If you're where I'm at, then you probably understand that it doesn't matter who is president. I'd much rather have someone up there who would be fun to watch.
Can you imagine Hillary or Guiliani for 4 years? No thanks. Glumsville.
So, the new poll question is:
"If Steven Colbert really did run for President of the United States, would you even consider voting for him?"
I mean, this is the first time in my voting life where I'm seriously considering not voting at all. What good will it do us to elect Hillary? or any of the front running Republicans? Nothing will change.
What we need is radical change. Steven Colbert will provide us with radical change.
In fact, he's probably the only man that can deliver our country from the embers of Iraq and make us smile about it.
And now for the new poll question. If Steven Colbert really did run for president, would you vote for him? It will be up shortly. Go vote.
Click below for the proper sound effects while reading this post...
When surfing, if you get hit by a big wave and then held under for a few seconds, my friends and I call it getting "washing machined." Maybe you're more poetic, fine. Whatever, share your thoughts below.
Anyway, I made money today but still, I was "washing machined." In the morning I came in and made a lot of good trades. My best were made shorting EXM.
Still, when I checked my P&L around midday I was down. WTF? Well, I got slammed trying to short FXI a few times and then I lost over $500 in DSL. Again. I think DSL has been my worst stock for the last few weeks. In fact, I can't remember the last time I even made a good trade in the fucker. Off the screens!
So that kind of messed with my head... thinking I was up when actually, I was down close to $500.
The next thing that messed with me was Judy telling me at 11:00 that her mother was coming over in an hour so that she could go and teach her yoga class.
Now, normally I have wonderful relations with my in-laws. But when I'm losing money I don't really have good relations with anyone.
As it turned out, my daughter wanted no part of grandma today. When Judy left, all she did was cry for me. So I'm upstairs watching the market deteriorate (just after noon) and building short positions in all the "strong" stocks while I'm listening to this complete shitfest downstairs.
So, I went downstairs, grabbed my daughter and told them both to come upstairs in the office (where the only TV in the house is) to watch "Mary Poppins." So that was life at 12:30 here, trading large positions of strong stocks while my mother in law and my daughter were 4 feet away watching Mary Fucking Poppins.
Washing machined.
Anyway, somehow I managed to focus enough during this time to make some money. At one point, I was up over $1500. However, once the afternoon hit I got this urge to start shorting FXIagain. That's when I started throwing money out the door.
The worst thing is that I short 50 shares in my swing account. I was filled 4 points away from the market, at $213. I called in to complain and they told me the trade would stand and that I'd have to write to some dude to try and get my trade fixed. Great! But what do I do with the shares now? "Act as if the trade will stand."
So, I got filled 4 points away from the market and the NYSE tells me that's the way they do business. Thank you Hybrid. There needs to be some accountability there... it can't all be robots. Why? Well, remember February? Robots sometimes fuck up.
Anyway, so I'm a little crazy in the head right now because FXI is ripping my face off after hours too. It'll probably open at $230 effectively blowing up my "swing account." So much for that experiment.
Evolution, $1544 on 26,300 shares traded. Me, $739 on 70,600 shares traded. Akalawoo, $134 on 5 contracts traded. Denarii, $25 on 2960 shares traded. Momojuicing, fixing a house. Tapeworm, -$55 on 2 contracts traded. OBAT, -$89 on 12,000 shares traded. Bubs, -$110 on 1500 shares traded.
I'm not really sure what to make of today's market. I guess you could say that the volume was "strong" since we got to around 1.4 billion shares traded.
It was nice to see the VIX rally midday, even if it means my lunch was messed up. However, I hated to watch it decline into the close. Basically, I make money when the VIXgoes up and I lose it when the VIX goes down... it really seems to be that simple lately.
It was a mixed day in the VO. Most of the members made money but some did not. Early on I was down as well. I don't think it was a good morning for trade, you just had to be there when the market "puked itself" midday to make any money.
Meanwhile, after getting filled 4 points out of the money on an odd-lot short sale in FXI I hate the Hybrid Market all over again. There's just no accountability there. They blame the robots... whatever, fuck robots.
Basically, no matter how bearish I may feel I know the market is going higher. Dow 50,000.
Truly amazing surf footage from inside the tubes. This guy has cameras mounted to the nose of his board. Even if you're not a surfer you'll enjoy these images.
It's hard to know what people do when they come to my site... it's harder yet for me to organize everything so that it's easy for you to find what you want to read.
The "Virtual Office" is easy enough. It comes up everyday normally between 4pm and 4:15 and it takes a second to read. It's a snapshot into how real traders performed trading the market.
My "Daily Trading Statistics" post, where I discuss the trades I actually made, comes up later but normally by 9pm or so.
Finally, everyday there's the music video. However, since not many of you deadbeats have expressed much interest in my musical tastes I've tried to broaden this out to some spoken word as well.
And then there's all the other stuff.
The "my history" posts (which I promise to start again soon) are my attempts to describe what it was like starting out as a trader in the big city. All names have been changed.
The "around the house" label encompasses my attempt to share portions of my life. I trade from home and sometimes it's hard to concentrate. I have a young daughter and a wife who are both in the house all day with me as I curse the markets.
The "surfing" posts describe my experiences surfing, but also include short readings about me buying egg sandwiches and stuff.
The "humor" and "politics" posts are pretty self explanatory. The "stock market humor" posts deal specifically with (gasp!) stock market humor!
One label that is quickly growing is the "CNBC stupidity" label. I mean, if you're forced to watch CNBC all day, you get to hear lots of stupid stuff. Here, I regurgitate that stupid stuff for your reading pleasure.
