Good Morning

Time: 7:05
Mood: Positive

Quick Poll: Keep This Layout, Yes Or No?

Vote over on the left sidebar. Not sure if I'll listen to the poll anyway. Poll only open for a few hours.

The Kinks, "Strangers"

Blog In Disarray

I think I fixed the problem. I believe it was the Buzzfeed widget.

Anyway, now the blog is all wacked. Maybe I'll change the template and style.

But does it appear to be loading faster? It definitely is for me...

I Bank Change

Some of you may look at my recent string of small losses and small gains and think that I'm falling asleep here or something.

In truth, I feel better about trading than I have in awhile, despite the low volume in the market and my shitty P&Ls. There's definitely a weird disconnect between my recent trading (bad) and how I feel about trading in general (good).

Part of it may have to do with my immersion exercise. Part of it definitely has to do with my research schedule. And then for sure, a lot has to do with me thinking constructively about my trading instead of negatively. Also, it helps to hear guys in my real office doing well each day. There's always someone making multiple thousands of dollars.

Oh, and that shithead Momojuicing has been coaching my stupid ass... remember him?

Also, for whatever reason, I've stopped thinking month to month. Meaning, I'm not putting as much pressure on myself to make a certain number each month. Instead, I'm having a little more faith in myself that I'm going to work this shit out and be making enough money to support myself and my entire extended family again in a few months.

I didn't have any great winners today. Two of my best trades were very short scalps... trades that lasted less than 30 seconds each.

The first was in DV...



The second was in ENR...



Not exactly the types of trades that you can normally build good days around. However, when they happen and work, I'll take them. I'm much prouder of the following three trades. Trades like this are what I'm trying to build more out of right now.

First, a short in AG...



Then, a long in CNQ...



And another in CP...



Anyway, I also had a couple of losers. But the thing is, I not only know exactly what I did wrong, I was also immediately pissed at myself for doing it. Kind of like, if you ever smoked cigarettes... you know it's bad for you, but you do it anyway. Then one day, you really quit. However, you stumble after drinking too much and have a couple. You wake up the next day and feel like shit because of it. Then, you don't stumble again. In other words, mistakes like this will soon be a thing of the past.

I anticipated a break in ESI that didn't come. Instead of waiting patiently for the break, I bought in just before the breakout should have occurred and I lost a quick $200 because of it.



So that's that.

Anyway, in other DT news, this blog is almost a year old and getting close to the 100,000 unique visitor milestone (different from pageviews... remember when IBC had their platinum party because of pageviews? Gay.) I'm going to throw a Tupperware party as a celebration.

Maybe I'll have special posts too... like I'll have a few history posts fired up and ready to go. I'm not really counting on it though... with all the reading I'm doing, I haven't had any time to write.

Time will tell.

Here's the stats:
P&L, $324
Best, DV, $191
Worst, ESI, -$290

21,400 shares traded.
10 winners, 9 losers.

NOTE: I'm going to fuck with the layout of this blog a little to see if I can get it to load properly again... not sure what the deal is.

Virtual Office, -$1070. SPX, +3.10, 1358.50.

Dehtrader, $551 on 5320 shares traded.
Me, $324 on 21,400 shares traded.
Timmay, $93 on 2200 shares traded.
Denarii, $76 on 2400 shares traded.
Wincity, $54 on 400 shares traded.
Retardo, no trades.
OBAT, -$343 on 16,400 shares traded.
Sanglucci, -$634 on 34,800 shares traded.
Equine, -$1191 on 1500 shares traded.

Well, it was a wild one today.

The market ripped 200 points from 12:00 to 3:00. Sounds good, right? Problem was that most of the move came on just 3 or 4, 5 minute bars. Meaning, if you missed the spikes, you go caught in the chop. It was a very mixed day in the real office today. A few traders got smoked, a few made some money. I don't think it was easy.

We traded just under 1.5 billion shares on the day and the VIX dropped a point, to 24.40.

I'm not sure what to make of the market here. The FED minutes sounded bad to me... oil is over $100 a barrel and commodities are ripping meaning that inflation may well be in our future. Unless growth is going to take off (which is hard to imagine with the housing market still in tatters) I'm not sure why we're rallying here.

Time will tell.

Meanwhile, funny story. Fox Business Network wanted me to do their gay little happy hour thing today between 5 and 6pm. However, I'm busy. So I emailed Timmay and he'll take part. Is he not the biggest media whore?

Anyway, if he mentions the VO I promise to read and say nice things about his book... like, it's the "Catcher of the Rye" of stock trading books or something like that.... oh wait... someone already said that.

Ragin's Gay Contest

-the IBC team of bloggers.

So, if for some reason you read Ragin's blog, you'll see he started a little contest. I joined. My pick is to short SWC because, fuck JJ.

His pick is AAPL... big surprise there, eh?

Early Release?

My office is pondering over what caused the recent high volume rip in the futures in the middle of the day. No news, nothing. Huge volume came in and ripped the market higher. Perhaps someone got their hands on the Fed minutes a little early?

Either that or some French trader is getting mad long.

