Upcoming

I'll post my daily post later tonight.

Tomorrow I will have the "Weekend Walk" links.

Sunday, if all goes well, I will have another "History" post up.

Virtual Office, $4138. Dow +153.35

EvolutionTrader, $3631 on 38,000 shares traded.
Misstrade, $1010 on 15,000 shares traded.
One Bad-Ass Trader, $265 on 25,800 shares traded.
NYSE Scalper, $86 on 25,600 shares traded.
DenariiTrader, -$41 on 3200 shares traded.
Me, -$312 on 47,400 shares traded.
DehTrader, -$501 on 21,100 shares traded.
TWW, did not trade today.

I must say that one of the more satisfying things about doing this VO is always having at least a little good news to report.

ET had a pretty huge day today and I for one will be checking his blog to see what worked. Congrats on a great day ET, especially since Wednesday you got roughed up. Misstrade is a little like the market... going relentlessly higher. OBAT continued the strength he flashed yesterday. Also his volume is on the rise. Something in the water? Scalper had a mushy day but as I like to point out here, green is green.

The rest of us couldn't put together the pieces today. Perhaps the weekend will prove restful and we'll all be green on Monday.

Get outside and breathe some air this weekend!

P.S. I have plans immediately after the close and will not be doing my daily post until later this evening.

The Noon Glance

P&L -$442

There will be a day where I can manage to make money again, but it may not be today.

Animal Collective - Flesh Canoe

I let you off easy last week with a Bob Dylan song. It's been a tough week here, so I threw up a slightly more challenging piece for you to absorb.

If you're not familiar with Animal Collective well, get familiar.

A reviewer wrote once that he never understood Animal Collective until he had their stuff on while he was driving through a massive thunderstorm in the middle of the night. Lightning was flashing, his wipers were swiping as fast as they could, there were deep puddles on the road and he was scared.




Enjoy your weekend. Get outside.

An afternoon walk to clear the mind

At 4:00, my house was attacked by toddlers. I surveyed the situation. It was well outside of my control. The market broke me today and if I hung around the house, the toddlers were going to finish me off.

So, I fled to the woodlands in search of birds.

I walked around this pond that's not far from my house. Spring migration has begun and the early warbler migrants have arrived. After a short search, I was able to spot a few Palm Warblers springing out from the tops of trees, snagging insects. It was peaceful. I watched them for about 45 minutes.

During that time outside, listening to the water move and watching the birds I completely forgot about how much the market sucks.

So tomorrow, when I'm in the thick of it, hopefully this picture of a Palm Warbler will help me keep my head together.



If that doesn't work, there's always the pictures over at the Trading Goddess.

The market hates me and I hate it.

It's been a real battle here lately.

This morning I was down about $700 or so and then rallied and went up $600. Then, I went back into the red a little but by lunch had pulled into the green again. Most of the morning activity I had was in WSO. It was nuts. Check the graph.


The afternoon saw me churn, get frustrated and go back into the red. Another small loss. I can't seem to find winners lately and I think it's because I'm trading not to lose more than trading to win. Any advice? Dinosaurs have big ears.

I need to get away from the computer for the rest of the afternoon. Today is "playgroup" day at our house so there are 8 toddlers tearing my living room apart downstairs and 8 mothers drinking tea and eating cookies. I have to get out of here... quickly. Here are the stats:

P&L -$205

Best, JASO $155

Worst, RAS -$77

stocks traded, 22, 7 positive, 15 negative

shares traded, 43,200

total trades, 282

Virtual Office, -$951. Dow 4.79.

EvolutionTrader, $809 on 22,600 shares traded.
DehTrader, $354 on 37,000 shares traded.
One Bad-Ass Trader, $314 on 18,400 shares traded.
NYSE Scalper, $111 on 63,400 shares traded.
Misstrade, -$177 on 5100 shares traded.
Me, -$204 on 43,200 shares traded.
DenarriTrader, -$325 on 5400 shares traded.
TradeWhileWorking, -$1833 on 5600 shares traded.


The VO took a hit today. Like yesterday, we had 4 positive posters and 4 negative. Let's hope tomorrow we all finish out the week strong.

