bloggerdotcom introduction

Greetings, blog readers!

Just wanted to give a small introduction before my very first blog post.

But before that I must give DT props for giving me the floor this weekend as a guest blogger - and congratulate him on a huge performance during this past week! Great job and continued success!

I used to daytrade and work on "the Street" but now I work from home (in another industry) and mainly swing trade. I follow the market on a daily basis and get cranky if my time watching the close is somehow interrupted.

I enjoy doing research on potential investments and actually think forensic accounting and the SEC website are very exciting. When I do research I try to find companies that aren't in the spotlight, that for some reason aren't paid much attention as I try to profit from a relative value gap. My idea is to get in before others "find out" what a gem XYZ company actually is....

So I found a couple recently that I've decided to share with you - one today and one tomorrow.

Feel free to leave comments and thanks for reading!

bloggerdotcom

I Like Turtles

Jane's Addiction, "Ocean Size"

Enjoy the weekend!

Stock Market Volatility Continues

Wow. Look out below! Check out this chart of the Dow Industrials for the month of July.



The market sold off HARD between 3:30 and 4pm. That's because NO ONE wanted to hold onto stocks over the weekend. The market melted and people freaked.

And that, ultimately, is a good thing. Excessive fear like we saw at the close may lead to some kind of short-term "bottom" on Monday or Tuesday. Even if it isn't "THE BOTTOM" it should provide all kinds of opportunities for picking up some quick rips. Trading these next few days should continue to be good and volatile.

That is, as long as your trading software holds up. Anyone else experience slow quotes in eSignal today? Seriously, are there any solid stock software programs? I've been hearing about problems all week with all of them...

Ironically, again, I made no money on the short side today... except in SWC. :)

I made practically all of my money in the first 45 minutes of trading today, and then gave more than half of it away in the afternoon meltdown. Mostly all of the profits I lost were in CRS which went from being one of my best stocks on the day, to my worst stock.



The reason why I lost so much in him is because I bought a lot of shares and when the stock turned, it turned quickly. For a while it was showing relative strength as the market started selling off. Before it was completely obvious that the market was going to melt it actually felt like we could go positive. I loaded up in CRS because at 3pm I really felt it going positive on the day... no joke!

Anyway, I was wrong. I lost $548 in the stock, my worst of the day.

My best stock of the day was CF.



I caught a solid long in the early morning. My only mistake was selling too soon. I sold most in the $57s and watched it quickly trade up a point higher.

Other good stocks for me today were DE, LNN and MLM.

It should be noted that today the IBD changed its "Market Pulse" feature from "Rally Under Pressure" to "Market In Correction." As a daily reader of the IBD (this despite the fact that they have the most uninformed editorial page in the history of newspaper publishing) I find this informative. As wrong as they are politically, they are often very right on the market.

Their headline ran "Stocks Sell Off Hard In Massive Volume, Killing Market Rally." They're not holding any punches and they're not cheerleading the market. Contrast that kind of information with the crap that CNBC spews. If you want to know about the market pick up the IBD and turn off CNBC.

Anyway, here's the stats. Enjoy this weekend and rest up for what will probably be another crazy week of trading ahead.

Oh, and don't forget to check the blog this weekend for some posts from "bloggerdotcom" that will detail a method for profiting on Fidel Castro's death! COOL!

P&L, $1763
Best, CF, $937
Worst, CRS -$548

shares traded, 67,000
24 stocks traded, 15 winners, 9 losers
281 trades.

Virtual Office, $4605. Dow, -207.53, 13,266.04.

Misstrade, $2100 on 1800 shares traded.
Me, $1763 on 67,000 shares traded.
Evolution, $673 on 114,800 shares traded.
Bubs, $82 on 1200 shares traded.
Denarii, no stock trades.
OBAT, -$13 on 7200 shares traded.

Doug Kass and Jim Cramer got involved with the CNBC idiocy today. Calling the "bottom" at 2:45pm.

From 2:45, the Dow declined about 200 points.

When will they learn?

Anyway, I admittedly was taken by surprise by the late afternoon selling, it caught me long and I lost a good chunk of my day. I'm very happy we have a weekend to look forward to but I have to say, Monday and Tuesday could prove to be very scary days indeed.

Art Cashin may be the only guy on CNBC with a brain. Bob Pisani is a complete idiot. Not one word that leaves his mouth should be listened to... I'm dead serious about this.

