Virtual Office, $2088. Dow, -5.21, 13422.52.

Misstrade, $2267 on 8300 shares traded.
HPT, $1028
Evolution, $357 on 27,600 shares traded.
Denarii, $9 on 1800 shares traded.
OBAT, -$35 on 1600 shares traded.
Me, -$1544 on 8400 shares traded.

F'ed day! (No typo there.)

Anyway, the VO traded it's way to some gains today. Another day, another couple thousand dollars seems to be Misstrade's motto.

And by the way, if you think it's easy running a blog where you post others P&L and they consistently beat the crap out of you, you're wrong, it's not easy. It mostly sucks.

But, I try to stay positive. Good days for most of the players today. A solid bounce for HPT.

The big news is that OBAT is back from his long hiatus. Perhaps he can share a juicy story from his vacation down in the comment section. I'm sure we all have the same questions... Where'd he go? How many women were involved? Those types of things.

Entertain us OBAT, we've all been staring at the screens for too long.

China Is Poisonous

It started with the pet-food. Today it's toothpaste, and last week it was children's toys.

Does anyone else think this is some kind of crazy way to fix the trade imbalance or currency issues?

A negative PR campaign so that Americans are afraid to buy stuff manufactured in China? Heck, most Americans still think Iraq had something to do with 9/11!

So apparently, we'll believe anything if it's repeated a bunch of times.

I'm just spitballing here.

UPDATE: Chinese seafood to be inspected.

OBAT Is Back!

One Bad-Ass Trader is back from one long-ass vacation!

98 cents

This morning, after surfing, I stopped in the bagel shop to get some breakfast.

I ordered a Bacon, Egg and Cheese sandwich with a coffee (milk, no sugar).

I also bought breakfast for my friend and it came to $18.02. I gave the woman a $20 and she gave me $1.98 back. That's a lot of change to have sitting in your pocket. I pretty much decided to hate her then and there. I mean, eat the two fucking cents!

The worst thing is that my sandwich had no bacon on it and my coffee had sugar in it.

This was a sign to me... it was a sign that the rest of my day would suck. Others might have seen it as an early morning bottom, instead it was the beginning of a downtrend for me.

Perhaps this will change. For now, I am taking it easy.

Interesting Editorial

This from the Associate Deputy Attorney General under President Reagan.

The article was written in October of 2006, but with Vice President Cheney claiming that the office of the Vice President is not a part of the executive branch (lol!) and with Bush now refusing the overturn subpoenaed documents, it's pretty clear that they think they're above the law.

I posted it because I think it's good to see someone who served under a Republican president coming out against this administration.

It should be country before party, afterall. On that, we should all be able to agree.

"Sexchanges"

I just wanted to point out the changes made over at Hybridtalk.

When the Hybrid Market rolled out, I basically freaked. For an old school trader like myself who relied on tape-reading and counted on "inside fills", meaning being printed somewhere between the Bid and the Ask it has basically been a nightmare.

In early January, I googled Hybrid Market and along with lots of links about automobiles I also found the Hybridtalk blog run by Ray. To his credit, he has handled lots of criticism there, a real "shoot the messenger" type of situation, with great tact. I know a lot of traders who hate the Hybrid but everyone respects Ray and the work he has done at the blog. Everything I know about the Hybrid Market I learned from that blog. It has been a great resource for me.

They have now rolled out their new blog to reflect their changing business. The official name is Exchanges however I plan on calling it "Sexchanges" for the foreseeable future in order to help drive traffic that way. I hope the NYSE is cool with that, Ray.

Good luck with it and continued success, Ray. Please go pay a visit and welcome it's arrival.

Addendum: Ray, just because I'm blogrolled, don't expect me to stop the Freaky Hybrid Trade Of The Day posts! :)

Comments Settings Changed

One quick, but important, note:

I have changed the settings on this blog so that now only those who have a blogger account can leave comments. No more anonymous comments, sorry Gator...

It's easy to set up a blogger account and it will give more personality to the comment section. You don't need to have a blog to set up a blogger account.

Thanks for understanding.

Kimya Dawson, "The Regulator" (Bad Brains Cover)

Good Trades Funded The Bad Trades

I'll admit it, I suck at getting long.

I think that most of my money days these last couple of months (few and far between, I know) have come when the market gets clipped. Right now, (really, since February) I have simply been more comfortable on the short side.

