NCR

Bought this for the LT account. Saw the huge volume in it yesterday, like the way it's held up, and just felt like going in... stopped at $24.

REITS

Take a gander at the way the REITS closed yesterday's session...

Check, SSS, KIM, VNO, SPG, MAC, CBL, etc.

Sizzling.

Same Shit, 34 Years Later...

I saw my mother last night. Her father was a printer for the New York Times back in the 40s thru the 70s. I was born in 1974, and for my birth, I received a miniaturized cover of the NYT from that day. Since she's cleaning out her attic, she gave me the copy.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting. Here's the big headline. How depressing.

ARAB DECISION TO END EMBARGO
ON OIL SALES TO U.S. IS REPORTED;
LEVEL OF OUTPUT UNDER STUDY
Quick Results On Gasoline Are Expected

Can't we move on already? What a tragedy that we're still discussing the same shit, 34 years later. We owe it to our children (and grandchildren) to not make this an issue for the next generation.

The Arcade Fire, "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)"

One of my favorite songs about the apocalypse. One of...

Best Day In Months

NOV is my best, followed by shorts in RIG, V and a nice long in ACI. Biggest loser is for $25. This will have to stand as my daily post, as I have to leave now to go take my continuing education exam.



Later tonight I'll report back with my RO numbers.

And, as always, good music drops with the sun.

UPDATE: The RO had a ridiculous day, with top dog checking in at $42 grand. There was also a trader in the high 30s, a dude in the teens, and 6 other guys up over 3 grand each. Only 2 guys were negative, with the "dirt eater" in at -$3250. I was #16 of 23 traders today... insane.

Auto Posting

I'll really be in and out the next couple of days, but I have a lot of fun shit set to autopost in my absence.

I won't be here to police comments, but since the "comment box" has been quieter than a hooker bound and gagged in a closet, I think it's okay to step out for a bit.

Enjoy.

Another Person Who Shouldn't Be A Trader...

This Film Is Not Yet Rated

Recommended.

Fleet Foxes, "White Winter Hymnal"

Official video. Looking forward to Wednesday.

First Trade Is The Best Trade

This has been the theme of my last few weeks. I come in, make a few hundred in the first few minutes and then, I churn a little away...

It happened again today, as my first trade of the day, in SLB, was also my best.

In the first minute of the trading day, SLB dropped from $101 to $100. Since it was a perfect "touch" at $100, I felt pretty good to enter after he bounced up to $100.25 and then dropped straight back down. So I got 400 shares off at $100. I covered at $99.65, $99.50, $99.43 and $99.29. I'm not throwing a graph up, since this all happened in the first 3 minutes of the day... the graph doesn't show much.

Anyway, after that, I made many messy little trades. But the good news is, I limited my losses on them all. My largest loser of the day was APA, for $65. I jumped the gun on this short soon after I covered my SLB and paid a small price. I paid a larger price when I missed the actual drop through $130 about 2 hours later... I need to work on continuing to pay attention to stocks after I feel I "missed" the trade, because often, I've just been early.

I also caught a nice short on ME through $32 that helped eat up almost all of my losers.

All in all, another green day. I still have static going on, but it's definitely lessening, and I feel it when I make the bad trades. I think this will continue to improve.

Anyway, it'll be a hard week for me to blog very actively. Tomorrow, I have to take my Series 7 "continuing education" requirement, and then I have some family matters to attend to the next couple of days after the close. Also, on Wednesday night, I'll be seeing the Fleet Foxes.

But man, I don't mind slowing down in all this heat and humidity... and who wants to be staring at a computer screen anyway? Can't you just feel the heat emanating from it, frying your face?

Good music drops with the sun.

UPDATE: Oh, and for those interested in the RO, it was a pretty good day... however, also a very stressful one. Most of the traders took heavy losses early and then came back in the afternoon for some relatively modest gains. I was #14 of 23 today.

