Joanna Newsom, "Sprout & The Bean"

Disaster Averted

My trading day was fairly uneventful until around 10:00am, when I bought BG. Looking back, I really haven't the slightest idea what I was thinking, which is remarkable, because I had no other positions at the time.

For 20 minutes, I bought the stock and then sold a half point lower. I did this 4 times with 100 shares and was down close to $300 in the stock. For the day, I was down over $400. I wish I could say that I made good, well thought out trades to bring me back, but instead, I bought BG again, this time at $115. I put my stop a half point away and went outside to start clearing some brush.

(I'm too lazy to explain the graph below... think of it as an art piece titled Frustration #119.)



A half hour later I came back and was up exactly $1 in the stock. I sold at $117.62 and counted my blessings.

I was still down on the day, but another short I put on, in SU had begun to work and pulled me back into the green.



After that, I was basically flat. I was relieved to have battled back from down over $400 (not an easy feat with my current position sizes) but also felt somewhat humbled all over again. I've felt real progress lately and I really can't explain what I was thinking with the BG. What I think happened is that I was influenced by the chat my office was having. It seemed like an active morning and I wasn't seeing much so I think I "forced" the trade...

Ultimately, BG retraced seven points. I've said it before that trades like this are in my future, but right now, I need to stay away from them... especially on a day where I was down a little. If I'm up $500 on the day and feel like risking $200 on a high volatility trade, I can do that. However, until I really have everything on track, I should really stay away from these plays. I mean, in the 20 minutes I was involved with the trade I went through all the worst kind of emotions you can have while trading... fear, self loathing, disappointment, paranoia... it's just not worth it.

It was a good lesson. I'll be staying away from these trades until I'm consistently making good money again.

So I went outside and spent the day ripping apart old woodpiles and removing leaves from the wooded lots adjacent to what passes as our "lawn." This in an effort to remove tick and mice habitat to lessen the chances of our daughter getting another tick bite.

I came inside for a drink of water and switched on the monitors to see if I was missing anything. I noticed SOL, from the HCPG watchlist, setting up just at $19. I had located 500 shares of the stock pre-open in case I needed to sell it. As it turned out, I decided to sell 400 of them just as the stock broke through the fig.



As you can see, the stock dropped 2.5 points from the entry. I made about 25 cents on the play... frustrating indeed. However, it points out how necessary it is the be able to let go of past mistakes. I was still turning over the BG trade in my head and happy just to be positive. I wasn't thinking about all the potential I was overlooking in SOL. My head was thinking about what had happened, not about what was happening at the moment.

Apparently, I still have a long way to go before I can call my trading "zen-like."

Anyway, here's the stats:

P&L, $120
Best, SU, $164
Worst, RIG, -$54

5600 shares traded.
8 stocks traded, 4 winners, 4 losers.

Virtual Office, $1057. Dow, +57.81, 12,141.58.

Timmay, $669 on 3000 shares traded.
Tokyo, $170 on 603 shares traded.
Me, $120 on 5600 shares traded.
OBAT, $94 on 6800 shares traded.
Denarii, $4 on 6400 shares traded.

It's been a long day around here, and I apologize for the late post. Ever since my daughter was bitten by that Lone Star Tick, I've been engaged in tick habitat destruction (as opposed to pesticide spraying). So, I wasn't around for the end of the trading day, instead, I was ripping apart old woodpiles and chopping wood.

Anyway, it was a solid day for the VO. The market got the little bounce it was hoping for, but I'd call it less than satisfying for the bulls. For one, volume declined. Also hurting the bounce was the fact that we closed far from the highs of the day. Indeed, the market puked up a 200 point gain to go flat, only to bounce 50 points at the very end of the day. Not exactly confidence building.

Also, Lehman Brothers (LEH) closed down again, another point, to $22.70. Maybe this will be the weekend where they get bought for $2.00. Hey, sounds crazy but it's happened before.

In my real office, I was #11 of 23 traders. The range was $6964 to -$737 (gross). I'll have a daily post up later. I had a wild trading day even though it ended early.

Stock Trading For Homeless People

If you can guess the closing price of Lehman Brothers (LEH) on Friday, you can win Timmay's Pennystocking Instructional DVD Package.

If I win, I'm going to donate it to my local homeless shelter.

Camper Van Beethoven, "Take The Skinheads Bowling"

(h/t bloggerdotcom)

Nightmares, Air Supply And Cat Pee, Oh My!

I made a point on my first trade of the day, and on my second trade of the day, I lost a point.

That was enough to give me pause.

I had just come back from surfing, and hadn't done much research or eaten breakfast. So I stared at the screens for a moment and just took a big breath. Let me give you a little background.

