One quick, but important, note:
I have changed the settings on this blog so that now only those who have a blogger account can leave comments. No more anonymous comments, sorry Gator...
It's easy to set up a blogger account and it will give more personality to the comment section. You don't need to have a blog to set up a blogger account.
Thanks for understanding.
I'll admit it, I suck at getting long.
I think that most of my money days these last couple of months (few and far between, I know) have come when the market gets clipped. Right now, (really, since February) I have simply been more comfortable on the short side.
It's a huge limitation and I need to find a way to overcome it.
Traders need to be neutral on the market and be able to move long or short based on the opportunities that they spot. Since I'm chronically looking for shorts I am missing huge longs (see the REITS today) and worse yet, getting squeezed for losses way too often (see the REITS today).
I started off the day with a big bang, shorting TNH at 129.27 and 129.84. I covered 100 at 126.54 and the last 100 at 123.68. That was at 10:20. This was also the same time that I was covering my short in FSLR. I short 300 at 87.79 and covered at 86.80, 86.08 and 85.48. So, these trades alone along with a couple of smaller winners and no notable losers probably had me up close to $2000 by 10:30.
That's when I started pissing it all away shorting stocks while the futures moved steadily higher.
I lost money shorting VNO, POT, ALB, and VMC. But even my longs weren't working! I lost money getting long AG, CNH and OMG. It was very frustrating.
The one that hurt the most, mentally and financially was VNO.
I was looking at the lows from yesterday, 107.75 or so as a place where I thought the stock would meet with some resistance. So I started shorting around 107.50. You can see from the graph why this position was bound to fail.
So far this is my biggest problem with the new "system". Yes, it allows me to let my winners run more, but I haven't figured out how to limit my losers yet. I guess I need to continue to work on my entry points.
Perhaps I shouldn't have been shorting anything, but between 10 and 11 when I was entering this short position, the market wasn't up much and the TRIN was neutral to bearish... given the recent activity a reversal lower was a real possibility, especially with the leaders all being taken down this morning.
Anyway, on the bright side, I covered around 108.40 which, in retrospect, isn't awful. And, better yet, I didn't try to "get revenge" in the stock by churning it on the short side all day.
If I can continue to make money on "bad days" I'll be happy. For now, my mental state is slowly improving. I need to be careful these next two days not to "let go" and take a big hit. Small gains bring big confidence. It's important for me to get back in the habit of making money everyday, even if it's just $144.
Here's the stats:
P&L, $144
Best, TNH, $887
Worst, VNO, -$377
shares traded, 16,200
stocks traded, 15, 6 positive, 9 negative
total trades, 89 (this number goes down everyday lately, which is good)
Misstrade, $6016 on 8800 shares traded.
Me, $144 on 16,200 shares traded.
Evolution, $59 on 24,200 shares traded.
Denarii, No trades.
HPT, -$10,000 on 128 contracts.
Well, well, well, the market ripped! And, for a change, the rip came on decent volume.
Speaking of ripping, nice number for MT today. And while the rest of us caught a case of the blahs, HPT got a little smoked. Check over at his site for the details.
Anyway, Fed day tomorrow plus a good amount of ecodata on Friday. Could be an interesting end to the week. Besides those economic events, the end of the week, month and quarter is upon us. And, to make things even more juicy, next week the market will be deader than a rock.
So you can expect people to tie up loose ends these next two days.
As I've been pointing out the last few days in the VO, the market action is somewhat worrying. Actually for the last few weeks we've been rallying on light volume and pulling back on heavier volume. Still, the indexes are not far from their recent highs.
Nonetheless, I said I'd begin to worry when they started selling the leaders. And today, you can see some good examples of the recent leaders getting taken out, most notable among them right now CROX and TNH. Actually, they're killing all the fertilizers today, TNH, POT and CF.
Misstrade has a great post on this phenomenon here.
We need some rain to kill this humidity. And, on a related note, soon you may need an umbrella to head into the market as well.
Either way, there will be ways to make money.
Actually, and I know this is debatable, I think this song is about the stock market. Just kidding. But you could apply it.
A simple post title because it was a simple day of trading. No over thinking, no churning, just some buys and then some sells.
