"This Is My Masturbatorium"

We watched Running With Scissors last night and... completely hated it. Annette Bening was really good and the music was decent though. And this one scene was funny and pretty random.

"Don't Be High When You're Buying And Selling Stock"

Liberal Media My Ass

Check the link here... the whole myth about the media being slanted leftwards should be pretty much debunked by now.

Seu Jorge, "Rebel, Rebel" (David Bowie Cover)

Here's some relaxing surfing footage to watch. Watching those guys surf the huge waves with the jet-skis pulling them out is fine, but this type of surfing is much more real and accessible. Besides, if you fall you won't get your skull crushed.

Janis Joplin, "Summertime"

Enjoy this, the first weekend of the summer!

Thanks Russell!

I won't lie to you, I freaked out today.

And that despite my mellow morning in the sun and the surf.

I rushed back from the beach and due to my enthusiasm to get started, sat naked, that's right, naked in my office chair as I compiled a whole new quote screen to devote to the Russell Rebalancing. Could I have done that yesterday, or even, (gasp) the day before? Yes. But then I wouldn't have had the excuse to sit naked in my office chair.

My daughter was the first to state the obvious...

She: "Daddy, you naked?"

Me: "Yes, Daddy is naked."

She: "Daddy, you working naked? That's silly! (laughter)"

Me: "Go eat some breakfast with Mommy. JUDY! What the fuck! I told you I'd be busy today!"

Anyway, so I noticed, when going through the Rebalancing list which I posted links to here a few times that a lot of the insurers I like to trade were being added. Among them, RE, PRE, ENH, and AXS. There were more insurers, but those are the ones I typically trade. I also found a few stocks that I had never traded before but were at good prices and near highs. Among them, AWH, AYR, RRR, and LBY. There was also CPA a stock I trade occasionally.

So after the first 15 minutes passed, I bought small positions in each of them and sticking with my new "style" I planned on holding them. Unfortunately, every single stock dropped pretty rapidly. Not one of them made the holding part easy... on top of this, I got jacked in SPG and VNO. Then I lost in CF and MOS. It was, in a word, a bloodbath.

Things settled down and all of the stocks I mentioned that were on my Russell list dropped into ranges. I bought more in these ranges, throughout the day. Besides these adds, I had 3 winning trades in TNH and I net about $750 in them. So that helped my mental state, but not too much because I was still down significantly, probably a few thousand dollars.

This is how things went when the first imbalance was reported at 3:30.

It was in CAI, a stock that was not on any list I could find. I thought this was interesting. Because no other imbalances were coming out I was able to watch CAI trade. It spiked up quickly, like a hybrid trade, and then settled down. This gave me a good plan on what to do with my positions. I added aggressively and then put sell limits 30-70 cents above where the market was trading.

All of a sudden, the insurers began to spike.






Which was great. I took a lot of the profits on the way up, only holding 400 or 500 shares into the actual imbalance.

But the one that worked best for me was CPA simply because I had built up a good position in him throughout the day. Early, he was one of my worst losers but I was able to hold and get out of 1000 shares near to top of the move. I had placed sell limits at 65.50.



And that was the day. There were a couple of names on the list, LBY and RRR that I had big positions in (2000 shares each) and had to take losses on because they didn't have buy imbalances. Actually, LBY had a sell imbalance! And another that failed me was ARWR, a "fly" stock. He too had a sell imbalance despite being added to the Russell Micro index. I took a decent loss on him.

But overall, the Rebalancing net me close to $5,000. It was a tough one to sweat out with the market acting like it did today, but it worked out.

And if you read this blog daily, you know how thankful I am right now for green days.

Oh, and a tip of the hat to Ray over at Hybridtalk for doing such a great job getting the information about the rebalancing out. Perhaps I won't need you to pass my resume around after all!

Anyway, here's the stats:

P&L, $1736
Best, CPA, $1021
Worst, LNN, -$578

shares traded, 42,400
stocks traded, 19, 9 positive, 10 negative
total trades, 151

Virtual Office, $3253. Dow, -185.58, 13360.26.

