading slump is that you feel like you're working harder than ever but you're not getting paid. It's awful.

Anyway, I had a couple of good trades today. The first came right off the open. I saw that CBI was gapping up. I heard from Denarii that it was because of Cramer and so I figured that was as good a reason to go short as any. So I sold short off the open. What's annoying is that I wasn't filled at the opening price (I wasn't "entitled to those shares") but instead at 39.32. That was annoying because immediately after getting a fill I was squeezed. I sold again, this time 1000 shares, at 39.81. After playing around for a few moments, the stock broke.



I covered half at 39.50, but then immediately short a couple hundred more there. I covered some more at .40 and some more at .24. Then, I short 300 more at 39.22 and covered at 39.12 and 39.06. From there, the stock headed south and I was able to cover the rest at 38.62. It was a nice trade and it ended up being my best on the day, netting me over $700.

Other notable shorts were in AGU and Misstrade's excellent short call in FWLT.






My worst stock of the day was, again, TNH. And it's a shame, because at one point, I had some good paper profits in him. But paper profits are worthless. I was waiting for the thing to crack wide open, I was short 700 shares from above 88 when he broke 87 but I thought for sure that he was going to break and I was going to have a real sizzler. Instead, he ripped my face off. But really, because I had such good entry it never hurt me so bad... it felt worse than it was in actual terms. I lost almost $300 in the stock. He's a lunatic. I'm beginning to doubt if the stock will ever drop again.

Although, Cramer talked about it tonight...



Anyway, we've had the house painted all this week so I've been locked in this room with the windows closed all day. That's why I've been getting out of here immediately after the close, so it's been difficult to blog regularly.

By the end of next week, things should be back to normal around here.

Anyway, here's the stats:

P&L, $2508
Best, CBI, $707
Worst, TNH, -$293

shares traded, 65,800
stocks traded, 23, 16 positive, 7 negative
total trades, 353

Virtual Office, $8897. Dow, -147.74, 13215.13.

Misstrade, $5330 on 8100 shares traded.
Me, $2508 on 65,800 shares traded.
Dehtrader, $1148 on 14,700 shares traded.
One Bad-Ass Trader, $167 on 14,400 shares traded.
Denarii, -$4 on 2400 shares traded.
EvolutionTrader, -$88 on 33,300 shares traded.
NYSE Scalper, -$164 on 34,000 shares traded.


A pretty darn good day for the VO, some good gains and no big blowups. Unless you consider the Dow. About time we had a down day, no?

Misstrade continues to laugh in the face of the market, taking money from it and scoffing at P&L gravity. I have had a choppy week but today was on the right side of the trade. Dehtrader, back from a short hiatus, came back strong. OBAT was once again, quietly green.

I haven't heard from Scalper which is highly unusual. I'm assuming he took a day off, never a bad idea every once and a while.

My daily post will come later this evening. Sorry, been busy lately.

UPDATE: NYSE Scalper is alive and well. I've updated the post with his numbers. 8:31pm.

Smog "Rock Bottom Riser"

I'm feeling a little melancholy tonight... I'll get to my daily post later. For now, I'm having some wine and being contemplative.

Virtual Office, $176 Dow, +53.80, 13362.87.

Misstrade, $2319 on 5600 shares traded.
NYSE Scalper, $687 on 45,000 shares traded.
One Bad-Ass Trader, $124 on 17,800 shares traded.
Denarii, -$473 on 8000 shares traded.
Me, -$623 on 70,400 shares traded.
EvolutionTrader, -$1858 on 64,000 shares traded.

Well, it was an odd Fed day. Normally, I stay away from these days, but there were lots of stocks with big moves today.

The VO was as choppy as the futures were immediately after the Fed decision... what utter lunacy.

VO will post late today

Just as an FYI. We're having our house painted and my wife and I are going off to a secluded location with a bottle of wine to decide the color.

It could be the end of our marriage.

Anyway, think between 8pm and 9pm.