Don't forget to check the blog this weekend as "bloggerdotcom" writes "stuff about things."

Seriously, it's gonna rain this weekend and you have to keep your head in the market. Don't start day-dreaming now, you'll miss all the excitement!

Maria Bartiromo Really IS Annoying

By the way, I thought this was funny.

If you go to Google and search for, "Maria Bartiromo annoying lost her mind today" as someone did yesterday, Dinosaur Trader is the first link that comes up.

HAHAHAHA! Google really does work!

QUESTION: Is anyone else having a hard time loading my site? I think CNBC put a hex on my site.

CNBC Is Scary

As if the market wasn't messed up enough in it's own right, CNBC had to pull out all the stops and go to the White House today.

I had the TV on mute, so I can't tell you what they said. But I'll briefly explain what I saw.

First, a headline at the bottom of the screen with the words, "Breaking News" and President Bush, all furrowed brow and moving hands, snickering. That was bad.

Then, minutes later, Dylan Ratigan sitting with the entire Bush "economic team". YIKES! I mean, nothing says, "Get the fuck out of the market right now" like the White House feeling the need to get idiot reporters to tell everyone it's going to be "okay."

CNBC did air one decent segment today that included Joe Kernen bashing Mark Haines for calling a "trading bottom" when the market was down 70 points yesterday... that was good.

I guess I wasn't the only one who noticed!

NOTE: Notice the new label.

We're Gapping Lower Again...

Oh Fuck!



Perhaps the GDP number at 8:30 will save us. Don't bet the house on it though...

UPDATE: THE FUTURES HAVE RALLIED BACK TO POSITIVE AND ARE NOW CHOPPING AROUND UNCHANGED...

JJ Spammed The Church

If you have been following along lately, then you know that a few blogs have been hit my some spam concerning a particular precious metal...

This is hilarious.

Check the link if you want, but here's a brief synopsis.

A man maintains a blog about Catholicism in St. Louis. He writes a post titled "Noble Metals for Sacred Vessels."

In this post, he lists some metals that would be appropriate for liturgical purposes in hierarchical order from most to least noble.

JJ's favorite metal, palladium tops the list.

And guess who got spammed?

C'mon, JJ. Nobody fucks with the Jesus!

The punchline is that the guy then commented on JJ's blog asking for him to donate some palladium. I kid you not...

JJ, God has spoken and he does not like spam. However, some palladium would be nice!

UPDATE: More on the "SWC Spam Debacle" here!

Stock Earnings, 07/27/07

As if it even matters given all the wackiness of the last week.

Still, here it is, your stock earnings "cloud" for Friday. Enjoy!

AYE-AMGN-ARTC-AHL-BEZ-BDC-BDK-CSH-CPF-CLF-CGI-CW
CYMI-DECK-DRIV-BOOM-EMN-EQ-EGN-EQT-FII-BEN-RAIL
GMT-GLYT-GNW-GIFI-HSC-HIG-HITT-IM-ICE-KLAC-MFE-MCK
MTD-MSCC-MTX-NATI-NTGR-NFX-NIHD-PCBC-PKI-PNW-PGI
QDEL-RSG-RVBD-ROP-RCL-SDA-SIGI-SWIR-SJW-SLF-SIVB
SNCR-TNL-THRX-TRH-ULTI-UHS-LCC-VSEA-VDSI-WOOF
VRSN-VLCM-WRI-WDC-YRCW

Weekend Blogger

Just a reminder. Please remember that this weekend there will be a few weekend posts courtesy of a man called "bloggerdotcom".

I don't know much about what he will be posting. It could be about stocks, it could be some really hot internet porn, who knows?

Thing is, be sure to check it out.

Ray Charles, "Yesterday"

For all you bulls... I thought the black screen was fitting.

The Wild East

Don't let anyone tell you that there isn't good action in the stock market right now.

Days like yesterday and today are what you pray for if you are an equities trader.

Here are a few examples of stocks that were great to trade today.






In fact, looking at graphs like these objectively at the end of the day, it's a wonder I only made money on the long side in them. Imagine if I was smart enough to be short... but that's why I posted the Wizard of Oz video before.

Anyway, there are countless examples of graphs like that today. The best news is, WE BARELY BOUNCED. Like I said in the Virtual Office post, there is so much fear in the market right now that no one knows which way is up. This is great for trading stocks.