Nice bounce back today for ET. I know that when you get roughed up one day there's nothing like coming back strong the next. Dehtrader had another nice gain, consistent gains like that lead to nice years. $500 net a day means $120,000 for the year. Also notable today was the strength demostrated by OBAT. After a couple weeks of small losses and small gains, he pulled it together today for a nice win. Scalper spent the better part of the day paring losses but closed green, always the right way to end the day.

I still can't believe the market is going up.

The Noon Glance

Been all over the map today thanks to some wild volatility in WSO which I am now out of. It was my worst stock of the day but now is my best.

Lots of movement today. No idea what's gonna happen here though... the market just keeps edging higher from the open and I just keep feeling more and more bearish.... go figure.

P&L $242

The stock market hates you

This may seem funny but it is an important rule to remember and it is very true... the stock market and all of the stocks that comprise it, hate you. Had I remembered this simple rule today I could have avoided some of my losses.

I lost a total of $379 today but I lost $534 in just one stock, RAS. My next biggest loser was for $58...

Why did I lose so much in this one single stock? Because I over-traded it.

Why over-trade it? Because I've had good success in this stock recently. I thought I "knew" the stock...

Wrong. Anyway, I won't get into all the details of my trades in RAS because not one trade really stands out as awful. I just lost small in the stock, over and over again. I kept going back because I kept thinking, "This is the time I win". I've included the graph here with all the little lines I drew on it so you can laugh along with me. And I may make a new personal stock trading rule... if I draw more than 3 trendlines on a graph I should probably just leave it alone.




Other than RAS, I made one other error towards the close. I decided to "do an MOC" or Market on Close order in SKT. At 3:40 they published 500,000 shares to buy. That was some huge percentage of the daily volume in SKT, so I jumped on it and was filled around 41.80. At 3:50 when the updated numbers for the MOCs comes out I was completely shocked to see the entire order had been filled, "No Market On Close Imbalance SKT". Normally, if a stock with the daily volume of SKT has an imbalance of over 100,000 it at least has a little left for the last print.


Not this time. The stock dove. Once you enter an MOC order, you're locked in so there was nothing I could do but watch helplessly. So, the worst thing about this trade was that I was transfixed by it for the last 20 minutes of the day and I probably missed a couple of other things that could have made me some money. Luckily, the stock did print up to close at 41.75 so I only lost $50 but still... I lost.



Other than that, the day was pretty quiet here. I babysat between 2 and 3 because my wife had a dentist appointment and that kind of threw a wrench in my afternoon. Who knows? Maybe that was a good thing. And I got to hear all about the parrots at the aquarium.

Anyway, here are the stats:

P&L, -$379
Best: FED, $110
Worst: RAS, -$594

stocks traded, 28, 12 positive... 16 negative
shares traded, 40,400
total trades, 250

Virtual Office, $573. Dow up 30.80.

Misstrade, $2080 on 8000 shares traded.

NYSE Scalper, $804 on 63,800 shares traded.

DehTrader, $568 on 26,600 shares traded.

DenarriTrader, $137 on 8600 shares traded.

One Bad-Ass Trader, -$4 on 18,400 shares traded.

Me, -$379 on 40,400 shares traded.

EvolutionTrader, -$1212 on 40,200 shares traded.

TradeWhileWorking, -$1421 on 1200 shares traded.


The VO managed to stay green today, but it wasn't easy. Only half the members made money.

Misstrade clearly is doing something right. Go check out his blog to see if he tells you any secrets. I am impressed with the Scalper's performance this week. He took a couple of hits but cut his losses to acceptable levels and has fought back hard. Nice job, JC! New member DehTrader had a solid day while DenarriTrader had a quiet but green day... and green is green.

The rest of us were to the downside. OBAT had a learning and churning kind of day. I made a startling error of judgement towards the end of the day that cost me a couple hundred bucks. Idiocy. And I'm sure ET is disappointed with his results. We'll have to check in and see what happened. TWW too had a disappointing day on a day where he said he wouldn't be trading much. Check his site for the full story.

The Noon Glance

Now that I don't keep my P&L up on my screen while I'm trading (it distracts me) I take one glance at noon each day.

For fun, and because I'm losing today and like self-flaggelation, I think I'll post this number every day at noon. I will call these posts (insert drumroll here) The Noon Glance!

Depending on how busy I am each day, this post may only be a number. Today, I am not as busy as I hoped, thus the words.

