Ned's Atomic Dustbin, "Grey Cell Green"
Ah, the early 90s.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Patience vs. Anticipation
I had a bad day. But I didn't have any one really bad trade. I just had many 25-30 cent losers.
Looking back at some of the trades, it appears that I'm anticipating trades too much and jumping at them instead of chilling out and waiting for them to develop. Same thing with the GGP yesterday. Had I just waited for the break of $34, I wouldn't have lost $500 in the stock.
My goal next week is to just be patient. I mean, I worry that the trade will go through my level and I'll get a bad price so I jump early. Clearly though, a bad fill here and there would hurt me less than consistent jumping.
Overall, I'm feeling hopeful. I've never thought much about my attitude and how it could effect my trading, unlike my friend Attitude Trader. However, after my "hiatus," I had time to gain some perspective and I now feel this is very important. It's kind of a new thing for me, because I really like to indulge in negatives. However, negative isn't helping me right now.
I had a good work ethic this week. I'm working on having a more positive attitude and next week I'm going to work on being more patient.
Okay, enough of that.
My best stock today was AGU.
I bought a couple hundred right before it had that nice run around 10:30. After the morning run, it consolidated, selling off on lighter volume. So when I saw it slowly gain on higher volume, I got in.
My worst, was LNN.
I caught some of the run from $69 to $70 around 10:40. The problem is that instead of selling, I held. The stock seemed to be breaking a downtrend on the daily and I thought it would run more. When it sold off of $70, I bought more and was stopped out. So I turned a winning trade into a loser. Annoying.
Worse yet, I bought back when it dipped below $69, caught a move back above $69 but again, held and added instead of selling. I was bullish. It was tough to be bullish today in any stock, and I got burned when it spiked down from $69 to $68.
Anyway, next week I hope to have my software mastered. The research schedule really worked well for me this week. I felt more involved in the market.
My ethic is good and under my control, the profits will come.
Here's the stats:
P&L, -$633
Best, AGU, $359
Worst, LNN, -$268
25,800 shares traded.
26 stocks traded, 11 winners, 15 losers.
Virtual Office, $3371. Dow, -246.79, 12,606.30
Evolution, $3155 on 79,200 shares traded.
Sanglucci, $749 on 15,600 shares traded.
OBAT, $471 on 5800 shares traded.
Wincity, $65 on 200 shares traded.
Akalawoo, $28 on 1 contract traded.
Misstrade, no trades.
Retardo, no trades.
Denarii, -$12 on 200 shares traded.
Dehtrader, -$452 on 344 shares traded.
Me, -$633 on 25,800 shares traded.
Today was a real grinder.
We had solid volume as we traded close to 1.8 billion shares, but it was a battle. Every time the buyers tried to step in even a little, the sellers overwhelmed them and took the indexes just below the prior level. Then the buyers would have another go and the sellers would win again. Besides the open, there weren't any real dramatic moves one way or the other intraday, just a slow and steady trend down.
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Evolution has made a nice comeback from his New Year's hangover. It's great to see him pull up with a big one to end the week. Sanglucci and OBAT also had nice performances.
The rest of us kind of sucked. Especially me. I got pulled into most rallies today, and lost.
Anyway, have a great weekend.
Potential Inverse Head And Shoulders Patterns Developing?
You might have noticed that I watch Brian's videos as part of my daily research routine. Today's video is a perfect example of why. As a daytrader, I have a very short -term view of trade... too short to have a clear view of a larger picture.
Normally, I vacillate wildly between unbelievably bearish or unbelievably bullish. That's okay, but I think it's much better to have more perspective.
This video tempered my bearishness somewhat.
Bank Of America Buys Countrywide Financial
I guess this is good news. It's an all-stock deal worth $4 billion.
However, BAC was also "smart enough" to buy up at $18 back in August.
From a trading perspective, it looks like a hail-mary type, betting the house, type of trade.
Adding to a loser... a cardinal sin.
UPDATE: Full story from the NYTimes here.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
A New Start
Okay, so today was my first day trading real money with my new company.
What I really need to do is give everyone some more background on how I started with this shop. I have a gigantic and dramatic pre-history with many of the people trading there, not all of it good. However, it has been a really long day, so I can't get into it now.
Anyway, I had a good day today... mostly. If I could only take back my trades in GGP I would have been very happy with my performance trading a volatile market with new software after such a hiatus. No mulligans in trading however. I lost $500 in the stock, mostly churning it every time it got up near $34 and failed.
Sickening to look back on it now. Why couldn't I just wait for a clean break? Instead, I'd buy at $34 and sell at $33.70. Remarkable...
My best trade of the day was in DSL.