My alarm went off at 4:30, so I could pick up my friend and be in the water by 5:30. I was having this wild dream. I live not far from some water, and across from that water is an island. There are no bridges to this island, but in my dream, there were bridges, long rope bridges like the kind you see over gorges, and I was walking across one when a huge set of waves started rolling towards me. There was no way off the bridge since I was right in the middle, so I just wrapped myself up in some of the rope and hung on. The wave was about to hit me when I woke up. Anyway, I got my shit together and drove to pick up my friend.

A little while later, we were surfing. The sun had just risen and I was enjoying nice big breaths of the clean ocean air. Everything was perfect. But then, since the surf was on the small side, I said to my friend something like, "wow, we're out here making waves out of nothing at all." Not a second later, the Air Supply song "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All" entered my head and wouldn't leave. I mean, it had a real grip. I was trying to think of any other song, because it was ruining my beautiful morning.

That's when Pat Fucking Benatar and "Love Is A Battlefield" popped in.

At this point, I was rather beside myself. I mean, if you read this blog you know how I am about music. But then, in order to rid myself of Air Supply and Pat Benatar, I started thinking, "what could be the exact opposite of that shit?" And that's when I got the "America, Fuck Yeah!" song in my head from the South Park movie. That was in there for awhile, but eventually it disappeared and I was able to surf in peace. In fact, I had a great session.

I drove home in a big rush and was greeted at the back door by my daughter. "Daddy," she said, "Docky peed not in his box." In other words, our fucking cat, the same fucking cat that terrorized us last summer by making our house smell like a goddamn urinal, is at it again.

I stepped in, got a good whiff of that sour smell, and asked Judy, "Where's the cat?"

She said, "He knows he did something wrong. He's under the bed."

She told me that because she figured that because "he knew" he did something wrong that that was somehow punishment in itself.

Not so.

I ran upstairs (with my daughter following fast on my footsteps) and lifted the bed skirt. The cat let out a low growl and shimmied back a couple of inches, just out of my reach.

What happened next is really surprising, even to me, but it speaks to what your body can accomplish when enough adrenaline is flowing through it.

With one arm, I lifted the bed (it's low to the ground and not easy to fit under) and with the other, I made a grab for the cat's head. I got the scruff behind his neck and dragged him out. What he did to my arm is somewhat like this... it was painful. I threatened him in some crazy way (I told him I'd "ruin his face") and threw him in the bathroom.

I looked at the clock. It was 9:23.

Now, you must be wondering, why the fuck is he telling me this shit? It's simply because I wanted to lend some insight into what had already happened in my crazy head BEFORE 9:35 when I made, and then lost, a point in the same stock, on two successive trades.

In short, I was scared. Anything could have happened next.

Instead, all the excitement was behind me, and things settled down.

I made a nice trade in CMI, and scratched in everything else.



I'll take it.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $251
Best, CMI, $301
Worst, XCO, -$51

4400 shares traded.
6 stocks traded, 3 winners, 3 losers.

NOTE: That Air Supply video is perhaps the best music video ever... my question to you is, were they being ironic?

Virtual Office, $668. Dow, -207.05, 12,082.56

OBAT, $403 on 3200 shares traded.
Me, $251 on 4400 shares traded.
Denarii, $71 on 5000 shares traded.
Tokyo, -$57 on 3575 shares traded.

Damn, Lehman Brothers (LEH) is completely fucked, eh? It's never good when you drop 33% over 4 trading sessions on gigantic volume.

Volume was good again today, not a good sign for the bulls. However, I wouldn't be surprised to get a little "relief rally" tomorrow off of 12,000 should we get there. We may need to consolidate a bit before "testing the lows." We'll see.

We have two big events looming as far as trading is concerned. The Russell Rebalancing at the end of June and a (hopefully interesting) July earnings season. Remember how much last earnings season sucked?

I do. We had such low volume that I wanted to eat my television set.

Anyway, another decent day for the scaled down VO. I'm still trying to entice my "real office" members to report their stats to me. Without whores, blow, or money to offer, it's been tough.

Meanwhile, in my real office I was #7 out of 22 traders today. The office range (gross) was $1632 to -$3624.

A Relaxing Morning

This one kills me... I just like the way the kid sidles up to the horsies... sizes them up and then just goes for it.


Horse Takes Kid for a Ride - Watch more free videos

Anyway, I've had a sweet morning. I was in the water at 5:30 catching clean 2 foot waves that were breaking outside and moving all the way to shore. I was on 6 or 7 for the entire move. Great way to wake up.

I rushed home with my hair still wet and sand behind my ears, sat down at 9:25 and made a quick point on my first trade in CF. Great. Problem was that my next trade, also in CF, I lost a point. Still, I kept my cool and made a few decent trades to be up my customary $200. We'll see if anything develops for the afternoon.