Me, $1736 on 42,400 shares traded.
Evolution, $904 on 44,400 shares traded.
HPT, $569 on 28 contracts traded.
Misstrade, $42 on 1000 shares traded.
Denarii, $2 on 800 shares traded.

Well, it was a crazy freaking day if you stuck your toe in the waters today.

Everything basically got slammed but from the ashes of the market rose the VO. We all finished in the green.

I have smart Russell Rebalancing strategy to thank for my gains today. I was getting hit all day until my insurers started to move. Evolution is on a little streak which is nice to see after the rough patch he hit for awhile. He attributes his new found success to "taking profits" instead of looking for big trades. Sounds like scalping ET, don't tell Misstrade. HPT traded for 30 minutes and walked away with a nice gain for the weekend.

Misstrade and Denarii took it easy.

Have a great weekend everyone. Mine will be spent at like, 4 different children's birthday parties.

Free beer.

Dinosaur Trader Quiz

Which of these entities lost large sums of money today?

I) Cantor Fitzgerald
II) Bear Sterns
III) Barclay's
IV) Dinosaur Trader

Answers:

A) I and II
B) I, II, and III
C) all of the above
D) Dylan Ratigan

Please post your answers in the comment section.

UPDATE: The answer is "B"

Becoming A Buddhist Monk

So, do I just walk into a monastery and tell them I want to be a monk? Are they forced by the edicts of their religion to take me in and feed me?

Also, even if my wife and daughter don't want to be monks, I'm thinking they'd feed them too, right?

I'm just brainstorming now for when the money finally dries up for good.

(BTW, I put this under the label "Dylan Ratigan" just to fuck with him should he ever come across this site. Hey, remember that time you grew your beard out? HAHAHA!)

SPG Smacked Me Good

I got short right around 95.30. Put my stop at 96.20, was stopped out at 96.25, or, the high of the day... right before he tanked.

Shit like this kills me.

Russell Rebalancing 2007

One last post on the rebalancing... this I pulled from a newswire.

The annual Russell Indexes Reconstitution will take place today. Typically this is
one of the largest volume days of the year and there can be excess volatility as
a result, particularly in low average volume stocks. In the Russell 3000, there
are 275 stocks being added this year while 175 stocks are being deleted. One new
twist this year is that companies designated BDI (Benefits Driven Incorporations)
will be eligible for inclusion in the Russell Indexes for the first time. Some of
these large cap names are familiar members of other indexes (TYC, ACN, ACE, IR,
GRMN, XL, STX, MRVL, NBR, RE, AXS, ACGL, PRE, WCRX, RNR, TK). BDI names being added to the Russell Microcap Index include (ASI, ATB, CPHL, CRMH, MCX, PRS, PXT, QNTA, RAMR, SCT, TBSI, VLCCF, WPL).

I noticed loads of insurers being added... but anyway, be careful if you choose to mess with this. Some guy from my company blew up BIGTIME trading this a few years back. If you have a heart condition wait until Monday to trade these names...

UPDATE: The "block quote" feature on Blogger clearly sucks.

Odd Nosdam, "The Kill Tone Two"

Man... what a beautiful break in this song at 1:18. I could listen to it over and over.

The Hamptons

Just in case you're one of the pricks who will be driving their hot car too fast in the Hamptons this weekend, here's a little clip of Borat making fun of people like you. Well, not really. Honestly, he could do much better with the Hamptons.

The Jam, "That's Entertainment"

The Russell Rebalancing will at least be entertaining. Get ready for some crazy prints!



A tip of the hat to Misstrade for pointing out this song. He's good with the older stuff... oh snap!

Russell Rebalancing

FYI, here is the link to the memo with the additions and deletions.

Pavement, "Summer Babe"

It's the first day of summer you silly bitches!



Pavement, Pixes, Fugazi... what would high school have been without these bands?

