Virtual Office, $3179. Dow, + 1Gazillion, 13,289.54.

Evolution, $1592 on 109,400 shares traded.
Me, $648 on 9600 shares traded.
OBAT, $188 on 8600 shares traded.
Akalawoo, $78 on 2 contracts traded.
Denarii, $63 on 600 shares traded.
Wincity, -$32 on 100 shares traded.
Dehtrader, -$2295 on 4000 shares traded.

I feel it coming... the market is ready to go into "suck mode."

It's gonna suck from here until that damned FED meeting which, no doubt, CNBC will remind us about every 5 minutes until December 11th.

Fuck CNBC and their cheerleading "anchors."

Anyway, what a nice day, huh? America made money, you walk outside and it smells like leaves and burning fires, Maria Bartiromo was off again...

Actually, I think today sucked and I'm in a bad mood. It's the whole thing about people asking me how I did and me feeling like I did shitty because the market is up a gazillion points. And now, suck mode. You heard it here first.

See you in January, market.

Ah... I Miss The "Fake News."

The Big Bad Bounce

I thought maybe we'd be up another 50-100 points today...



300+? That's a little rich for my taste. This reminds me exactly of September... remember we had a big run-up into the FED meeting and then they surprised everyone with 50bp and we ran a little more... all on lighter volume.

Of course, everyone knows what happened next, we plummeted back to the August lows. Why? Because ultimately, FED cuts can't save us. So really, to use a technical trading term, this rally is "silly." Of course, you'd also be "silly" to fight it.

Let the market take a dump and clean the slate. You can't fight psychology forever... however, I guess you could try really really hard to change it.

Anyway, I made some early money and then managed to park my money in 3 of the lamest stocks for the last 100 points on the DOW. OSK, KMT and CFC...

I mean, how do I manage to lose money while I'm surfing when all the market did was go up? Sigh. Anyway, I'm happy to be up because as I've mentioned here before, I hate days where we gap up big.

More importantly, I got some good surf in. "Cleaning my slate" so to speak...

The Robots Win Again!

Apparently, my suspicions after 10am yesterday were correct. That was some real buying we saw yesterday, not just short covering.



The way it works (at least according to IBD) is that we now would need to see a "follow-through" attempt to confirm yesterday's rally. A "follow through" would be an advance of more than 1% (I think, maybe 2%) in any of the indexes over the next week or so on juicy volume.

Naturally, this nascent "rally" would be declared dead if the major indexes undercut yesterday's lows.

We shall have to wait and see. Now will either be a great time to initiate new short positions or initiate new longs. If you get on the right side, you win a new house... if you choose wrong, all of your worldly goods will be taken from you and your friends will stop hanging out with you.

Radiohead, "Jigsaw Falling Into Place"

Trading Lightly

I've been losing money lately trading the open, so today, I traded very lightly for the first few minutes. I took small profits in MBI (long) and MTW (short) but mostly watched.

At around 10:00 am, I noticed BIDU made a new high on the day, but on light volume. So, like the big trader I am, I short 50 shares at $339.



Why does it happen that on trades where you throw down small size you catch the big moves? I covered around $330 and kicked myself for not "going crazy" and shorting 100 shares.

At approximately the same time, I made a nearly identical trade in FSLR. The only difference is that I held FSLR for slightly longer and covered a few points off of the bottom.

The bounce in these two "former" leaders convinced me of the strength of the rally today and removed my bearish bias pretty quickly. The problem was that I hadn't gotten long, I had only covered my shorts. At this point, I was up around $1100 on the day.

For the rest of the day, I threw money away in dribs and drabs as I tried to get long stocks only to be shaken out and watch them go higher. Case in point, FLR, my worst stock of the day.

Truly, at around 3:00 I "knew" this stock was heading higher. It had broken the downtrend it had been in since 1pm on strong upside volume. The fact that I couldn't get in, add to and hold my position highlights perfectly what is currently wrong with my trading.