I lost money today when I was stubborn and fought the market. My worst stock of the day was LNN, I lost $118 in him on a 200 share long position.
I bought 200 shares at 10:00 this morning at 43.14. This was really a mistake because the market was trading down at this time. I bought it because I'm very bullish on the stock longer term and I let it effect my daytrading. This is almost always a mistake.
That said, I love the pullback from the highs on lower volume. The next strong day in the market will probably see this stock trade north of 44 again. Still, I should have respected the market weakness today and not made this trade. At least I limited my mistake to one trade in the stock.
In fact, my four worst losers of the day were each traded only once. This is a huge departure from my losers of the recent past. Back when I was churning and habitually overtrading, my worst stocks of the day were almost always the stock I traded the most. This is a positive development.
My best stock of the day was TNH. I almost referred to him as "my old buddy" but then I remember that in the stock market you have no "friends".
Here are my trades:
9:58:08 Short 100 @ 130.93 (-100)
10:28:25 Buy 100 @ 126.89 (flat)
10:29:13 Short 100 @ 128.15 (-100)
10:30:47 Short 200 @ 129.44 (-300)
10:36:27 Buy 300 @ 128.80 (flat)
10:37:17 Short 100 @ 129.68 (-100)
10:38:50 Buy 100 @ 131.20 (flat)
10:53:20 Short 100 @ 129.25 (-100)
11:28:05 Buy 100 @ 129.75 (flat)
14:23:31 Short 100 @ 131 (-100)
14:45:49 Short 100 @ 130.17 (-200)
14:48:12 Buy 100 @ 129.72 (-100)
15:55:22 Buy 100 @ 130.80 (flat)
As you can see, I made one good trade in the stock all day, my first. After that, I basically broke even in the stock. I'm lucky I did, because the stock was up 5 points on the day. So while this was my best stock, netting me $322, I made a lot of trading mistakes in it today. Still, I was careful in my trades, so bonus points for that.
Other than those two, I had good trades shorting CNH, UBB and VMC. I had no bad losers.
I find that a hallmark of my good days is completely controlling my losers. Sounds obvious, but I wanted to write it down here so I would remember it.
Only 3 more trading days of the month. I'm up a little and I would love to build on it. Let's hope for some more volatility. So far, so good with this more efficient method.
Here's the stats:
P&L, $611
Best, TNH, $322
Worst, LNN, -$118
shares traded, 13,200
stocks traded, 16, 9 winners, 7 losers
total trades, 85
HPT, $2147 on 95 contracts and 2700 shares traded.
Misstrade, $1792 on 4500 shares traded.
Me, $611 on 13,200 shares traded.
Evolution, $588 on 55,200 shares traded.
Another bearish reversal for the major indexes. While none showed major losses, I would keep an eye on the stocks that have been leading this rally since March. Should they show signs of distribution, I would begin to worry about the continued health of this rally.
As for trade today, the VO had a nice day despite the overall choppiness of the market.
My daily post will have to come later this evening as I am busy immediately after the close.
WE HAVE A WINNER!
Should news come out, I'll take back the award... But for now, it just looks like a crazy spike.
I'm sick of getting crap I don't want in the mailbox everyday.
You can get rid of it.
Sitting in this small room, with my 4 screens and a TV when it is hot and humid outside is no green bar on a stock chart, I will tell you that.
I could turn the AC on, but I'm currently poor and choose to save the $10 it would cost me to cool my house today. I will save that $10 and use it this evening, when I want a nice, cool sleep.
Anyway, I went outside and mowed my damn lawn with my Brill Luxus mower. Believe me when I tell you that this mower makes mowing the lawn less a chore and more a pleasure. No fumes, no dust, just the soft whirring sound of grass blades getting cleanly cut. It is ideal for those with a small, level lawn. In an ideal world though, I would have no lawn. I hate it.
My daughter calls it a "Mawnlower".
Here's what we need now to kill this humidity.
UPDATE: I just turned on the AC at 2:11. I couldn't take it. The heat and the Monster Java I tried this morning were making me hallucinate.
I'm going to use the TRIN today instead of the TICKS to try and gauge short term moves.
