Good Morning
Time: 8:00
Mood: Loving
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Dinosaur Trader's Tupperware Party
Just like IBCs Platinum Party, only with Tupperware, poor people and a couple hundred thousand fewer hits.
Thanks to my first 100,000 visitors!
The Doves, "Firesuite"
No daily post tonight... I'll try and recap today's wins and losses in tomorrow's post.
Virtual Office, $937. SPX, -3.30, 1379.50.
Ducati, $1059 on 600 shares traded.
Evolution, $791 on 20,600 shares traded.
Denarii, $119 on 2600 shares traded.
Wincity, $10 on 200 shares traded.
OBAT, -$82 on 15,600 shares traded.
Timmay, -$140 on 800 shares traded.
Dehtrader, -$179 on 10,410 shares traded.
Ainkurn, -$274 on 650 shares traded.
Me, -$367 on 35,000 shares traded.
The volume in the market really seems to have settled in to a norm. Every day it seems we're trading between 1.4 and 1.5 billion on the NYSE. In a way, I like the consistent volume. I wonder how long this will keep up.
As I posted earlier, the FRE and FNM news really spiked the market midday. Many traders in my office just cleaned up with those trades. Congrats to those who were able to take advantage of that volatility. And speaking of volatility, we got a bounce in the VIX today, up .82 to 22.72.
The VO had a crappy day, but no disasters, so no real problem. Update: Ducati did well...
Finally, everyone hates Gasparino as he's ruined trade in the last hour of the day. You can pretty much count on an irrational spike when he starts to talk. What a mess...
NOTE: Daily post will either be late or non-existent... I'm going out to dinner with the missus. We have a babysitter...
Backing Up Your Blog
Man, I was checking on Ainkurn earlier and I found out that Akalawoo's blog was hacked and all of his information was lost.
Awful.
So listen, here's an easy free program you can use to back up your blog.
If you don't like that one, there are other options here.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Hillary and Obama Debate In Ohio, 9pm MSNBC
Will there be some type of campaign changing moment here for Hillary? If not, the end may be nigh. Discuss.
A Slow Day
I didn't have a bad morning, but oddly enough, the first hour was completely dead. Most of the traders in my real office were smoked and everyone was complaining about lack of follow-through.
I felt the lameness of the market pretty early and I was only trading with small size. Still, even despite my caution, I couldn't get traction because I was taking on more losers (albeit small ones) than winners.
The market finally broke out of its morning range at around 10:45, but even then, violently chopped around for 30 minutes in a 5 point range on the futures. One five minute bar was up 5 points, then the next 5 minute bar was down 5 points. It was a slushy mess.
I was down between $200 and $300.
The market finally got through the wild chop and had a very tradeable rally between 11:30 and 12:20. The problem for me was that I was already tentative as a result of the morning chop, plus we were moving into a normally dead part of the day, so I entered only light positions. But I had some good ones, most notably, GES.
Note, the graph is far too marked up to make any sense of anything.
I also caught breakout longs in TEX and VLO but again, both with small size.
I took it really easy today. Not too much to report. Unless something changes by 4pm, this will be my day. I'm happy with it because I came back from a bad morning. Normally, I make money in the first hour and give it all away. Today I lost money early and was able to get my shit together and eke out a small gain.
UPDATE: I got chopped in the afternoon and gave back $200...
Here's the stats:
P&L, $112
Best, TEX, $167
Worst, UA, -$92
NOTE: Please stop by for the debate open thread tonight. I expect Hillary to pull out all the stops. Could be interesting.
Virtual Office, $1947. SPX, +11.40, 1383.00.
Evolution, $1176 on 55,600 shares traded.
Ducati, $894 on 800 shares traded.
Timmay, $243 on 1600 shares traded.
Dehtrader, $189 on 5500 shares traded.
Denarii, $114 on 4200 shares traded.
Me, $112 on 14,600 shares traded.
Ainkurn, $29 on 1050 shares traded.
OBAT, $11 on 11,800 shares traded.
Retardo, no trades.
Wincity, -$100 on 100 shares traded.
Sanglucci, -$721 on 23,000 shares traded.
The real office got smoked today. The morning was a chopfest, the afternoon was a chopfest... there were only a few good times to trade today. If you had the discipline to identify those times, and not trade during the chop, you could have made money.
The VIX is dropping out of the sky... it's now down below 22.
Meanwhile, volume was strong in the early going and tailed off in the second half of the day.
Gasparino tried his best to spike the market in the afternoon, but all he did was throw an "ass rape" candle on the futures at around 3:25. It seems that's when he talks every day... I now will watch that time like I watch other economic news, because you never know what the fuck he's going to say.
Hillary In A Bhurka?
If you've been following along, you know that the Drudge Report published a photograph of Obama dressed in traditional Kenyan garb. The photograph was provided by the Clinton campaign. Actually, let me rephrase that... the Clinton campaign cannot confirm or deny that they supplied the photograph.
Along those lines, I've found this photograph that may be Hillary Clinton in a bhurka. Note, even though she is waving an American flag, she is not wearing an American flag lapel pin and therefore, she's not a true patriot.
Furthermore, her car doesn't have that little yellow magnetic ribbon that says "Support Our Troops."
Draw your own conclusions...
NOTE: I'll have an open thread up for the debate tonight. Please stop by if you're watching.