As for now, I'm heading off to the local dump. A friend let me borrow his truck and I have it loaded with branches. Remains of the storm that ripped through here the other day. Also, I cleared out all my woodpiles, since they're good tick habitat. Naturally, I refuse to spray pesticides, so the only thing I can really do is reduce the habitat around here... fuck ticks.

Le Loup, "Planes Like Vultures"

Bullish Reversal

If I was a Japanese Candle Stick, and really, there's no way for you to know if I am or not, today I would have looked like a pretty solid hammer formation.

My first trade of the day was also my worst, short DSX through $32. As you can see, it didn't break, and then traded with absolutely no volume up to $32.50. I could have covered immediately for a 15 cent loss or so, but instead, I let the stock trade up to my stop, which was around $32.25 and due to the thin trade, I got out 12 cents higher, at $32.37. So I ate nearly $200 in the first few minutes.



Later, I made all my money back in him when I caught the actual break of $32.



My best stock of the day was WFR, which I was watching for a break of $62. I don't think this was an easy trade or anything, so I'm happy I took my money and left him alone.



Shortly after my DSX mess, I had another mess in SID. And really, I made the same mistake as I did in DSX. I sold expecting the stock to break the fig, but then didn't cover fast enough when it bounced. But, like DSX, I kept watching the stock and made back my losses later, and then some.



So I'm happy with the way the day turned out for me. I even mowed my lawn in the middle of the day while SID died for me. In fact, I find I'm a better trader when I put trades on and then walk away. If I stayed, I'm pretty sure I would have covered the SID early... to "lock in profit."

Perhaps letting my winners run is as easy as doing more yardwork. Who knows?

Anyway, I'm happy with the way I kept my cool after I got clipped early. Despite the nice performance put in by my real office, I don't think I missed too much today from the HCPG system. Like I said yesterday, I feel I'm improving. I'm not going to look too far ahead just yet... just try to get green tomorrow as well.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $210
Best, WFR, $147
Worst, FCX, -$34

8200 shares traded.
7 stocks traded, 3 winners, 4 losers.

Virtual Office, $242. Dow, +9.44, 12,289.76.

Me, $210 on 8200 shares traded.
Tokyo, $193 on 2308 shares traded.
OBAT, -$10 on 7000 shares traded.
Denarii, -$151 on 4600 shares traded.

Another decent volume day as we nearly reached the 1.4 billion share mark. And another day where select financials got taken to the woodshed. Take a look at LEH, FED, and ABK.

Smells like bankruptcy, no?

All of the recent winning sectors, ags, coals and oils took a breather today, which was necessary. Indeed, even oil took a breather, closing way down at $131.70.

It was a pretty quiet day in the VO. However, I want to note that yesterday, Denarii had one of his best days ever, netting $472 on 7000 shares traded. Unfortunately, he sent his numbers to Tokyo, and by the time I received them, it was too late. He gave back some today, but has a decent two-day total nonetheless.

In my real office, I was #15 of 22 overall traders. So it seemed to be a good day in general for traders. Whenever I get this data, I'll share it.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the thunderstorms that are forecast for the area this evening. May they take this heat and humidity with them.

Janes Addiction, "Summertime Rolls"

It's seriously hot out there... this song always cools me down. Makes me feel like I'm on a wave. Go sit in a dark, air conditioned room, close your eyes, listen to it, and think of the beach. Lyrics below.



Fell into
A sea of grass
And disappeared among
The shady blades...
The children all
Ran over me
Screaming tag!
You are the one!

He trips her as
Her sandals fail
She says stop!
I'm a girl...
Whose fingernails are made
Of a mother's pearl...
Yellow buttercup
Helicopters
Orange buttercat
Chasing after
The crazy bee
Mad about somebody
Oh no...

Me and my girlfriend
Don't wear no shoes
Her nose is painted pepper
Sunlight...
She loves me
I mean it's serious
As serious can be...

Well, she sings a song and
I listen to what it says:
If you want a friend
Feed any animal...
There was so much space
I cut me a piece
With some fine wine
It brought peace to my mind
In the summertime...
And it rolled
Summer.... ohhhh...
Oh, oh, oh... the summertime rolls
Summer.... ohhhh...
Oh, oh, oh... the summertime rolls
Oh Summer.... Yeah, yeah yeah...
Oh, oh, oh... summertime rolls
Summer.... Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah...
Oh, oh, oh... summertime rolls

Me and my girlfriend
Don't wear no clothes ya know,
Her nose is a pepper sunlight...
I love her
And me, it so so serious
As serious can be...

America Should Thank The Daily Show

Why? Because ironically enough, they're the only reliable news outlet...

Food Shortage Hits Your Local Pizza Joint

Thief Steals Dudes Pizza - Watch more free videos

Suede, "The Drowners"

Great song if you like "the Britpop."