My day went something like this. I made good money between 9:30 and 10:15 and then gave most, if not all of it back between 10:30 and 2pm trying to "pick bottoms" on a number of stocks, mainly DE and UBB.

Yesterday, it worked when you bought stocks as they traded down to the 50-day moving averages. Today, the market didn't give a damn about technicals... at least initially.

Once the "buyers" moved in at 3pm (or so) stocks that have been strong recently bounced very nicely. This is when I made all my money today. Ironic, because on a day where the Dow is down over 300 points, I made my good trades on the long side.

Unfortunately, I was very skittish when the "real bottom" was made today and so I didn't size into most of my positions as I should have. And the one stock I really did size into, MOS, I got out of too early to really profit. My quotes went all screwy for a little while and so I got nervous and sold a lot before I should have.

I traded a shitload of shares today. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, I did a lot of "churning" between 11:00 and 2:00 pm... a time I normally don't trade much. I should have kept to that rule today, but when the market is down 400 points, you expect there to be movement. And there was, I was just trading on the wrong side. The other reason my shares bumped so much is that I've increased my position size again. When I was struggling I was trading with 200 share positions. I'm back to starting with 500-1500 share positions and adding as I find necessary.

Do I wish I hadn't churned so much in the middle of the day? Absolutely. However, trading that much did help me to get a feel for the bottom when it was made... there's no doubt about that.

Anyway, more fun on tap for tomorrow and probably even next week. At some point soon the market will have to take a breath and we'll have to adjust our trading styles accordingly. For now, enjoy this volatility and milk it for what it's worth.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $5265
Best, DRYS, $1281
Worst, CF, -$548

shares traded, 113,800
34 stocks traded, 23 winners, 11 losers
521 trades

Virtual Office, $10,418. Dow, -311.50, 13473.57.

Me, $5265 on 113,800 shares traded.
Misstrade, $4756 on 6700 shares traded.
Bubs, $265 on 2800 shares traded.
OBAT, $145 on 9000 shares traded.
Evolution, $30 on 68,400 shares traded.
Denarii, -$52 on 400 shares traded.

Not much really happened in the market today. It was a ho-hum, nothing doing summer trading day.

HA!

The market is currently like a binge-drinking drunkard swaying dangerously. No one has any idea what the heck is going to happen.

Mark Haines said at 10:00am that his technical indicators which are too "arcane" to explain to the common man told him that a bottom was in. Bob Pisani and Maria Bartiromo jumped around all day saying that everything was fine and that the "global story" is still intact.

Days like today expose the idiots like nothing else.

Please, stick to reporting guys. Your market commentary is woeful... I don't care how long they've been down on the floor. They haven't learned a damned thing. Or, perhaps they aren't there to educate people at all... they are there simply to cheerlead.

Who knows what will happen to the market? Nobody knows. Anything can happen. Should make for some fun in the coming days and weeks. I'm not saying that we're going to 5,000. I'm just saying you shouldn't be calling bottoms when you haven't a damn clue.

That is all. Now back to your regular programming.

P.S. The VO had another kick-ass day.

Worst Question On CNBC

"Are you panicking?"

How many times have they asked this to the "money managers" who come on the air?

Have you ever heard one of them say, "Oh yes, we're completely panicking. I'm freaked out right now! What's the market doing?"

No. And they never will.

CNBC always shows how silly it is when the shit hits the fan.

Where's The Bottom?

Coach Fingers, "The Drop Off"

I thought this was a fitting song given the day's market action.

If I Only Had A Brain

I had some good profits today by 10:30. Since 10:30 I've thrown most of them out the window whilst picking "bottoms".



It's not easy out there today, folks!

CNBC = Market Cheerleader

You know, I hate all things Fox but perhaps a new business channel (besides Bloomberg) will make CNBC smarten up a bit.

The best was Mark saying that it was too hard to explain, but his "technical indicators" were telling him that the market was going to rally. Of course, he said that at around 10:00am, when the market was rallying.

What his "technical indicators" didn't tell him was that the market was going to slap all longs like little bitches only about 10 minutes later.

I wish they would let the market do what it's going to do and just shut up about the direction.

*CLICK!*

Here We Go Again!

Futures are down 12 points (back from a low of down 18 or 19 points) and things look to be interesting at the open.



Hundreds of companies reported earnings after the close yesterday and hundreds more will report pre-open and during the trading day.

CNBC is scrambling to get bears onto the screen and everybody is talking about "credit concerns".

This volatility should last awhile.