With Palin basically calling Obama a terrorist this weekend for being a member of a charity board with an old member of the Weather Underground, I thought I should point that the McCain campaign is against free speech.
Why not? One exaggeration deserves another, no?
From Yahoo:
Reporters weren't permitted to wander around inside Coachman Park in Clearwater to talk to Palin's audience, the St. Petersburg Times reported.When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head to where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out, confront him or her and say, "Can I help you?" and turn the person around, Times staff writer Eileen Schulte wrote on the paper's Web site. When one reporter asked an escort, who would not give her name, why the press wasn't allowed to mingle, she said that in the past, negative things had been written, Schulte reported.
Note: Art was wearing a vintage Dow 10,000 hat... below is a paraphrase of his brief comments this morning.
Worried about what's going on in Europe, and it may spiral out of control.
Some concern in the market, did we wait too long?
Maybe we get a good capitulation sell off today, then a little continuation tomorrow morning and then a sharp reversal. That would be one right out of the trader's handbook.
Looking at close to a 300 point gap down in the Dow pre-open. World indexes are all down 5% or more. Russia closed after their index dropped 17%.
No worries though... they'll cut 50bp today to squeeze the hell out of any remaining shorts.
Then we'll drop another few hundo tomorrow.
Nothing is "oversold."
This was dead on.
Check out the Sarah Palin debate flow chart. Hilarious.
And here's a link to the real debate... (h/t "Trader K")
Yesterday, at a party, I was cornered by a man with fancy pants who found out that I was a trader. He started to talk to me about all kinds of "economic theory" and "exotic financial instruments." He was in his mid 40s and retired.
Now, I have no financial background and I'm just not interested in financial talk, unless it's from a human perspective. Like, I enjoy talking about how people react to crazy news events, depressions, etc.
People who jump out of windows and horde food supplies and gold... that makes for good conversation. Talking about how one financial instrument influences another is not.
So anyway, after listening to this guy for probably 15 minutes and retaining absolutely nothing, minus some interesting tidbit about the government banning the purchase of gold in 1931 or something, he started asking me questions about stuff.
Without being a dick about it, I just said that I knew nothing about finance, and didn't care to clutter my head that sort of knowledge.
"In fact," I said, "if I knew too much, it could hinder my ability to trade, because I might come up with bad reasons to stay in trades that were going against me," and I cited the famous quote from John Maynard Keynes about "the market staying irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
He liked that. Happily, we moved on to discuss something more interesting, like "how to manipulate people." Still, in the back of my head, I felt a little guilty, being a writer for a blog that's somewhat about finance, while knowing nothing about it.
So, in order to feel better about this situation, I spent a few minutes this morning reading an article about Fannie Mae. It's a good one, and I suggest you check it out, so that you too can bore people about your "financial knowledge" at dinner parties.
"Trader B's" musical selection.
Note... I have entered a new label for "boss music."
In the last few weeks, probably 80% of the RO's profits have been made in the last hour and a half each day. The last couple of days has seen a straight reversal of that trend.
I would have been a boss today, had I not traded the close... ah well, next week I will be trading a little more cautiously. The bailout news is behind us. Now it seems, we're waiting on a possible surprise rate cut.
"Trader B" schooled the RO today. From now on, whenever the top boss just completely outperforms the rest of the group, I will ask them to pick the evening musical selection.
Anyway, it's Friday, let's get right to it. Out of 21 traders today, 12 were gross positive, or 57%. I think the RO is turning into a pretty good indicator for judging the trading environment. When 75% of more of the traders are gross positive, shit is on. I was #10 of 21. Positive, but frustrated by a huge giveback. The office was up today, so the Bosses are back on top.
Have a good weekend.
Here are today's Bosses:
1. Trader B, $48,545 on 853k shares traded.
2. Trader D, $18,006 on 256k shares traded.
3. Trader K, $9,324 on 163k shares traded.
4. Trader O, $1,525 on 17,800 shares traded.
5. Trader L, $651 on 94,200 shares traded.
And the Manservants:
1. Trader C, -$30,051 on 658k shares traded.
2. Trader F, -$6,336 on 170k shares traded.
3. Trader R, -$4,226 on 78,944 shares traded.
4. Trader E, -$3,563 on 81,400 shares traded.
5. Trader Z, -$2,758 on 156k shares traded.
(paraphrasing what he just said on CNBC)
What's keeping us from totally rolling is the idea that Bernanke said they'd use "every tool in the toolbox."
We come in Monday and if the commercial paper market hasn't loosened, the idea is that the Fed may come in Monday and cut 50bp.
(h/t Wall Street Fighter)
NOTE: Okay, this post hasn't gotten any discussion. I thought for sure it would. That's a cat. On the cat, is taped a piece of bacon. That's fucking hilarious. What's wrong with you people?
No thanks to the Republicans, who voted against it 91-108. Well, now the Dems "own" this bill. Should it work, they'll get all the credit. Should it fail, they'll get all the blame.
So much for "changing the partisan tone" in Washington, eh?
Why are they still on CNBC? I mean, for the last year, all I remember is Dennis Kneale telling people that we were "talking ourselves" into a recession and Larry Kudlow telling everyone that the "Goldilocks economy" was alive and well.
People are so pissed off at Wall Street, how about getting pissed off at the right wing propagandaists on CNBC who have been pushing the Bush Administration's economic talking points during this crisis?
Just wondering.
(Meanwhile, anyone know how I could get their pictures side by side?)
Now that Palin won the debate, (told you so) I figured I spring this little vid on you (h/t Dinosister). Sure it's a little over the top, but it's funny.
Meanwhile, in another of example of "DT Wins Again!" since I've been intentionally spelling "Palin" "Pailin" in my post titles, many unsuspecting Republicans who typed "Pailin Wins Debate" were treated to my post with the hot blond chick and the media criticism.
Yesssss! Love those phonetic spellers. In fact, if you watched the debate, I'm sure we can deduce that Palin spells "nuclear" "new-cue-lar."
I found her manner of speech cute, more like, adorable.
I like a lot of the Chili Peppers early stuff. But this song is disgraceful. The vid is decent though.
I don't look at my P&L while I trade. However, from the very first today, the day was bad for me. I fought the market ALL DAY LONG. And of course, I lost. At 3:15 I finally switched up my game, got short, and made some money back, but it was an expensive lesson. In short, I was swinging for a homerun today. Time to get back to hitting singles.
Amazingly, I'm only the #5 "Manservant" today. I deserved to be #1 with my stupidity.
I blame Sarah Palin. Fuck her in advance for "winning" the debate tonight.
Anyway, it's late. For two days in a row, the RO is in the red. Some of the strategies that were working 2 weeks ago are failing. It wasn't a bad day for everyone in the RO, but for those who had a bad day, they had really bad days.
Out of 21 traders today, 12 were positive, or 57%. I was number 17 of 21, or, completely smoked. Since the office as a whole was red, the "Manservants" are on top again.
Here are today's Manservants:
1. Trader D, -$57,280 on 1.1 million shares traded.
2. Trader B, -$31,159 on 1.1 million shares traded.
3. Trader H, -$20,978 on 4,500 shares traded.
4. Trader G, -$4,887 on 151k shares traded.
5. Trader S, -$4,243 on 104k shares traded.
And the Bosses:
1. Trader C, $29,174 on 554k shares traded.
2. Trader Z, $9,187 on 305k shares traded.
3. Trader F, $7,446 on 145k shares traded.
4. Trader K, $2,858 on 277k shares traded.
5. Trader J, $1,871 on 111k shares traded.