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Presidency

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

Grateful Dead, "Bertha"

How nice that they've named a hurricane after a good song.



Anyway, I pay attention to hurricanes for a few reasons.

First of all, I'm a homeowner, and uncomfortably close to some water.

Second, I'm a trader, and when the next Cat 5 ruins the Gulf Of Mexico, I want to be all over it, mostly so I can laugh at Cajun.

Finally, I'm a surfer, and so I track Atlantic storms to see if they'll produce groundswell.

Anyway, for all these reasons, I'm including a seasonal link to The Storm Track.

Hopefully, they all stay way out in the Atlantic... close enough to produce some surf, but far enough away so that they don't ruin my house.

Bertha is out there brewing as we speak. While it won't threaten the oil rigs (or Cajun's trailer), it should produce some waves!

Sloppy Sidebar

I'm in the middle of editing my blogroll... I'm considering changing it to sort by time... I'm also gonna delete all the dormant blogs in an effort to clean things up. If any of you who have dormant blogs start blogging again, just email me.

Anyway, it'll be sloppy until I work out the kinks.

Animal Collective, "Fireworks"

Happy 4th of July. See you Monday.

Coasting Into The Holiday

Dude made $82 grand in my office today... on a half day... same guy who made $30 grand yesterday.

Sadly, I made a fraction of that. Still, I made money.

My first trade of the day was also my best and most profitable.



I also caught shorts in PCU through $100 and V through $78. However, it should be noted, that V was trading like a dick. I had one small loss in RIG. Sadly, I just missed a big trade in the fucker, but he stopped me out right before a good drop.

The reason I'm so optimistic about my trading recently is because, well, first of all, I haven't been losing money. Second, I still see loads of room for improvement. Third, I'm still trading small size. I just need to tighten up a bit more, add some shares now that I'm making good consistent decisions and things should be okay.

Of course, the market could change at any moment...

Anyway, I'm keeping this post short. My glass of Pernod calls.

Enjoy the long weekend.

Good music drops with the sun.

Who's A Bigger Dick? Kudlow? Or Kneale?

-dick


-dick

Something to talk about over your 4th of July holiday. Please vote over there, to the right.

Time To Get Greedy

I think I'm finally putting fear to rest.

After only 4 losing days last month and a good start to this month, I'm seeing real signs of confidence come back into my trading.

Think of Dinosaur Trader as an airplane. I make the same flights whether or not my plane has 2 passengers, or 200 passengers. The way I build profits again, is by adding passengers.

I'm flying there, might as well fill the plane, right?

And now, for Fugazi's take on Greed.

Fleet Foxes, "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song"

Simply mesmerizing... My current favorite song from their new album. I'll be seeing them live in a week. Can't wait.

Coal Stocks Drop Hard

-coalfall

My goodness... the moves in the coal, steel and ag names were epic. I didn't trade those moves...

Instead, I caught a nice move in SWN early, and pretty much scratched after that.

For whatever reason, I can't save esiggy charts to blogger right now, so I'll just describe the situation.

I was watching SWN to crest $50. This has been on the HCPG watchlist for the last couple of weeks. The stock opened at $49.75 and then based around that level for a few minutes. At 9:34, the stock traded $50, I entered at $50.10 and the thing just went vertical. I exited a couple hundred shares at $50.43 and then a few hundred more just over $51.

It was 9:36 and I was up nicely.

I got a little greedy though, and decided to try to play the short side of oils when they started to roll. I was early to the trade though, and barely missed huge moves.

So I gave a little back from my early morning highs, no big deal, and chalked up another win.

Again, the RO had a gigantic day.

Two guys in the RO were up over $25 grand, and a number of other players traded into the mid-thousands.

However, I want to share a little tidbit from some of the chat today. I know a lot of people are thinking, "Geez, idiot... these guys in your office are making such huge money, why don't you just do what they do?" It's because I can't deal with the huge drawdowns that are necessary to trade like they do...

Here they are talking about their P&L swings today...