It's a huge limitation and I need to find a way to overcome it.

Traders need to be neutral on the market and be able to move long or short based on the opportunities that they spot. Since I'm chronically looking for shorts I am missing huge longs (see the REITS today) and worse yet, getting squeezed for losses way too often (see the REITS today).

I started off the day with a big bang, shorting TNH at 129.27 and 129.84. I covered 100 at 126.54 and the last 100 at 123.68. That was at 10:20. This was also the same time that I was covering my short in FSLR. I short 300 at 87.79 and covered at 86.80, 86.08 and 85.48. So, these trades alone along with a couple of smaller winners and no notable losers probably had me up close to $2000 by 10:30.





That's when I started pissing it all away shorting stocks while the futures moved steadily higher.

I lost money shorting VNO, POT, ALB, and VMC. But even my longs weren't working! I lost money getting long AG, CNH and OMG. It was very frustrating.

The one that hurt the most, mentally and financially was VNO.



I was looking at the lows from yesterday, 107.75 or so as a place where I thought the stock would meet with some resistance. So I started shorting around 107.50. You can see from the graph why this position was bound to fail.

So far this is my biggest problem with the new "system". Yes, it allows me to let my winners run more, but I haven't figured out how to limit my losers yet. I guess I need to continue to work on my entry points.

Perhaps I shouldn't have been shorting anything, but between 10 and 11 when I was entering this short position, the market wasn't up much and the TRIN was neutral to bearish... given the recent activity a reversal lower was a real possibility, especially with the leaders all being taken down this morning.

Anyway, on the bright side, I covered around 108.40 which, in retrospect, isn't awful. And, better yet, I didn't try to "get revenge" in the stock by churning it on the short side all day.

If I can continue to make money on "bad days" I'll be happy. For now, my mental state is slowly improving. I need to be careful these next two days not to "let go" and take a big hit. Small gains bring big confidence. It's important for me to get back in the habit of making money everyday, even if it's just $144.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $144
Best, TNH, $887
Worst, VNO, -$377

shares traded, 16,200
stocks traded, 15, 6 positive, 9 negative
total trades, 89 (this number goes down everyday lately, which is good)

Virtual Office, -$3781. Dow, +90.07, 13427.73.

Misstrade, $6016 on 8800 shares traded.
Me, $144 on 16,200 shares traded.
Evolution, $59 on 24,200 shares traded.
Denarii, No trades.
HPT, -$10,000 on 128 contracts.

Well, well, well, the market ripped! And, for a change, the rip came on decent volume.

Speaking of ripping, nice number for MT today. And while the rest of us caught a case of the blahs, HPT got a little smoked. Check over at his site for the details.

Anyway, Fed day tomorrow plus a good amount of ecodata on Friday. Could be an interesting end to the week. Besides those economic events, the end of the week, month and quarter is upon us. And, to make things even more juicy, next week the market will be deader than a rock.

So you can expect people to tie up loose ends these next two days.

"I Could've Been A Contender"

It's been a frustrating reversal day for the Dinosaur.

Shooting The Market Leaders

As I've been pointing out the last few days in the VO, the market action is somewhat worrying. Actually for the last few weeks we've been rallying on light volume and pulling back on heavier volume. Still, the indexes are not far from their recent highs.

Nonetheless, I said I'd begin to worry when they started selling the leaders. And today, you can see some good examples of the recent leaders getting taken out, most notable among them right now CROX and TNH. Actually, they're killing all the fertilizers today, TNH, POT and CF.

Misstrade has a great post on this phenomenon here.

Grandaddy, "Pull The Curtains"

The Beatles, "Rain"

We need some rain to kill this humidity. And, on a related note, soon you may need an umbrella to head into the market as well.

Either way, there will be ways to make money.

Actually, and I know this is debatable, I think this song is about the stock market. Just kidding. But you could apply it.

Trading Stock

A simple post title because it was a simple day of trading. No over thinking, no churning, just some buys and then some sells.

I lost money today when I was stubborn and fought the market. My worst stock of the day was LNN, I lost $118 in him on a 200 share long position.



I bought 200 shares at 10:00 this morning at 43.14. This was really a mistake because the market was trading down at this time. I bought it because I'm very bullish on the stock longer term and I let it effect my daytrading. This is almost always a mistake.

