For you bloggers, here's an interesting link that was provided to me by "Reese" over at Chasing Charts.
Just type in your blog address and it will tell you what reading level is required to understand your blog.
Meanwhile, check over at "the Fly's" new blog for my inaugural post on "Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians."
NOTE: Originally published 11/27/07. "Bumped" because it came back into play.
UPDATE: TG, I don't know what you're talking about... :)
Okay, well a lot of this will sound obvious or perhaps repetitive. I've read these same things many times before. I am writing this post mostly, for myself.
As far as I can tell there were 3 main factors to my "blowup" today.
1. Amazingly poor trading in AG, my second worst stock of the day. I made 10 unprofitable trades in the stock, 1 profitable trade.
2. CF. I played the "anticipation" game and lost. Meaning that instead of waiting for him to break a downtrend line to purchase, I continually anticipated the break and it never broke the line.
3. "Pyramiding" incorrectly. I was adding to my positions in stocks too late, or sometimes, too quickly. Pyramiding may work in a strongly trending market, but in a choppy trendless market, it is not a good strategy. On days where there is no clear trend or strong movement, it probably is best to buy (or short) once instead of aggressively adding to the position.
In short, I made lots of bad decisions today.
Here are some "rules" I've written down so that maybe in time I will remember them.
* Don't try and pick tops. At least wait for a pullback and a failed test of the high. Anything else is insanity. ESPECIALLY at the open.
* If a stock doesn't drop below your entry don't needlessly second guess your position. Winners sometimes develop slowly. Give them time and let them run.
* Don't trade trendless, low volume stocks.
* If you trade a stock 3 times in a row unprofitably, you're churning it. Leave it alone.
* Unless you're trading with levels from the previous day, or unless a stock is breaking some pre-determined level on it's daily chart trade the open with half size.
* Pay strong attention to the levels set in the first half hour of trading.
That last video was incomplete... besides, after analyzing my trades I'm feeling much more positive, despite my "smokage."
Today was one of those days when I felt myself making a bunch of mistakes but I made them nonetheless.
I didn't add to losing positions or anything either... so I haven't yet figured out exactly where I went wrong. I'm still confused.
I know I got sucked into the movement in the fertilizer and agricultural names early and that got me trading in "active mode" in an otherwise slow day in the market. These stocks were great to trade early, but after that, they turned into shit.
I'm going to come back to this post later, after I go through each and every trade I made today to figure out where I made the big mistakes.
Here's the stats:
P&L, -$1967
Best, TRA, $714
Worst, MOS, -$779
52,300 shares traded.
23 stocks traded. 8 winners, 15 losers.
Evolution, $2689 on 129,000 shares traded.
Dehtrader, $984 on 4920 shares traded.
OBAT, $137 on 14,600 shares traded.
Akalawoo, $80 on 200 shares traded.
Denarii, $45 on 200 shares traded.
Wincity, no trades.
Sanglucci, no trades.
Me, -$1967 on 52,300 shares traded.
It's tough to objectively analyze today's trading when I "shit the shower," but nonetheless, here goes.
Everything sucked today. I'd be surprised if the sun rises tomorrow.
There.
Okay, okay... volume blew today as we barely managed to get over 1.2 billion shares traded on the NYSE.
The indexes basically chopped around. I called this action last week... what can I say?
Prescience is overrated when trading the market.
Meanwhile, it was a perfect day for the bulls... small pullback on very light volume.
There was interesting action today in the fertilizer names and of course, in the financial names. There was also conflicting movement in some of the big tech leaders. In short, I feel like there is some real positioning going on right now, ahead of Uncle Ben and the fucking FED.
The VO kicked ass...minus me.
See you tomorrow. Right now, to ease my pain, I'm going outside to blow leaves onto my neighbor's property.
All the fun today was in the fertilizer stocks. I'm not sure if they smell like manure or not, but I thought that was a nice title for a post.
Anyway, I made money in a couple, but also got completely smoked in one, MON.
That third bar today kind of put my P&L in the shitter. Since then, I've been fighting back.
I expect a choppy week. However, there was loads of opportunity out there today. I expect the VO will post some decent numbers today.
NOTE: While we're on the topic of manure, go check HPT's post on his trading blowups this year. Don't you love reading about other trader's disasters?
I guess I'm feeling kind of dark. Darkish?
Anyway, here's another chance for you to show your wit with a Wise and Otherwise quotation.
Finish the following:
There's an old Slovakian saying:
If you win put away, if you lose...
If you fool can guess the saying that is closest to the correct saying you... win... 3... billion... dollars! That's right. We'll be choosing the winner Sunday night. Enter as many times as you wish, no purchase necessary.
Also, I'll update this thread throughout the weekend with interesting links. If you think you said or thought something that was interesting this week, feel free to leave a link in the comments section.
1. First of all, there was my Peanut Gallery submission... hopefully you didn't miss that. Go give it 5 stars even if you don't like it.
2. A great post from Dr. Brett about "questionable things" he hears from traders.
3. "The Rage" has a nice post on the Golden Cross. Not to be confused with the Golden Shower, the DIrty Sanchez or the Watusi.
Now let's see what College Trader posts...
He and Noise Trader both post good music. Unlike "the Fly" who posts complete crap.
November was a messy month for me. It featured my worst trade ever, (losing 55 points in FSLR short) and also one of my worst intraday givebacks ever (over $5 grand in under an hour).