In fact, I traded FLR so poorly that it ended up being my worst stock of the day as I lost $152 in him. Here are my trades:

14:28 Buy 200 @ 133.50 (200)
14:29 Sell 100 @ 133.25 (100)
14:33 Sell 100 @ 132.50 (flat)
14:58 Buy 100 @ 132.90 (100)
15:04 Buy 100 @ 133.14 (200)
15:05 Sell 200 @ 132.80 (flat)
15:07 Buy 200 @ 133.19 (200)
15:08 Sell 100 @ 133.17 (100)
15:10 Sell 100 @ 133.43 (flat)

The patience thing... I still need big work there. Clearly, on my first trade I was too early. Trading the way I do, I should never take a point loss on a stock. However, I was trading with very small size here so I was trying to trade with some conviction.

Pretty much, you can see me going crazy there. The worst thing is that it closed at $136.21. What can I say? I just fucked it up. I'm getting in and out of stocks too much when often I am "right" about what moves they're going to make. I'm simply getting shaken out.

I think reviewing my trades each day will start to help me regain confidence in the decisions that I'm making.

And the big silver lining of the day was that I didn't add to a losing position once. This really helps positions stay "light" psychologically. I mean, when you start adding to a losing position, you're getting attached to it and "hoping" which is exactly what you don't want to be doing when you trade.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $626
Best, BIDU $423
Worst, FLR, -$152

13,400 shares traded.
16 stocks traded, 7 winners, 9 losers

Virtual Office, $4880. Dow, +215, 12,958.44.

Dehtrader, $988 on 5590 shares traded.
Me, $626 on 13,400 shares traded.
Akalawoo, $442 on 6 contracts traded.
Evolution, $433 on 65,200 shares traded.
Wincity, $48 on 100 shares traded.
Denarri, -$32 on 200 shares traded.
OBAT, -$125 on 16,400 shares traded.

I'm confused.

I mean we have volatility today yet the VIX was down over 2 points. We also had decent volume with about 1.6 billion shares traded on the NYSE, with over 1.1 billion of that to the upside. Score one for the bulls.

But there is something nagging me about this market. Never have I been so correct on which way the market is going to move but felt so powerless to profit from those moves.

Whereas in August the market volatility yielded traders gobs of money, this volatility has a different feel altogether. Why is this market so difficult to trade?

I blame the robots.

Humans don't bid the futures up 10 points in 10 minutes. It just doesn't happen that way without some type of news event. Robots however, are fearless. If their "program" or whatever, tells them to buy futures, they buy, stupidly, spiking the market this way and that.

I've said it many times before. Fuck the robots. Then again, who knows? Maybe in 20 years robots will send my kids to college.

Anyway, it was a pretty good day for the VO. But man, you just know Dehtrader wanted $12 more dollars...

Strong Bounce

In fact, strong enough that I'm done being short for awhile.



I caught nice downside moves in BIDU and FSLR. However, seeing them all bounce so strongly leads me to believe that there's a lot of money on the "buy side" of the market today that will be buying the dips. That means trade will be "squeezy."

Better to be the squeezer than the squeezed.

Citigroup Sells Stake To Abu Dhabi Group

Big news.

However, before you get all excited, don't forget that when Bank Of America bought that chunk of CFC it seemed like a good idea at the time.

As it stands now, they've lost 858 million on that deal.

Still, this should at least show us a temporary bottom.

3 Daytrading Rules

After going through my trades today, I've distilled what I learned into 3 well-known trading rules.

1. Don't add to losing positions.

My big losers today came when I added to positions that I should have exited because they were going against me.

2. Add to winning positions and have the patience to let them run.

I had some great trades that I failed to capitalize on fully because I never added to my initial position. When you have a position move in your favor, you need to "pyramid" into it in order to maximize your profits on your winning trades. Too often today when a stock moved in my favor I "locked in gains" instead of adding to the position at a smart place and "letting it run."

3. Analyze past trades.

Most importantly, today I remembered how important it is to analyze past trades. I hate doing it because it's boring, but if you want to trade full-time and expect to make money doing it, there's no better way to learn from your mistakes.

Quiet Riot, "Cum On Feel The Noize"

The lead singer died yesterday. Surely, he is looking down from heaven happy that he has been immortalized forever on this fine blog.

I just remember being 10 and dancing around like an idiot to this song. Naturally, that was before I had impeccable musical taste.