The "freaky hybrid trade of the day" posts have been dwindling lately. But they detail my specific frustrations with the NYSE Hybrid Market.
So I encourage you to go check out the right toolbar. There are many other labels there as well.
While they may not "make you money" they will keep you entertained as you trade and curse the markets along with me.
My friend called me and told me there was surf. I checked the online surf report and it said the surf was flat.
"Don't worry... Mateo was just down there and he tells me there's some nice small clean waves."
So I left the market and headed to the beach, foregoing lunch in the process. I rubbed my neck down with Tiger Balm and turned the heat way up in the car to keep my muscles supple and loose.
I met my friend in a parking lot. He entered the car and started to cough... "Fuck man!" he said, waving his hand in front of his nose while wincing, "it smells like a fucking locker room in here!" He opened his window.
We drove the 30 minutes to the break in near silence as he scrolled around on his "crackberry" and I sung every lyric to the "meaty" Pavement album "Terror Twilight."
It was obvious when we pulled into the beach's empty parking lot that there was no surf. "This looks bad," I said.
"Yeah, but this guy Mateo..." my friend began as his voice trailed off. The mightly Atlantic looked like a mighty mirror.
"Lunch on me then!" he offered.
We downed our burritos. Between bites, we took turns cursing Mateo.
Then this crazy dude from the gas station with curly hair and eggy eyes sat next to us. He had food in front of him but instead of eating it, he just sat there looking at the girl behind the counter. This brought the vibe up to an uncomfortable level and we decided to drink our coffee on the bench outside the shop. That's when we saw Mateo crossing the street in our direction.
"DUUUUDE!" Mateo called once he saw us, playing the air guitar like Wayne from Wayne's world, circa 1989.
Evolution, $1134 on 30,900 shares traded. Momojuicing, $962 on 12,000 shares traded. Tapeworm, $345 on 2 contracts traded. OBAT, $159 on 8600 shares traded. Bubs, $116 on 400 shares traded. Denarii, $48 on 1600 shares traded. Akalawoo, no trades. Me, -$494 on 26,000 shares traded.
Great day for the VO, fucking frustrating day for the Dinosaur.
Again, since I feel like it, I will repeat my new mantra, "volume sucks." Why? Is it because more people are trading away from the Hybrid Market? Is 1.2 billion shares the new normal? I don't know. All I do know is that I hate low volume markets.
Still, why complain about volume when the rest of the VO is making money hand over fist. Volume in the overall market is really inconsequential when you have moves like those made in DRYS and ANW today. Heck, even RDN moved a lot...
When the volume is absent, you need to go where the volume is.
Anyway, I'm not sure if I'll get a daily post up tonight, I have lots of non-blog related stuff to do. I'll sum up my day for you with 2 words. I sucked.
Two lame business stories and then, straight to sports!
I can't even get this channel where I live (in an undisclosed location near the sea surrounded by screaming toddlers) so it's hard for me to really rip into them.
Meanwhile, the poll is almost closed. According to my readership, FBN will fail, or at best, be no more popular than Bloomberg TV.
Same ole, same ole... I was up and gave it all back. I wasn't really paying attention, didn't see it coming and then SLAP!
Anyway, even I'm sick of this crap by now. I'm taking my laptop and heading off to the library. Not sure what I'm going to do with it there, but I don't want to get involved with revenge trading.
My first trade of the day should have been my only trade of the day. I short 1200 shares of BBD between $31.85 and $31.75 because the MOFO line diverged with the MILF indicator telling me I would make 76.3 "R" on the trade.
Alas, I covered it all by $31.50. Why? Because I don't like to let my winners run. Instead, I take small winners and then slowly bleed away profits by overtrading.
Dinostyle.
Last week (after one of my bad days) my Dad called me. He said, "I don't get it. I read the blog at night and I think 'Sounds like he figured out what he's doing wrong this time. He really nailed it.' but then I see you making the same mistakes the next day."
Well, guess what... I overtraded again.
Meanwhile, to get back to the positive aspects of my day, I made some good trades in DSX.
First I got long and then I got short. All due to the trading action in DRYS which was much discussed this morning on Wallstreak. The thing about Wallstreak is that everyone was watching the only strong sector today (the shippers) and that kind of screwed with my bearishness. Had I focused on the short side today (as the AD lines were instructing) I would have been much better off.
I split midday because of some idiot named Mateo (perhaps more on Mateo if I finish the post I started today titled, "Mateo The Idiot") who called my surf buddy and told him there was surf. There was none. However, it's been weeks since we had surf here and I was desperate. In the end, it screwed me up because I came back and seeing that the market had stabilized I decided it was ready to rally.
So I began buying stock just before 3pm. I got washed out by 3:15 and almost gave away all of my profits. I more or less sold the bottom.
And, I walked away.
I pulled my wetsuit on and walked down to the bay. I strapped on my leash, pushed my board into the calm water, walked in along side of it until I was up to my waist in the water and then hoisted myself up. I began to paddle with absolutely no idea where I was paddling to. I probably paddled about a mile in the now chilly water. It was the only thing that was going to make me feel better today after giving back all my money.
Fuck Mateo. I'll get that post about him up by Wednesday. Also, I recognize that this post needs to be heavily edited, but we're heading out to a dinner soon and I don't think I'll be back in time to edit it, so I apologize for the sloppiness. It was either a fast post or nothing.
It would be financially irresponsible and perhaps unhealthy for you to trade like I do. This blog is for entertainment purposes only. I am a trader not an investor. I don't make recommendations. Thanks, have fun here.