I bought just before the spike at 3pm. It was forming a flag/pennant/triangle. Actually, maybe that's nothing, but I had a feeling if it traded over $27.65 that it was a buy. So I bought and caught a nice ride for close to a point.
Other than those trades, I had a lot of 100 and 200 share churn positions. I'm still getting accustomed to my new keystrokes and the feel of the market. True, I watched it for the last few weeks, but that's absolutely nothing like trading it.
The "chatters" (as I'll call my new chat room office friends) made huge money today.
I'm hoping this positive office experience will soon rub off on me. If the market stays this volatile, I'm confident it will.
Here's the stats:
P&L, $169
Best, DSL, $303
Worst, GGP, -$494
24,200 shares traded.
21 stocks traded, 12 winners, 9 losers.
Virtual Office, $9586. Dow, +117.78, 12,853.09.
Misstrade, $6987 on 21,200 shares traded.
Sanglucci, $1474 on 29,600 shares traded.
Evolution, $849 on 137,000 shares traded.
Retardo, $510 on 25 contracts traded.
Me, $181 on 24,200 shares traded.
Denarii, $170 on 1000 shares traded.
OBAT, $72 on 9400 shares traded.
Wincity, -$58 on 1600 shares traded.
Dehtrader, -$599 on 300 shares traded.
It's a trader's paradise.
We traded over 2 billion shares on the day and were lucky enough to have not one, but two significant news events drive big moves in the market.
The first came at noon with the pre-release of Uncle Ben's speech that hinted at "substantive" FED moves to come. It shows up on the above graph just after 12:00.
Then, just after 2:00 came the news that BAC is in advanced talks to buy CFC. Again, the market loved this and ripped.
The traders who have been primed for this market are making "cheddar," plain and simple.
The VO had a pretty solid day. Evolution has had a nice turnaround from his beginning of the year swoon. When you hit a rut, the best thing to do is cut your size, get your confidence back with small wins and then worry about the big days. Evolution is doing just that. Well done, ET.
Anyway, sorry this is so late. I went to pick my daughter up at 4 and then we were invited to stay for dinner. We'll be back on schedule tomorrow.
An Oldy But Goody
Man, after reading this post I wrote back in April 2007, I remembered that day perfectly.
Funny.
Meanwhile, the VO will be a little late today as I have to pick my daughter up at 4pm from a friend's house.
It should be up by 5pm. Apologies.
China Freezes Energy Prices; Bans Plastic Bags
People don't like inflation? Oh, okay, we'll just freeze the price of gasoline.
Someone has to pay that bill eventually, no?
By banning plastic bags, China will save an entire week's worth of oil consumption, or 37 million barrels in one year.
Interesting...
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
The Honey Hole Is Back
Woodshedder has brought the now famous "HH" back for the masses!
He nailed it last time... can he do it again?
Daily Post Resumes Tomorrow
I still don't know how to get my P&L for individual stocks from this new trading software, so no daily post.
Basically, you could have bought anything at 2:45 and made money. It was that kind of rally.
P&L, $634
38,200 shares traded.
Virtual Office, $9165. Dow, +146.24, 12,735.31.
Misstrade, $4200 on 2000 shares traded.
Sanglucci, $1249 on 21,600 shares traded.
Dehtrader, $1240 on 1670 shares traded.
Retard, $902 on 24 contracts traded.
Me, $634 on 38,200 shares traded.
OBAT, $521 on 11,150 shares traded.
Evolution, $419 on 120,800 shares traded.
Wincity, no trades.
Akalawoo, no trades.
Denarii, no trades.
Call it the Hillary Clinton Comeback Kid rally.
Or not.
Today felt exactly like August... Clarence showed up, the Dow is back to August levels. The only difference is that I didn't make $28 grand... Instead, I'm still trading on a very restricted simulated account... 500 shares max position... funny how life changes.
The good news is that at 3:40 my new account info finally came through. Tomorrow I will definitely be "live."
Anyway, it was a huge day for good traders. There were multiple $10,000 plus days in the trading chat room I participate in. That's coming from very active prop traders, guys who trade much more size than I do, but still.
Volume exploded to over 2 billion shares on the NYSE. Here's an interesting graph for you. This is "Up Volume" on the NYSE. Check out that 2:45 explosion.
The VIX dropped down to the 24 level.
Indeed, this was an oversold/short covering type of rally. Once the futures broke the 5-minute downtrend line, it was off to the races.
Great to see the VO do so uniformly well. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.
Wall Street Fighter Relaunched!
Check out the new "cleaner and leaner" look of Wall Street Fighter.
Now you don't have to be embarrassed when you visit.
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