It Hurts

I mean, I've seen this coming for a long time. Since August I've been saying "we're going lower" and "look at the weak volume on the up days."

Blah! Blah! Blah! I made $39 dollars today. It hurts to suck that badly when you're "right" on the general direction of the market.

And frankly, I'm sick of it.

Truth is, I don't quite realize what it is I'm doing wrong. So, instead of rushing this post, I'm going to delve into each of my trades today and see what the heck I do here, sitting at the computer all day. Really, I have no idea.

If I figure anything out, such as, how one can make money being on the right side of the market, I'll share it here.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $39
Best, BIDU, $338
Worst, AB, -$327

33,800 shares traded.
22 stocks traded, 10 winners, 12 losers.

Virtual Office, $2143. Dow, -238.09, 12742.79.

OBAT, $125 on 12,800 shares traded.
Wincity, $98 on 400 shares traded.
Me, $39 on 33,800 shares traded.
Akalawoo, no trades.
Denarii, no trades.
Dehtrader, -$128 on 5280 shares traded.
Evolution, -$991 on 132,348 shares traded.

Hello everyone, it's good to be back. That said, today sucked.

I mean, if the VO is net negative (minus Misstrade, of course) on a day when the Dow plunges 238 points, then perhaps we (the VO) should stop trading and instead consider starting to sell Arbonne goods or something.

"Relationship marketing" is where it's at. Fuck trading.

But seriously, we traded 1.5 billion shares today on the NYSE. Not too bad. Take a gander at this though... about 1.3 billion of those shares were "down volume." Grim indeed.

I dunno. I think we're in a bear market. While "the Fly" may punch my eyebrows off for making such a statement the fact is there is absolutely no leadership to lead this market higher. We need stocks forming bases and busting higher... instead, on the days we're up it's due to beaten down stocks squeezing shorts.

We're going lower.

Note to CNBC...

Please put MCC back in the 4am time slot. Thank you. Until then I will watch Bloomberg.

Hummer Drivers Have Low IQs

Countdown To Market Implosion

Okay, hiatus over. A big thanks to Dehtrader for manning the VO in my absence.

A Wombat Type Of Thanksgiving

Again, this week I will be on "light blogging mode." I just bought a new winter wetsuit, upgraded my computer (coming Wednesday) and basically, will be taking it easy trading.



I look forward to getting back to full-time blogging mode a week from today. Expect a couple of posts this week, but nothing more.

Hope all is going well for you out there. Thanks for your patience as I "chill out."

Message To "The Fly" From The Peanut Union

"Error establishing a database connection," indeed!

All your base are belong to us, bitch!

R.I.P "I Bank Coin" November 19-24, 2007.



UPDATE: 4:43pm, Saturday. I have brought "the Fly's" blog back online. Hopefully, he has learned not to tangle with "the Dinosaur."

Fox News Porn

I interrupt this labor rally, hiatus and weekend to bring you some hot pornography, courtesy of Fox News.



Power to the Peanuts.

Unionizing The "Peanut Gallery"

I am interrupting this "hiatus" to announce my intention to unionize the "Peanut Gallery" over at "the Fly's" new nightmare of a blog, I Bank Coin.

While he plans on "crushing" all of the "third tier" bloggers via the Peanut Gallery, I am calling for a boycott of said gallery, until we are paid for our efforts.

Watch the news Mr. Fly? See what's happening over in Hollywood?

In time, your blog will lose it's shine without the "the Gallery" as people tire of Woody's posts on technical analysis (he's Southern, and therefore suspect) and realize that "Mini-me," or, Danny, is just like you but a little dumber. Meanwhile, it's my strong suspicion that "Mr. Bilderberg" is no more than a friend of yours that you used to play wiffle-ball with when you were a kid. He's living with his parents still... I'm sure of it. Jeremy seems legit, despite his poor taste in music.

In short, pay the "Peanut Gallery" or be crushed by it via bad PR.

"Power to the Peanuts."

NOTE: I will be back, "full time" after Turkey week is over. Until Thanksgiving passes, I will be posting only sporadically. Thank you for your patience as I practice yogic breathing and reconnect with my "inner Dinosaur."