I Hate Toddlers... Not Really

I'm just in a bad mood from my crappy trading today and would rather vent right now then be peed upon by some potty-training, whining kid. I love kids though. Really.

Anyway, here's what happened today. I simply didn't know what to do!

The whole thing is that I was to trade with more patience. So when I was largely short at 10:00am, and in the money in most of my positions, (MOS, AGU, DE, MLM, GWW, LNN) I was ambivalent about covering and taking the gains. I wanted to take the money, but at the same time, I didn't want to take the money and then see them break to new lows thereby proving that I was trading impulsively, without thought and without a "plan".

So, I held and I lost money.

Not a lot at that point. I lost about $70 in AGU, $70 in MLM, $80 in DE and $200 in GWW. Not a good start, but not a disaster either. I had 100 shares overnight of LNN still and that was up a couple of points to offset some of those losses.

However, because I knew I had losses in my shorts, I made a related mistake and quickly covered my gain in LNN to "lock in" at least those gains... I sold my LNN around 41. It closed at 44.50 off the highs at 46.50, so I left a lot of easy money on the table there.

So now I'm down on the day a little and watching the market spike up. After the sell-off into the close yesterday and then the weak opening I was bearish. I was not aware of this bias however but it is clear now looking back on my trades from the day that this bias messed with my head.

I kept getting short during each pullback and kept buying my shares back at higher prices...

My big ugly loser of the day was in.... TNH! My old buddy, what happened?



Well, take a look at that chart. How could you lose money in TNH today? You could be short. I was short and that, in a word, was STUPID.

No trading system can save you from yourself.

I lost $828 in TNH so it made up the lion's share of my losses today. Not going to over-analyze it. It's obvious the mistake I made... I was shorting a stock that closed up over 10 points on the day!

Anyway, I'm going to keep my chin up. I made some mistakes today trading with my new style. I also learned that if the market isn't trending cleanly that it is much more difficult to hold stocks.

Actually, I also made some churny trades... I will continue to work on my discipline to stop making those trades...

Looking forward to the Russell Rebalancing tomorrow. Should be interesting at least. That's all you can ask for on the first official Friday of the summer!

Here's the stats:

P&L, -$1302
Best, VNO, $394
Worst, TNH, -$828

shares traded, 28,800
stocks traded, 11, 3 positive, 8 negative
total trades, 130 (way too many)

Virtual Office, -$734. Dow, +57.64, 13547.06.

HPT, $1112 on 73 contracts traded.
Evolution, $784 on 48,700 shares traded.
Denarii, -$148 on 2400 shares traded.
Misstrade, -$1180 on 4600 shares traded.
Me, -$1302 on 28,800 shares traded.

I blame the AMEX.

Anyway, after a blowout day for the VO yesterday, today we took a little hit.

Today was a day for the scalpers... this I learned at 10:00am when the market reversed and I was slow to cover my shorts. Reversal days are always good for the quick and nimble.

Anyway, kudos to HPT and ET for a strong showing today. And before you shed a tear for Misstrade, you should know he did okay today in his futures trades.

My daily post will be late tonight. I will try hard to get it on the site but no guarantees. Today is our turn to have the house overrun with toddlers. Screaming 2 and 3 year old kids after a day like today?

Thank goodness I have a good sense of humor...

AMEX Halting Trading Again... WTF?

Really, haven't they figured out this whole "computer" thing there yet?

2 days in a row. Gives you great confidence in that market, huh?

UPDATE: They're up and running again... took them 3 hours to "reboot" I guess!

Lindsay Manufacturing, LNN- Holy Short Squeeze Batman!

Well, I sold my last 100 shares of my 400 share long position at 41. The stock is now over 45, so I left a good amount of easy money on the table.

I sold because when the market ripped at 10:00am the stock flatlined. I got skittish and thought he might take a breather because it had such a strong run yesterday. Anyway, almost immediately after I sold it began it's ascent.

That's some run. Really, thanks to "the Fly" for the call. I believe he started buying at 31.50.

I owe that insect a cup of coffee.