Trader A: my pnl went from -20 to +15 to -4 to +26 here. what was the biggest drawdown for u?

Trader B: was up 8 then went flat.

They're talking thousands of dollars...

If I think of this job as a career, it's all about the slow build back right now... while it's tempting to doubt myself after days like yesterday and today, I'm thinking 5 years out, when I'm not burnt out and stacking coin every day, just like the good ole days.

I'm not saying those guys will be burnt out... I'm just saying I can't take those swings anymore. So I'm gonna keep trying to make a few hundred a day, and slowly build it up to a few thousand a day...

If I can do that, in 5 years, I won't give a damn about missing the coal shorts today.

Good music will drop with the sun.

Fog

Normally, if you're standing on the shore and you can't see the waves breaking, you don't paddle out.

However, last night we were at the beach, so I had a pretty good idea what I was paddling into this morning. That said, I was pretty unprepared for the thickness of the fog once I got out to what I presumed to be "the lineup."

I was out with 2 friends and after I caught one wave, lost them. Now and then through the white I'd briefly see a silhouette of a surfer, but the conditions were a little wild, and it was hard to stay close together. I could hear dogs barking on the shore through the sound of the distant shorebreak and the terns above me, but I could see nothing other than the white walls of fog that were about 25 feet away from me on all sides.

It was lonely and quiet in that white room. You can really get some thoughts going in your head when you're out there like that.

The night before, a very good surfer paddled in and was talking about "huge whirls" that were coming to the surface. With a large swell, sometimes fat sea bass come and feed close to the shore, chasing the little bait fish into the rock shallows. So people laughed him off, talking about the "Great White Sea Bass" and stuff, but it definitely felt "sharky" out there this morning, in the fog. So when a fairly large fish jumped clear out of the water about 10 feet from where I sat on my board, I could only wonder was was swimming beneath him, chasing him to the surface like that.

I took a wave, a long right, and as the wave petered out, found myself among boulders. Where the hell was I? As it turned out, I was two beaches over from where I originally paddled out. I managed to get out of the water, unharmed, and began stepping among the huge boulders on shore to get back to the break. I walked by a parking area where a few surfers where standing staring out into the fog.

"Anything out there?" one asked.

"Yeah, if you can find it." I said.

I paddled back out and remarkably, found one of my friends. "We're over at Boulders, man!" I yelled over.

"No fuck! Let's paddle back over to where the car is."

And so we paddled, silently, through the fog while the waves passed under us on their way towards shore. We found our other friend. He was out of breath and disoriented.

"Where the hell are we?" he shouted.

We told him, and now three of us paddled west, through the white, through the quiet. After some time, we got to a place where the waves seemed to be breaking in a coherent way, and we stopped, exhausted, assuming we were back at our original break.

I took a wave, and as I neared the shore, I saw a couple of lifeguard chairs and a few houses dotting the dunes. Once again, I hadn't the slightest idea where we were. I paddled in to shore and stood on the beach staring out into the solid white mist looking for signs of my friends.

Nothing.

After a couple of minutes, a dog heaved past me, all wild-eyes and hanging tongue, chasing after a ball. That was reassuring and brought me back to land. Moments later, my friends washed in, rather loosely, on their boards.

Some workout.

As it turns out, we had overshot the original break by a half mile. All told, we'd only been in the water for an hour but probably traveled over a mile back and forth, from one break to another, parallel to the shore. We couldn't see how strong the drift was through the fog...

When you're confused about your surroundings, time really slows down... it felt like we were out there for hours, lost and paddling. It taught me an important lesson... you have to keep your cool... I mean, we were never more than a couple hundred meters from shore, but it felt like we were in the middle of the ocean since we couldn't see anything. I let that perception trump the reality of the situation, and the rollercoaster my mind went on, ended up exhausting my body.

Anyway, we were able to laugh about it over egg sandwiches and coffee 20 minutes later, but I don't think I'll be paddling into fog again anytime soon.