Fuck Exxon.

Here's something scary for you on Halloween.

Exxon is having their day in court... they think their fine for the Exxon Valdez spill is excessive and our Supreme Court is going to hear the case. Are you kidding me? (But anyway, does the Court even have credibility anymore?)

What kind of values does Exxon Mobil support? Clearly, they care only about one thing, the bottom line. And that's fine, they're a business and I guess that's what they're all about. But when we end up having to pay for their mistakes, that's where you have to draw the line.

They argue that the fine is a "punishment" to them? Yeah, no fucking doubt it is. Do they not deserve to be punished for running a tanker filled with oil aground? When you earn close to $11 billion a quarter you still want to fight a $2.5 billion fine for creating the worst environmental disaster in history? They say it's the responsibility of the captain... well they were employing that captain. They hired him. He's their responsibility.

They are fighting having to pay less than a month's worth of net profits out after creating the single largest man made environmental disaster at sea... ever.

You pay them money everyday at the pump. What are they doing with those profits? Perhaps they should clean up the environment they are doing so much to foul. Right now there's an even larger spill that Exxon is responsible for in Brooklyn, NY. And guess what, they're fighting that too.

Fuck Exxon. How about stepping up and taking responsibility? Pay up and shut up. Fighting this for ten years is an insult to every American who drops coins in your coffer everyday.

Now back to your regularly scheduled good natured blogging. Oh, and good morning.

Democratic Debate

Only one person on the stage talked sense.

Meanwhile, after watching it, it's hard to know why Hillary is so far ahead in the polls.

Plastic Bag Ban in NYC?

A refreshing piece of news? Check it out, via Buzzfeed.

Depeche Mode, "Clean"

Nothing to introduce tonight... just some good ole nostalgia.



Off to work on my Halloween post. A true ghost story.

Shippers Sink Market

First of all, let's give it up for WCG. It's not often that you get to see a stock go from $125 to $22 in 4 trading days.



And yes, I lost a little money in it today.

Today was an odd day. For the first time in a long while, I didn't mess with the open. I had no feelings about which way stocks "should" be going and I had no confidence that if I bought something it would go up or that if I sold something, it would go down. So I just sat around, getting "yellow."

I finally made some trades and promptly lost money. The main culprit was CF. I lost good money on both the long side and the short side.



After blowing through $500 in him, I decided to trade with only 100 and 200 share lots for the rest of the day. Everyone on Wallstreak was complaining about the day and it just felt mushy out there. So I made a bunch of small trades and basically churned water.

The most exciting thing that happened during the day was when I brought my lunch up to my desk. I made myself a big bowl of pasta. Just as I went to put it on my desk, it slipped out of my hand and the whole damn thing landed on my tatami rug. Marinara sauce and tatami does not mix. Now I need to buy a rug to put over my other rug. Cleaning up kept me busy for the middle of the day.

Then, finally some action as DRYS seriously, "shit the shower."



I made a couple of unprofitable long trades in DRYS. However, because of it's weakness I short both DSX and ANW. I covered both early but made enough in both trades to completely turn my day around. At 3pm I was down $400 or so. In that last hour I managed to make back all my losses and turn a profit.

Tomorrow will be interesting. Everyone seems to think they're going to cut 25bp and that will make the market rally. Normally, when everyone thinks the same thing the market chooses to do something different. Remember, the market loves to disappoint.

It's late. Here's the stats:

P&L, $583
Best, DSX, $810
Worst, CF, -$485

35,400 shares traded.
21 stocks traded, 9 winners, 12 losers.
203 trades.

Virtual Office, $7076. Dow, -77.79, 13792.47.

Akalawoo, $1288 on 19 contracts traded.
Me, $583 on 35,400 shares traded.
OBAT, -$18 on 19,400 shares traded.
Denarii, -$37 on 1400 shares traded.
Tapeworm, -$130 on 4 contracts traded.

Wow... the day was boring... boring... boring... and then WHAMMO! Look out below! A selloff sparked by the recently hot shipping sector sunk the market late in the day.

Volume was like yesterday, shitty. We traded just over 1.2 billion shares on the NYSE.

I mean, what's to say? We're all waiting on the FED now. Tomorrow has the potential to be a wild day however, it may be the kind of "wild" that is not good for trading. What we need is a strong move in one direction or the other. FED days generally feature strong moves in both directions in quick succession. Makes it tough.