P&L -$399

New member of the VO

I'm happy to welcome a fresh face to the VO this afternoon, DehTrader.

If you are interested in joining the VO, send me an email. All that is required is that you trade actively, update your blog daily and send me your net P&L and shares traded each day immediately after the close.

For now, I am restricting the VO to stock traders. If you are not a stock trader and can figure out a good way to post your figures, send me an email. Dinosaurs have big ears.

Trade well, DT

UPDATE, 9:15am: Make that 2 new traders. DenariiTrader will also be joining the VO as of this afternoon.

The Turkey Trap

From, How To Make Money In Stocks, by William O'Neil.

A little boy was walking down the road when he came upon an old man trying to catch wild turkeys. The man had a turkey trap, a crude device consisting of a big box with the door hinged at the top. This door was kept open by a prop to which was tied a piece of twine leading back a hundred feet or more to the operator. A thin trail of corn scattered along a path lured turkeys to the box. Once inside, the turkeys found an even more plentiful supply of corn. When enough turkeys had wandered inside the box, the old man would jerk away the prop and let the door fall shut. Having once shut the door, he couldn't open it again without going up to the box and this would scare away any turkeys lurking outside. The time to pull away the prop was when as many turkeys were inside as one could reasonably expect.

One day he had a dozen turkeys in his box. Then one sauntered out, leaving 11. "Gosh, I wish I had pulled the string when all 12 were there," said the old man. "I'll wait a minute and maybe the other one will go back."

While he waited for the twelfth turkey to return, two more walked out on him. "I should have been satisfied with 11," the trapper said. "Just as soon as I get one more back, I'll pull the string."

Three more walked out, and still the man waited. Having once had 12 turkeys, he disliked going home with less than eight. He couldn't give up the idea that some of the original turkeys would return. When finally only one turkey was left in the trap, he said, "I'll wait until he walks out or another goes in, and then I'll quit." The solitary turkey went to join the others, and the man returned empty-handed.

The psychology of the normal investor is not much different. They hope more turkeys will return to the box when they should fear that all will walk out and they'll be left with nothing."

And so it was with me today. I was never having a stellar day, but at one point, I was up close to $400 with not many positions to take me lower. This was around 11:30 which would have been a perfect time to stop trading for awhile. What happened was that I started feeling pretty bearish and so I decided to get short some stock. I never took any big losses or anything, but I don't think I had one winning trade for the rest of the day.

I kept waiting to get back about $300, then $250, then $200 and so on until I lost it all and went negative. Nothing was happening for me today after 11:30. None of my stocks were moving. The mistake I made today was not recognizing this earlier.

As disappointed as I am that I lost my profits today, I'm happy that again I stuck to my rules. My best trade of the day was in TAM, which I bought as it broke it's 60 minute downtrend line.



Even with this loss, I'm regaining confidence and I'm going to start building my positions back up. Here are the stats:

P&L, -$25
Best, TAM $275
Worst, ITG -$97

stocks traded, 21, 7 positive, 14 negative
shares traded, 28,200
total trades, 210 (obvious churn for a day like today)

Virtual Office, $2807

Misstrade, $2670 on 8000 shares traded.
NYSE Scalper, $658 on 58,000 shares traded.
Evolution Trader, $52 on 41,400 shares traded.
Me, -$25 on 28,200 shares traded
One Bad-Ass Trader, -$36 on 3000 shares traded.
TradeWhileWorking, -$512 on 6700 shares traded.

A slow day for most in the VO although Misstrade kept to his winning ways and the Scalper had a nice bounce back from yesterday's loss.

I can't speak for the other traders, but today was excruciatingly dull as far as I'm concerned. I will detail this dullness later in full sparkling detail.

However, for now I must go as I have plans immediately after the close.

So far so slow

I feel like today is much like yesterday. Action in the first 30 minutes and since then, tight, rangebound trade.

Seems like all the sub-prime issues are slowly being forgotten as all of the mortgage type stocks are strong again.

I've had one decent trade in TAM but other than that, all is quiet. Volume is a little lighter than it was at this time yesterday on the NYSE. I think I'm going to walk away for awhile, happy with my small gains and try to find a couple of trades in the afternoon session.

Gonna sip on some green tea and finish Our Man In Havana.