Gaining Traction

Since my "hell week" from early last month, where I lost 5 days in a row, I've been on a decent run. I've been green about 2 of every 3 days and have booked $2000 in gains. Surely, a $24,000 year is nothing to be too proud of, but all of those gains were made entirely from the new style of trading I've been working on... no "old DT" plays.

Once you get the hang of a style of trading, and gain confidence in it, making more money with it is as simple (okay... or as difficult) as increasing your position sizes. Since I've been trading largely with 200 and 300 share positions, it shouldn't be too difficult to almost get to a living wage level of earnings again.

I've been trading extremely lightly... trying hard to identify exactly the right time to enter positions in order to maximize my gains and control my losses. I've been very careful with my position sizing. I haven't had any psychologically damaging loss days... in short, I feel as if I've made some real progress. I mean, I know why I'm making money, and when I lose money, I know what I'm doing wrong. I also know that I've left a lot on the table, even with my small size... I could have done much better this past month even with my small lots.

Perhaps my hell week was the bottom. Anyway, I've been bouncing along this bottom for so long, that I'm cautiously optimistic at best... but I feel better, at least.

My best trade of the day came in CMI. HCPG alerted to a possible short through $66. It was a little wild early, but calmed down right by the opening low to plunge through $66.50. I caught a quick half point on 400 of the 500 shares. The other 100 shares I stopped at my entry, hoping for a larger move.



Unfortunately, the "larger move" I was hoping for came in the middle of the day, when I'm loath to trade. I also wasn't quite sure how to handle the stock since it had already violated "the number" in the morning and sharply rallied back through it... so I missed it.



Too bad.

I also had some decent trades in XTO and CSH. Again, the best thing is that I kept my losses in check. My worst loss of the day was on a 100 share position in FCX, for $58.

Off to the beach for some sunset dining with friends. It's way too hot to hang around in the house...

Anyway, here's the stats:

P&L, $270
Best, CMI, $205
Worst, FCX, -$58

4800 shares traded
9 stocks traded, 4 winners, 5 losers.

Virtual Office, $334. Dow, +70.51, 12280.32.

Me, $275 on 4800 shares traded.
OBAT, $50 on 11,200 shares traded.
Tokyo, $9 on 3449 shares traded.

For a June Monday, the market yielded some nice action.

The ag stocks continued their meteoric run, then "shit the shower," gave back most of their gains and then made them back again in the last 30 minutes... AAPL unveiled a new product, oil dropped nearly $3 in just a few minutes and then bounced $2... the list goes on... LEH... coal... you name it.

There's crazy shit going on...

This market loves to confuse. I find it interesting that as we enter into the summer doldrums, when volume typically quiets down, that volume is actually starting to increase. We traded over 1.3 billion shares today. Nice. I'll take it. That said, 165 million of that was in LEH.

Could we expect another interesting summer of trading? One can hope.

Anyway, the VO had a rather quiet day and my real office was about 60% positive. Speaking of the VO, let me take this opportunity to once again thank Tokyo Trader for doing such a fine job hosting it last week.

Stay tuned for a potentially big development concerning this here blog to drop later in the week.

Bush On $4 Gasoline

Watch how instead of answering the question, he subtly mocks the reporter... "So, you're predicting $4 gasoline?"

Varying Impact Of High Gas Prices

Here's a very interesting graphic about how the "high" cost of gasoline is effecting the different parts of the country.

As for everything else, we were away all weekend and I have some catching up to do... my daughter has STARI (not Lyme) and we're treating her but she is getting better. In fact, she's no longer showing any symptoms, which is wonderful. Thanks for all the email with well wishes.

And look, if you're heading out into "tick country" this summer with the kids and they get a tick bite, BE SURE to save the tick (remove it and put it in some alcohol... oh, and just remove it with tweezers, no burning its ass with a match or drowning it in Vaseline) and send it here for analysis. It's easy and will make any diagnosis of the disease it carries (if any) easier.

I'll work on a post later today or this evening.

Black Gold Indeed...

Yesterday I was at the pump and there was some guy with a buzz cut and calf muscles the size of my head filling up his Ford Excursion. He was just staring at the pump, shaking his head and saying to no one in particular, "this is fucking ridiculous!"

After he filled up, he walked towards the little shop where they sell other savory items like cigarettes and looked as if he was going to punch the window. He took a step back, fuming, and luckily, considered his options. He jumped back into his Excursion and probably paid $0.50 just to get to the traffic light at the end of the block.

In short, expect "gas station rage" to come to a busy intersection near you!

Of course, I couldn't be happier... now if it can go high enough to get my idiot neighbor to stop chasing 10 leaves around his yard with his gas powered leaf blower, we'll be getting somewhere.