Art Cashin's Comments, February 26, 2008
Only caught the tail end...
Art: ...the big story of '08 could be the price and scarcity of food.
JC: The market keeps going up... anything positive to that?
Art: We've had very thin markets and then yesterday S&P affirms AAA ratings on ABK which may be the most remarkable thing since Lazarus. I mean, ABK was just short of selling body parts to make ends meet and S&P affirms... I think we're at the upper end of the range here, but I think that range will hold.
Morning Link-Love
First of all, the IBD has changed its outlook to "Market in confirmed rally."
- Woodshedder discussing triangles again... could it be because of IBCs new sponsor?
- First it was Timmay and now it's Richard at MtM. Retardo lashes out again!
- Evolution returns!
- Foreclosures up 90% in January. However, check the link below...
- You can't foreclose if you don't own the mortgage. Oops!
- Visa and Mastercard don't make credit card loans, they process transactions for banks that do. No wonder MA has held up so well... the Visa offering is set for late March.
- Obama keeps getting stronger, despite the "batshit crazy" attacks.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Misstrade Axed From VO
As many of you who follow along here know, Misstrade has been the reigning champ in the VO for the last 10 months or so, taking no prisoners. I mean, the dude has had like 5 losing days or something ridiculous like that.
I am now letting him go. No doubt he will find a bigger and better VO somewhere populated with other robot traders who will give him a better run for his money.
Here, for your viewing pleasure, is him playing air hockey in the VO "lounge" just before he received the news. I wish him continued success.
Robot Playing Air Hockey - Watch more free videos
My Next Child Will Be Named "Momojuicing"
It will be hard to break that one to Judy, but I have to do it. Read on for details.
It's a little late for me to be starting this post (when you have a 3 year old, it gets late very quickly) so I'm going to make it somewhat brief. It's too bad actually, because there's a lot I need to work through. Still, if I'm anyone's bitch, I am the bitch of Father Time.
So here goes... I got a little smoked this morning trying to grab the breakouts in EOG and ECA. I was early to the game in both instances and was down a few hundred.
My first buy came at 9:50. I bought 600 shares just before the guy dropped 45 cents. So, I lost close to $300 there. My second buy came around 10:00, just before he dropped 45 cents... so, I was down over $500 in the stock. I was very discouraged at this point.
Luckily, the third time was a charm. Of course, when the stock finally broke out, I only had 400 shares (I was buying with 600 the first two times) but happily, I held on nicely (been working on that, so happy it worked out) and made my money back and then some. I ended up over $300 in the stock.
I had similar trades in ECA. So really, the first half hour of the day was a nightmare for me but I made it all back and was up a couple hundred by 10:30 or so.
Buoyed by my success in these oil trades, I felt very confident buying into DO when it traded $120. It was an important level on the daily, and I went in with 600. I was filled at the top of the move.
I lost a half point on most and, embarrassingly enough, even more on my last 200 shares. I lost $377 in the dude. Completely my fault. No ass-rape or anything like that... just a bad trade.
Okay, so now we get to the fun part, or the reason why my next child, girl or boy, will be named "Momojuicing."
So via email Momojuicing and I are conversing. He's like, "Man, I wish I could blog like you..." and, "I wish I was smart like you..." And I was like, "Yeah, well, I'd name my second child "Momojuicing" if I could trade like you..." and he was like, "Oh yeah? Well check out this MA on a break of $198." The graph tells the rest of the story.
I short 300 around $198. I covered 100 at $197.25, 100 at $196.39 and the last 100 at $194.18. So I went from being down a few hundred to up $400 after this trade.
So I felt good about the trades. The name thing sucks, but, what can you do?
Anyway, the even better news came when I closed the day strong. I caught the bottom in MA with 200 shares when the news hit about ABK. I sold 100 after I made a point, and rode the other 100 for 4 more points. So MA turned into one of my biggest winners in awhile, at $1098.
Here's the stats:
P&L, $804
Best, MA, $1098
Worst, DO, -$377
21,000 shares traded.
15 stocks traded. 8 winners, 7 losers.
Virtual Office, $1248. SPX, +18.00, 1373.50.
Me, $804 on 21,000 shares traded.
Ducati, $604 on 400 shares traded.
OBAT, $539 on 5600 shares traded.
Evolution, $352 on 37,000 shares traded.
Timmay, $205 on 1800 shares traded.
Retardo, no trades.
Wincity, no trades.
Denarii, -$12 on 300 shares traded.
Ainkurn, -$136 on 650 shares traded.
Dehtrader, -$1108 on 3391 shares traded.
Well, it was a pretty wild day today. The market didn't need Gasparino today, all it needed was S&P to reaffirm ABK's financial strength. This sent all the financial stocks higher at approximately 2:25 and with them, the market.
I hate to be a dick about it, but the volume was pretty lame for such an event. Actually, I take that back (sort of). The volume really sucked early and at the end of the day we probably finished about average. So, volume moved into the market after 2:25.
Meanwhile, one of these days, Dylan Ratigan is going to trip as he walks towards the camera and it will be pretty damn funny.
We traded just under 1.5 billion shares on the NYSE today and the VIX dropped another point, to 23.09.
The VO had a mixed day. Hopefully, with the eco-data out this week, we get some good movement and follow through.
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