See you this afternoon. For now, check out this Great Moment in Presidential Speeches segment, courtesy of David Letterman.

Happy Monday

Today I sold shit for $243. Okay, okay... I'll explain.

My wife called me downstairs at 9:25 to tell me that "the oil guy is here" to clean the burner. I hate having people I don't know in my house, especially when I know they'll be bothering me while I work and even more when they arrive when the market is about to open. I'm easily bothered, I admit it.

Anyway, sure enough, 2 minutes later, Judy calls me again to tell me the guy can't figure out how to turn on the lights in the basement. I rush down to the basement. The dude, who looks like a "carnie" is standing in my basement in the dark, looking at the cat litter boxes and mumbling something to me about ferrets. I turn on the lights, but clearly, this man wants to talk to me... about his pets.


It must be very close to 9:30, but he begins to ramble. He had a cat, but his lizard ate his cat, so he doesn't have a cat anymore. He has 9 ferrets. I should get ferrets he tells me... he also has goldfish, 3 birds and a turtle. Anyway, I couldn't get a word in to tell him that I had to get upstairs to work.


Luckily, Judy yelled down in her "emergency" voice and I ran up the stairs. There in the middle of our kitchen stood our son, naked, and a pile of shit. He's potty training, but today he had an accident. He smiled at me, seemingly not concerned about the shit and said, "I got socks! You got socks, Daddy?" Judy was flustered. One of our cats, not known for his intelligence, was slowly approaching the pile. Things looked grim. I separated all of the interested parties while Judy took care of the poo.


It was 9:35 and I had missed the open.


As it turns out, I had entered a bunch of orders pre-market. One of them, Buy 200 VMC at open, ended up being my big winner on the day.

I was attracted to this stock for a couple of reasons. First of all, on Friday it had violated its 50-day moving average on light volume. Also, it was very close to an upside break of a trendline I had drawn on a 60 minute graph. So I bought the stock at 115.05. Had I not been in my kitchen at 9:35 attending to a pile of shit, I may have put my stop in at 114.80 and been stopped out at the low of the day. As it turned out, the trading gods smiled at me today. I bought 100 more at 115.25 and then sold 100 at 115.49, 100 at 115.37 and the final 100 at 116.95.

I also did a masterful job of minimizing my losers. Okay, I have to go.

Here are the stats:

P&L, $683

Best, VMC $243

Worst, WSO -$99

stocks traded, 18, 11 positive, 7 negative

shares traded, 15,400

total trades, 162

Virtual Office, $1141

TradeWhileWorking, $1065 on 2000 shares traded.

Me, $683 on 15,400 shares traded.

Evolution Trader, $438 on 43,000 shares traded.

One Bad-Ass Trader, $67 on 2400 shares traded.

NYSE Scalper, -$502 on 30,800 shares traded.

Misstrade, -$610 on 2000 shares traded.

A decent day for the VO but rather light given the market activity. Our relative volume was light as were our numbers. TWW is rolling right along and has had a great month. I had a decent day which I am very happy about for a Monday. ET kept up his steady performance and OBAT had a small gain. The Scalper had a disappointing start to the week but again, was smart to keep to his loss limit thereby preventing any disasters and maintaining confidence. Misstrade had his first down day since the inception of the VO. Perhaps it's because he's preoccupied with a housing move. We'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

A Wolf in Wolf's Clothing

I told Albert that I was ready to commit, full-time, to trading. The next step, he told me, was to come downtown and sign up with the firm.

I brought my resume and found Albert trading in the small hot room. He was up over $4000 and, as it was the middle of the day, ready to take a break. He stood up from his station and someone asked, "You gonna bring him up to meet Peter?" Albert said he was and I received a bunch of glances that said, "Oh, you're in for an experience." All the guys were snickering. We walked out of the small room, into the tiny gray hallway and made for the elevator. On the way I asked Albert what was up with the guys. He only said, "Well, Peter is a bit of a character."

The elevator door opened into a very large trading room filled with lots of loud voices. There was, however, one voice that was louder than the rest. This voice wasn't coming from the trading floor but from a glass-walled office just off of the floor. It was Peter, the somewhat infamous trading manager of Black Anvil Capital .