In the end, I have been making money more consistently, even if I haven't had huge up days recently.
I don't really feel like writing about my day. It wasn't bad, but that FED trade really pissed me off and I just want to turn off the computer right now.
The Hybrid Market is a disaster even if CNBC won't talk about it (since they broadcast from the floor of the NYSE I guess that could be awkward.) I have hope however, that it will get better.
Have a great weekend.
Dehtrader, $1726 on 3720 shares traded.
Sanglucci, $526 on 22,200 shares traded.
Me, $414 on 17,600 shares traded.
Akalawoo, no trades.
Evolution, no trades.
Misstrade, no trades.
Wincity, no trades.
I guess the VO members are so rich they don't have to work anymore...
Very nice to see Dehtrader up at the top today. He's showing some great resilience after getting smoked a couple of days back. That's not an easy thing to do... trust me.
In other news, nothing much happened until the very close... that's when we traded like 300 million shares in 5 minutes. I was all set to complain about volume and then it all came on the close. Must be an expiration or something. Anyway, volume during the trading day was crappy.
For all of the big talk coming from the bulls after the parabolic rise in the indexes, I'd love one of them to point out where the leadership is coming from. Looks like a bounce off of oversold levels in weak stocks if you ask me... not the thing raging bull markets are made of. Also, if this were the start of a real, new rally, you'd expect to see volume balloon. Instead, it was merely good, not great.
But we'll see. I expect us to be quiet these next couple of weeks. I welcome this quiet. I'm happy to see November behind us... it was a little too crazy, even for this trader.
Meanwhile, Sanglucci got his numbers in on time today... love that guy.
I will have a Weekend Open Thread featuring a little "Wise and Otherwise" up this weekend.
Come play, over 3 billion in prizes will be awarded. Honest.
Fuck you traders! That's what the Hybrid Market is all about.
I go in to buy FED at 3:42 or so, no indication, a 2 cent spread in the quotes and I'm filled over 2 points higher on a print of over 70,000 shares. Next trade is for 600 shares over a point lower.
It's sad and laughable. It's bullshit and they need to fix it. Half my daily profits gone in 2 minutes because their system is a piece of shit.
This is a funny phrase being used over and over on CNBC.
I picture millions of poor Americans, "troubled" by their inability to pay back their mortgages.
I don't think that's the case. Instead, I think they're probably quite happy.
They're sitting there in their unpaid-for-homes while Wall Street freaks out. They don't have any investments, so, they win. And lets face it, they probably hate Wall Street people and "the rich."
Yep, "the subprimers" are out picking up their 6-packs of Bud while we speak.
Party on subprimers, party on.
Ridiculous also comes to mind. I'm happy I'm not short. By Tuesday however, I plan on nibbling short again.
So it's 2 years later... it's still funny. Especially the bit about him dropping rates 3/4 point in 1998.
Damn writers strike...
What a boring day.
I actually made money between 10 and 12 but decided to place stop orders instead of selling positions at market. Almost all of my stops were hit as the market declined into the afternoon. Unfortunately, the money I made was only offsetting losses that I took at around 9:45 when the market dropped like a rock for 3 minutes.
See that big red bar at 9:45? Fuck the robots.
Anyway, my best stock of the day today was JLL.
I caught some of the trend, but only with a few hundred shares. This stock is thin and can sometimes drop (or rise) precipitously for no good reason. In the afternoon, all of the financial names continued their squeeze. I guess people got nervous going into Uncle Ben's speech tonight... anyway, that would have been a great place to make money in the afternoon. Unfortunately, I was already put to sleep by the market and just not feeling like getting actively involved.
Looking back, I should have been involved because all of the financials rallied into the close.
My worst stock of the day was EXM, which I tried to short in the morning.
You can see why that was a mistake. The good news is that I screwed up the trade and didn't keep at it with revenge trading or anything. I let it go. 300 shares traded, a half point loss, move on.
What more can I say? I spent the better part of the day drinking peppermint tea trying to recover from some gastro-distress.
Finally, Herb Greenberg is the kind of guy you don't want to get a beer with.
Here's the stats:
P&L, $17
Best, JLL, $293
Worst, EXM, -$157
26,600 shares traded.
21 stocks traded, 9 winners, 12 losers.
Dehtrader, $305 on 7952 shares traded.
OBAT, $163 on 11,000 shares traded.
Sanglucci, $139 on 14,000 shares traded.
Denarii, $56 on 200 shares traded.
Me, $17 on 26,600 shares traded.
Akalawoo, influenza.
Wincity, -$35 on 100 shares traded.
Evolution, -$2566 on 45,600 shares traded.
Misstrade, -$3000 on 500 shares traded.
Clearly, the world must be about to self destruct.
Our resident robot, Misstrade, finds himself at the bottom of the pile today.
I never thought I'd see that.
Anyway, the VO got smoked. It was just one of those days where it was hard to make money. The futures were chopping around and there was no follow through. It just sucked.
Unfortunately, if you recall this is exactly what I expected. I don't think this choppy action is going away anytime too soon either. Might as well start your shopping because unless there's some type of interesting news, the market is going to suck until December 11th.
Go vote on my poll. Also, go vote on my Peanut Gallery post. "the Fly" has promised me $10,000 for each star.
Meanwhile, our new VO member must be some type of idiot for not getting me his numbers on this, his first day.
UPDATE: Sanglucci provided me with his numbers a half hour late... that makes him less of an idiot.