On Briefing, they give the following guidelines
TRIN reading:
.65 or lower, very bullish
.65-.90 bullish
.90-1.1 neutral
1.1-1.35 bearish
1.35 or above very bearish
Does anyone out there use this indicator and concur or disagree with these general levels?
Yes, I lost money today but I'm going to focus on my good trades for a change.
My bad trades were not good, but they weren't bad in the way they used to be bad. In the past, when I had a big loser, it was normally because I was in and out churning the stock all day. Today, my worst stock was CF and the losses came in two trades. So, while I didn't trade the stock well, there was no fighting the stock or revenge trades... I'll take the $523 in losses and learn from them.
So on to the good stuff.
At around 11am, I noticed MLM break it's opening range from the morning. So I took a look at VMC, a related stock to see how it was acting. It was struggling to regain it's highs. I threw in a short order and was filled at 118.84. Only 300 shares. I covered 100 at 118.11, 100 at 116.32 and 100 at 116, netting just over $600.
This was a good trade for me because I didn't rush to take my profits. After I covered the first 100 shares (which as happens now, I realized was a mistake) I trailed the stock down with stops. It moved nice and smoothly. What I could have done better was add to the position.
My next good trade was in FLR which I highlighted earlier. After that lunatic plunge I began to watch the stock. My first hint that something was wrong with the stock was that buyers didn't rush in to pick up the relative "bargain". After the initial steep sell-off just after 11am the stock couldn't regain it's footing.
I watched it chop around 104 the whole time that the futures were rising. Once the futures started to break, I put in a short order and was filled around 104 for 300 shares. Once it dropped a bit, I added to the short, another 400 shares at about 103.65. This was a good thing that I failed to do in my VMC short.
Anyway, I covered most of the short under 103 making this my second best trade of the day at $585.
The thing that really hit home today was that I could have good winners with not many shares if I let them run. So tomorrow, I am going to initiate my positions with less size and add when they work in my favor. My old way of trading saw me buying most of my shares right off the bat. Since I'm allowing myself greater movement in the stock before I cover I need to work on position sizing so that when I'm wrong (like in CF) I don't take big hits.
Here's the stats:
P&L, -$603
Best, VMC, $606
Worst, CF, -$523
shares traded, 32,000
stocks traded, 28, 10 winners, 18 losers
total trades, 165
Misstrade, $3560 on 5500 shares traded.
HPT, $1638 on 75 contracts & 4100 shares traded.
Evolution, $733 on 13,400 shares traded.
Denarii, $598 on 2800 shares traded.
Me, -$604 on 32,000 shares traded.
If you just looked at the final figure for the Dow today, you wouldn't be getting the full story of the market. The market suffered a complete reversal today and at one point was down almost 200 points from it's top. In other words, it was an ugly day to be a bull.
Nevertheless, despite the woes of the market, the VO managed to have a pretty good day. Misstrade tacked on some more gains while ET and HPT kept up their recent streaks. Only 13,400 shares today ET? Perhaps the market took your reluctance to trade as a bearish indicator. Denarii also had a nice day.
On the downside, I had a couple of good trades, a couple of bad trades and 2 mistakes that really cost me.
Wow...
Sometimes humor comes at you from the strangest places.
Think Dylan Ratigan has a fish pen? No doubt!
Just in case you have never used it, Google Blogsearch is the best way to search inside of blogs.
Oh, and Dylan Ratigan.
You may ask, why is Dinosaur Trader suddenly so obsessed with Dylan Ratigan? I tell you what, lots of people search for this man on Google and this blog has become sort of a niche marketplace to come and find nothing about the man at all. And my female readership is spiking, just look at this graph.... see?
This is good, because so far I find girls leave much more thoughtful comments.
People come searching for Dylan Ratigan and they leave with some Dinosaur.
A reader, Bluedog, pointed this stock out to me. I see no news...
However, they seem to be in a good industry. They operate in "clean energy technologies." Still, the run since mid-June is crazy. Anyone have any color on this stock, please leave it in the comment section.
Time to leg into a short here, MT?
UPDATE: Stockbee has a small post on the price action that's interesting.