That said, I love the pullback from the highs on lower volume. The next strong day in the market will probably see this stock trade north of 44 again. Still, I should have respected the market weakness today and not made this trade. At least I limited my mistake to one trade in the stock.

In fact, my four worst losers of the day were each traded only once. This is a huge departure from my losers of the recent past. Back when I was churning and habitually overtrading, my worst stocks of the day were almost always the stock I traded the most. This is a positive development.

My best stock of the day was TNH. I almost referred to him as "my old buddy" but then I remember that in the stock market you have no "friends".



Here are my trades:

9:58:08 Short 100 @ 130.93 (-100)
10:28:25 Buy 100 @ 126.89 (flat)
10:29:13 Short 100 @ 128.15 (-100)
10:30:47 Short 200 @ 129.44 (-300)
10:36:27 Buy 300 @ 128.80 (flat)
10:37:17 Short 100 @ 129.68 (-100)
10:38:50 Buy 100 @ 131.20 (flat)
10:53:20 Short 100 @ 129.25 (-100)
11:28:05 Buy 100 @ 129.75 (flat)
14:23:31 Short 100 @ 131 (-100)
14:45:49 Short 100 @ 130.17 (-200)
14:48:12 Buy 100 @ 129.72 (-100)
15:55:22 Buy 100 @ 130.80 (flat)

As you can see, I made one good trade in the stock all day, my first. After that, I basically broke even in the stock. I'm lucky I did, because the stock was up 5 points on the day. So while this was my best stock, netting me $322, I made a lot of trading mistakes in it today. Still, I was careful in my trades, so bonus points for that.

Other than those two, I had good trades shorting CNH, UBB and VMC. I had no bad losers.

I find that a hallmark of my good days is completely controlling my losers. Sounds obvious, but I wanted to write it down here so I would remember it.

Only 3 more trading days of the month. I'm up a little and I would love to build on it. Let's hope for some more volatility. So far, so good with this more efficient method.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $611
Best, TNH, $322
Worst, LNN, -$118

shares traded, 13,200
stocks traded, 16, 9 winners, 7 losers
total trades, 85

Virtual Office, $5138. Dow, -14.31, 13337.74.

HPT, $2147 on 95 contracts and 2700 shares traded.
Misstrade, $1792 on 4500 shares traded.
Me, $611 on 13,200 shares traded.
Evolution, $588 on 55,200 shares traded.

Another bearish reversal for the major indexes. While none showed major losses, I would keep an eye on the stocks that have been leading this rally since March. Should they show signs of distribution, I would begin to worry about the continued health of this rally.

As for trade today, the VO had a nice day despite the overall choppiness of the market.

My daily post will have to come later this evening as I am busy immediately after the close.

Freaky Hybrid Trade Of The Day

WE HAVE A WINNER!



Should news come out, I'll take back the award... But for now, it just looks like a crazy spike.

Get Rid Of Your Junk Mail

I'm sick of getting crap I don't want in the mailbox everyday.

You can get rid of it.

Too Damn Hot To Trade

Sitting in this small room, with my 4 screens and a TV when it is hot and humid outside is no green bar on a stock chart, I will tell you that.

I could turn the AC on, but I'm currently poor and choose to save the $10 it would cost me to cool my house today. I will save that $10 and use it this evening, when I want a nice, cool sleep.

Anyway, I went outside and mowed my damn lawn with my Brill Luxus mower. Believe me when I tell you that this mower makes mowing the lawn less a chore and more a pleasure. No fumes, no dust, just the soft whirring sound of grass blades getting cleanly cut. It is ideal for those with a small, level lawn. In an ideal world though, I would have no lawn. I hate it.

My daughter calls it a "Mawnlower".

Here's what we need now to kill this humidity.



UPDATE: I just turned on the AC at 2:11. I couldn't take it. The heat and the Monster Java I tried this morning were making me hallucinate.

TRIN v. TICKS

I'm going to use the TRIN today instead of the TICKS to try and gauge short term moves.

On Briefing, they give the following guidelines

TRIN reading:
.65 or lower, very bullish
.65-.90 bullish
.90-1.1 neutral
1.1-1.35 bearish
1.35 or above very bearish

Does anyone out there use this indicator and concur or disagree with these general levels?