Good Morning

Time: 7:23
Mood: Anxious

How Quickly I Devolve

Normally, with Judy and my daughter home at this time I would be sitting down to eat a nice, balanced meal. After that nutritious meal, I'd play "store" or "restaurant" with my daughter before reading her a few books and singing her to sleep.

I had high expectations about how I'd spend my time alone tonight. Here's what I've done...

For dinner I had cold pizza and beer. While I was eating dinner, I watched videos of people getting "owned" on break. Many of these videos involved exercise balls. After that, I watched all the "Anchorman" videos I could find on Youtube. Unfortunately, the famous scene of Baxter getting punted off the bridge isn't available. Here is a sped up version.



"Well guess what? Now this is happening.... that's how I roll."

Peter Murphy, "Cuts You Up"

Betwixt And Between

My wife and daughter are away for the day. So I'm making this really short so I can get some guilt-free reading time in.

My best stock of the day was a complete mistake. That pretty much sums up my day. I accidentally held 100 shares of CNX into the close Friday, so I sold them at the open and made a little over a point and a half.

I'm in the midst of working on a couple of new things. I'm not going to get into them too much right now. On one hand, I plan on watching fewer stocks actively and taking larger positions in them. On the other, I also plan on taking some "light" positions in others, giving them wide berth and letting them move throughout the day.

In short, I'm trying to develop more of a trading strategy. I want to enter each day with more of a gameplan. It will be more research dependent and less "trading actively like a lunatic during the day" dependent.

This partly explains the lack of posts recently. I'm busy.

Here's the stats:

P&L, -$423
Best, CNX, $157
Worst, MON, -$240

32,100 shares traded.
14 stocks traded. 5 winners, 9 losers.

Virtual Office, -$1662. SPX, -2.5, 1348.80.

Dehtrader, $781 on 3340 shares traded.
Wincity, $76 on 200 shares traded.

Timmay, $35 on 3200 shares traded.
Denarii, -$87 on 1280 shares traded.
OBAT, -$350 on 24,600 shares traded.
Equine, -$390 on 12,200 shares traded.
Me, -$423 on 32,100 shares traded.
Sanglucci, -$1304 on 15,600 shares traded.

Well today sucked balls.

Most of the guys in my "real" office lost money. That doesn't mean you couldn't have made money. I think what I'm saying is that the conditions weren't great for active traders.

Most of the day, the market was singing me a sweet, sleepy song, while simultaneously stealing money from me, little by little.

Anyway, even things that looked good ultimately sucked. It was like, going up to a nice looking girl at a bar but finding out that her breath smells. Hopefully, tomorrow we find a better place to drink, with hotter chicks that are really into geeky stock guys.

I'll Give You A Real Post

Oh, hey.

What? You want a real post?

Ask yourself this question. What have I done for Dinosaur Trader recently?

Good Morning

Time: 7:26
Mood: Rested

Lots Of Reading

I haven't been near the computer much this weekend and I think I'll keep it that way on Monday as well. Instead, I've been reading a bunch of the books that were suggested to me back in this thread.

My father has always read 3 or 4 books at a time and I never understood how he did it. However, I currently find myself reading 5 books at once. I think the trick is that they all should be somewhat different. Then, you just can read one until you tire of it and move on to the next. It's not easy with a 3 year old around, but you learn to make the most of the very early mornings and the late night.

Anyway, so here's what I've been reading...

Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques by Steve Nison
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis
Surfing's Greatest Misadventures, Paul Diamond, Ed.

I'll write brief reviews when I complete each.

Also, take note that I've added a site to my blogroll, Market-Topology, although I have it called "Stock Correlations." 

It works like this... say you're trading UBB (a brazilian bank) and it's ripping. You want to know what other stocks trade with it... go to the "stock correlations" link and click "USA." Then you can just add the symbol and it will generate a list of stocks that trade in step with UBB. In this example, it comes up with BBD, a stock that I always trade with UBB. It's a great tool for day traders looking for "pair" type trades. (h/t "tradercaddy")

Finally, thanks to all of you who offered advice in the thread about my mother being laid off. Hopefully, in a few months (or shorter) I'll be able to post a nice update.  

I'm thrilled that there is such a great community of readers here.

Enjoy the day off.

My Mother Was Laid Off

Here's a little problem I have.

Now, perhaps it's just a coincidence, but about 8 years ago, when my father in law turned 58, he was laid off from Northrop Grumman. You don't want to go through a job search at age 58. Luckily, he found one, however, he now is forced to commute a couple hours of day with a heart condition. He had worked for Northrop, for over 30 years. He helped build the first lunar module, he had a great job and they axed him in the twilight of his career.

Yesterday, my mother, who has worked for the same company for 27 years, was laid off at age 58. She lives alone, and since she was a nurse for many years (i.e. was paid poorly), never really had the chance to save bundles of salary for retirement. Long story short, she needs to find another job as she's not prepared to retire. She was a middle manager in a health care company.

Yet another reason to hate HMOs.

What's with companies doing this? Has some heartless dude figured that after age 58, it just doesn't make financial sense to hold onto these older, well-paid workers? So they axe them and hire younger, cheaper labor? They're not even giving my mother any health care after the end of the month! She's 58! She needs healthcare!