Anyway, we'll see. Sleep well tonight!

Meanwhile, it looks like half the VO took off today...

NYSE Trying To Bring Back Big Block Trading

And in time they will realize that 1x1 bids and asks that update 10 times per second isn't a good idea either... here's the article from the WSJ.

And Mr. Neiderhaur, this quote kind of bugged me... "The market structure we've ended up with is great for trading, but it's not great for investing." I don't know one trader who prefers the hybrid to the old way of trading.

So I'd like to change your quote to "The market structure we've ended up with isn't great for trading, and it's not great for investing.... so we kind of fucked up there."

Panspermia

I haven't posted a vocabulary word in awhile... This from Webster's New World Dictionary.

Panspermia n. a theory holding that the seeds of life diffuse naturally through outer space.



I'm not quite sure how to use it in a sentence. Perhaps something like the following would work:

"I don't know where Dick Cheney came from. But maybe the theory of "panspermia" is true and he flew in on some asteroid from some far off galaxy where the people suck."

Stock Earnings For Tuesday October 30th

There are a lot of good ones today.

Here's a short list of the ones I'll be watching.

AXS, CF, SOHU, SPN, VMC, AG, BEC, MGM, PMI, X, UA, VNO

Still, like I said yesterday, I think action will be crimped ahead of the looming FED meeting tomorrow and the jobs data on Friday.

Nicknames For SWC

Let's come up with some fun nicknames for SWC now that it's over $11 again.



In trading rooms, it goes like this. You substitute a word for each letter of the symbol. So, taking a stab, SWC could be "Sucking Wookie Cock" or something like that (stock nicknames often err on the side of offensive).

Have fun!

Of Montreal, "Gronlandic Edit"

This band has always seemed very inconsistent to me. I like this song though.

Quiet Market

I got a flat tire this weekend. The market got a flat tire today. We barely nudged over 1.2 billion shares traded on the NYSE.

It was quiet out there in most stocks. However, the leadership of this market continued to motor along as the solars, shippers and fertilizers all ran higher.

My best stock of the day was DE, which I shorted around 10:00am. Funny that I managed to make money on the short side today in this stock when it closed up over 5 points.



My other best stock was WCG which I bought 100 shares of right after the open and sold about 3 minutes later after it ran up almost 2 points.

Other than that, nada.

I took my car into the garage to patch the tire, took a walk in town with my daughter and then read her a bunch of books while Judy argued with "customer service" idiots all day.

Hopefully tomorrow will be more interesting although I kind of doubt it. After the FED surprised everyone in September I think people are being very cautious ahead of this meeting.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $372
Best, DE, $184
Worst, POT, -$80

8400 shares traded.
10 stocks traded, 8 winners, 2 losers.
59 trades.

Virtual Office, $4945. Dow, +63.56, 13870.26.

Stewie, $3300 on 9000 shares traded.
Evolution, $427 on 32,000 shares traded.
Me, $372 on 8400 shares traded.
OBAT, -$12 on 13,200 shares traded.
Denarii, -$48 on 3200 shares traded.
Tapeworm, -$110 on 4 contracts traded.
Akalawoo, -$174 on 7 contracts traded.
Dehtrader, -$310 on 2900 shares traded.

After a string of days where we traded decent volume on the NYSE, we're back to quiet times. A lot of that has to do with the FED meeting on Wednesday, but still, we may not even see 1.2 billion shares traded today.

I've been talking here about the dwindling volume on the NYSE for months. Apparently, the NY Post finally took notice. And if the Post took notice, you can expect the new FOX Business Network to take notice as well... once they get involved, CNBC will too. This story will only grow.

Dinosaur Trader had it first... way back in March. The new price on this blog is $3 million.

Anyway, it was a quiet day for me but as "Sloth" over at Wallstreak said, there were still lots of stocks moving. The solars, the shippers, the fertilizers... check those sectors if you want to see some impressive strength.

Meanwhile, crude oil is up at $93.54. Wow.

I expect tomorrow will be slow as well. It's all about Wednesday at this point.

UPDATE: Blood on Bubs Street. See what happens when you quit the VO? And I bet he hasn't gotten laid either.

Disappearing Honeybees

For those who missed the 60-min special last night. Here's a small video about the problem.

Is The NYSE Hybrid Market Close To Being Shut Down?

"Yes," according to this article in the NY Post this weekend.