The story I later heard was that Peter's entire family worked for "The Anvil" and that he had been handed the small, unprofitable trading division as an appeasement. He wasn't trusted to run anything properly and no one had realistic hopes for the trading operation. He was kind of the outcast of the family, considered a little crazy and reckless. There were rumors of drug use, violent behavior, and multiple automobile collisions. When he took the trading division over, it had only a handful of traders. When I was leaving Anvil only a couple of years later, there were well over 1000 traders and the operation was wildly profitable. If nothing else, Peter was a masterful recruiter.

Albert poked his head into Peter's office. Peter was lecturing a young trader. He stopped mid-sentence when he saw Albert and rose from his chair to grasp Albert's hand. He flashed a brief, wolfish smile, nodded at Albert while looking proud and said simply, "YES!"

The frightened young man exhaled and was visibly relieved that Peter had taken his focus off of him. Peter looked at me while he shook Albert's hand. He stared at me and exhaled heavily, like an angry bull, through his nostrils. Were his eyes crossed? Jesus this guy was freaky looking! I had to look away. Albert began to introduce me. Peter stood there, shaking Albert's hand, staring at me, breathing, when he boomed, "ALBERT, YOU TELL YOUR LITTLE BUDDY HERE THAT YOU'RE GONNA MAKE A MILLION BUCKS THIS YEAR?"

Albert tried to say something, and I was speechless but Peter continued. He reached over and gave the other trader a light smack on the head. The trader, looking fearful that he might be hit again, glanced nervously over. "YOU SEE THIS GUY?" he asked while sticking his finger in Albert's chest. "THIS GUY IS GONNA MAKE A MILLION BUCKS THIS YEAR. HE DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT HIS COMMISSIONS!"

Each word was punctuated by a finger jab to Albert's chest... I wanted to run.

"YOU COME IN HERE AND TELL ME YOUR FUCKING COMMISSIONS ARE HIGH?" he yelled at the trader. But before the trader could respond, Peter continued,

"FUCK YOUR COMMISSIONS, I SHOULD RAISE THEM! YOU JUST DON'T WANT TO MAKE A MILLION BUCKS! THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM! COME BACK AND TALK TO ME WHEN YOU WANT TO MAKE A MILLION BUCKS!"

The trader shuffled sheepishly out of the office.

He turned to Albert and yelled, "GO TRADE."

He turned to me and screamed, "YOU, SIT!"

And we were alone.

Trade during the week, rest on the weekend

I trade all week, everyday... so by the weekend, I don't want to think about it. I suggest you don't either. It's just money.

So I've decided to take that spirit onto this blog as well. My weekend link posts will be about anything but trading.

If you are looking for some links about trading, I suggest checking over at Virtual Office member NYSE Scalper's blog. He always does a good job finding good posts about trading.

HOW FAR DO BIRDS FLY NON-STOP?

Ten satellite-tagged Bar-tailed Godwits in the southwestern pacific are providing a glimpse into the migratory powers of birds. One bird left New Zealand and flew non-stop to the northern end of the Yellow Sea in China , a distance of 10,200 km. The Godwit’s flight required about 9 days of continuous flight, and is now the longest recorded non-stop flight of any bird. Three other tagged Godwits have reached China in non-stop flights that lasted between 6.5 and 7.5 days. The progress of the Godwit migration can be monitored here.

ELLIOT SMITH

Great singer-songwriter who died under mysterious circumstances a few years back. If you don't know his music, this is a link to a new song that is being released posthumously. If you like stripped down music with just a singer and a guitar you might like this track.

DAILY SHOW

I am a big fan. If you happened to miss this bit from the last week about the Bush Administration's search for a war czar, check it out. I think it's one of the best segments they've done in awhile... and that says a lot, because I find most of their stuff hilarious.

PROJECT VOTE SMART

They can say what they do best, so I encourage you to visit their site. They work for us all, conservative and liberal alike. If you can, please support them.

Well, that's all for now. Tonight, when I'm not busy rooting the Islanders on, I'll work on a history post and have it up for tomorrow.

Enjoy the day. Go take a walk or something and stop staring at this damned screen!

One last thought...

I found this little gem of a video. It pretty much sums up my week.

Looking at it metaphorically, the market was dressed in blue and I, in red.



I'll finish up a "history" post this weekend and also work on the Virtual Office widget. Perhaps I'll look for an interesting link or two as well.