This is a little fresh.

Anyway, I have two requests. Does anyone have any experience with the law in terms of laying people off and severance packages? They're giving her six months pay and that's it. No health, no sick days, just six months and bye-bye. Perhaps that's normal, but after such a long history, and given her circumstances (i.e. age) I feel that's a little rough.

Second, if any of you are sleeping with someone who makes hiring decisions for a health care company based in the NY area, now is the time to do DT a favor.

This Is Painful To Watch... Poor Guy

Valentines Day Proposal Goes Wrong - Watch more free videos

Suicidal Tendencies, "Institutionalized"

Clearly, he's a frustrated trader.

Some Bad Trades, But Good Chat

I lost money today. All of my losses came in two stocks, DV and RNR.



I made a very stupid mistake in DV. I bought a couple hundred shares early, around $45.75. The stock moved up to the figure. I saw a huge amount of volume go off, I got excited and I bought 600 more shares at $46.02. I was shortly stopped out of my full position at the low of that big red bar, at $45.46.

RNR was the ole get short and stubborn play. It's really a great way to throw money away.



I'm not going to talk about my winners. Instead, I'm going to relay bits and pieces of a conversation I had in the chat room today with my office mates concerning stop orders.

The names are changed to protect all parties...

Me: my problem is just that. if i don't use stops, i feel unprotected
Gid: with the hybrid 25 cents is just noise so i get stopped out a lot
Me: but do you set yours far away or are your entries just spot on?
Joe: "The entry is 85% of the trade" I don't remember what book that quote is from......
Yaz: Dan's entries are always violent
Me: HAHAHAHAH
Me: But on a day like today, the futures are a mess. Are you just shorting or buying aberrant spikes?
Yaz: Dan's entries are always aberrant
Dan: Joe, drop some science
Yaz: that's not the only thing u should drop
Yaz: using stops now isn't careful it's much much more dangerous
Joe: i disagree
Me: don't get all jedi on me
Yaz: the spikiness of trading is so much more than it used to be
Joe: stop placement is key
Yaz: yeah, if you keep em as far as Dan it's just so you don't get destroyed
Joe: exactly
Yaz: but using them like we used to around figs and shit is suicidal
Joe: close stops are horrible
Joe: just hand me your money
Me: like health insurance with a high premium
Me: that's how you guys are usinig them
Yaz: yeah, it's pointless
Duk: goog
Yaz: if you got the number of positions with the size Dan has, I understand
Joe: Dan schooled me on proper stop placement... he should speak on this
Yaz: i was getting clipped in shit today but i just don't worry about it. cause most of the time shit swings back one way or the other. either cause u right to begin with or because it's just choppying around.
Yaz: stops are dead to me
Yaz: but i understand other people using them right
Me: i appreciate the discussion. thanks.
Yaz: i think for dudes like u and me though, stops should not be used
Yaz: maybe i'm wrong
Me: well, you don't like to take pain, right?
Yaz: no, but if you look at your P&L as the pain indicator rather than the position, then pain changes.
Yaz: like Duk got squeezed for 50 cents on 4000 M but he held because he was making money anyway
Dan: look at your ass as the pain indicator
Me: jesus...
Gid: i want a look
Dan: yo Joe, what did i say about stops to u
Dan: i talk a lot
Joe: i think we all should be conditioning ourselves to be emotionally detached from out of the money pnl
Yaz: "stop tickling!"
Me: joe, that's true. it's smart to be unattached.
Dan: lol
Gid: when i am getting stopped out i usually should be adding
Yaz: EXACTLY
Joe: look
Me: but sometimes you're just wrong and you have to take a loss. without stops, how do you guys determine that?
Joe: if that's the case, it's a problem with your stop placement
Dan: if what's the case
Yaz: i think it's a case by case basis
Joe: "when i am getting stopped out i usually should be adding" that case
Joe: to summarize what you said Dan
Dan: please summarize
Yaz: Dan doesn't understand how normal people use stops
Dan: say it in the same language
Dan: i understand perfectly well, Yaz
Yaz: cause he has no fear of anything
Dan: i'm not rainman
Dan: i have plenty of fear
Yaz: only of vagina
Duk: i'm long mad AXP
Dan: I'm always scared
Joe: you explained that the stop loss should be placed where the stock should not go unless it's reversing... you should not place stops based on how much money you would not like to lose
Dan: but i have faith in myself that in the long run it's gonna be okay
Dan: yeah, i said that
Me: interesting
Dan: but the question is... how do you decide where you no longer think its a long... that's where being in tune with what the markets are doing comes in
Dan: the basic idea of what i told Joe is that u decide where the stop should go first, then decide if that amount of pain is worth putting on the trade at all, or what size you can handle it on
Me: gotcha
Dan: your own pain threshold should not determine stop placement, which is an absolute
Me: that makes a lot of sense.

Here's the stats:

P&L, -$651
Best, WLT, $203
Worst, DV, -$447

34,500 shares traded.
10 winners, 13 losers.