Rapidly losing market share doesn't seem to be a recipe for success. Perhaps the NYSE will listen more to traders next time and less to their institutional interests. I've never been able to figure out who the Hybrid system benefits.

Clearly, not traders... the people who use the system, so no big surprise that it's failing.

What say you, Ray?

Also... thanks to "Chris" for bringing this to my attention. I appreciate it very much when readers point out items like this. I'm a one-man show here and often, things slip through the cracks. My email is located in my profile page and you're always welcome to contact me with things you think I might find interesting.

(Meanwhile, my criticism of the hybrid model has been consistent from the beginning. In fact, it's why I even began this blog. You can real all of my posts dealing with the hybrid market here and here.)

Stock Earnings For Monday October 29th

Not much fun out there today. Click here for a full list. (Meanwhile, if anyone knows a blogger who reports exhaustive lists of stocks reporting earnings, let me know. I'd much rather link to a blogger than to Briefing.)

I think what I'll be doing is watching CF and AG pretty intensely. They both report earnings tomorrow and they're both in hot, volatile sectors. They could be fun to trade before they report.

A Good Name Is Important

I was listening to a song today in which the singer describes a golden ring sinking in a river. He looks into the river and watches as the ring gets stuck in the "murk" at the bottom.

At that moment, all I could think was how odd it is that "Merck" named themselves "Murk." Didn't the marketing department catch that? You'd think they'd look out for negative homonyms... Another one is the Nissan Murano. I always think "Morono" when I see someone driving one. What kind of name is that?

Can you think of any others?

UPDATE: I just thought of another... The Gap. I only thought of them after reading this disturbing article about 10 year olds in India making their clothes for no pay. Trading Goddess should like that one.

Weekend Open Thread

I was going to take the wind out of Ragin's sails by posting the picture that I'll be using as my avatar next week, but it's just too awful. So it's Halloween weekend, I figured I'd post a topical picture instead.

Bats are amazing creatures that deserve your respect and protection. Perhaps I'll write a post about them in the future. For now, enjoy that "grade-schoolesque" picture of that brown bat and click the link to learn more.

Okay, so you know the drill. Comment away. Spam me with your blog address whatever... just leave something interesting in the comment section for all to enjoy. Did you have a really good week? Tell us, we're all ears. Maybe your neighborhood caught fire... give us some idea of what that's like. Evacuee? Have a lot of time on your hands? Have at it...

Enjoy the weekend.

UPDATE: For "Noisy" trapped in some warehouse, here's my favorite Yo La Tengo song of all time.

XTC, "Dear God"

For you fans of the 80s.

Small Time Trader

Seriously, you'd think that after trading for 9 years that I could hold some bigger positions. Normally, when I get involved with a larger position I mess it up. Case in point today, DSX.



I learned that this stock wasn't going to go down with the rest of the shippers the hard way, by shorting it and losing money. This gave me a new idea... "hey, maybe there's strength in this stock." Clearly, it didn't want to go down. So I started buying at around $41. I bought 2500 shares.

I held the stock as it dropped below my purchase price. Each time it did this, my P&L would dip below $1000, making it impossible for me to place new trades because of my self-imposed loss limit. So basically, if I wanted to continue trading, it was all about DSX going up.

The problem is that once the stock got up to $41.25, I was down only $500 on the day and decided to sell most of my position so that I wouldn't have to be dependent on only it for the rest of my day. I sold 2000 of my 2500 shares and watched as the stock went up another point.

So I need to work on this... holding winners. Unique problem, right?

I had a nice turn around though. I caught the moves in PMI, FED and ABK though with small positions and managed to bring myself back positive on the day. At one point, I got all the way up to $1400 but then I started giving back and decided to call it a day.

My worst stock of the day was WCG. What can I say, I'm an idiot.

However, I did do something different today which definitely showed a little "growth" or "discipline" or something. Remember last week when the market gapped higher I got smoked and I said I always lose money when the market gaps up at the open? Well, I remembered that today and didn't screw it up too badly. Lesson learned.

Anyway, considering that I was down a bunch today and clawed back into the green, after my huge giveback yesterday, would look kind of like a "V" bottom on a graph. That's bullish and I'll take it.

Enjoy the weekend.

Here's the stats:
P&L, $796
Best, PMI, $537
Worst, WCG, -$393

63,000 shares traded.
28 stocks traded. 12 winners, 16 losers.
269 trades.