I'm in the middle of editing my blogroll... I'm considering changing it to sort by time... I'm also gonna delete all the dormant blogs in an effort to clean things up. If any of you who have dormant blogs start blogging again, just email me.
Anyway, it'll be sloppy until I work out the kinks.
Dude made $82 grand in my office today... on a half day... same guy who made $30 grand yesterday.
Sadly, I made a fraction of that. Still, I made money.
My first trade of the day was also my best and most profitable.
I also caught shorts in PCU through $100 and V through $78. However, it should be noted, that V was trading like a dick. I had one small loss in RIG. Sadly, I just missed a big trade in the fucker, but he stopped me out right before a good drop.
The reason I'm so optimistic about my trading recently is because, well, first of all, I haven't been losing money. Second, I still see loads of room for improvement. Third, I'm still trading small size. I just need to tighten up a bit more, add some shares now that I'm making good consistent decisions and things should be okay.
Of course, the market could change at any moment...
Anyway, I'm keeping this post short. My glass of Pernod calls.
Enjoy the long weekend.
Good music drops with the sun.
-dick
-dick
Something to talk about over your 4th of July holiday. Please vote over there, to the right.
I think I'm finally putting fear to rest.
After only 4 losing days last month and a good start to this month, I'm seeing real signs of confidence come back into my trading.
Think of Dinosaur Trader as an airplane. I make the same flights whether or not my plane has 2 passengers, or 200 passengers. The way I build profits again, is by adding passengers.
I'm flying there, might as well fill the plane, right?
And now, for Fugazi's take on Greed.
Simply mesmerizing... My current favorite song from their new album. I'll be seeing them live in a week. Can't wait.
-coalfall
My goodness... the moves in the coal, steel and ag names were epic. I didn't trade those moves...
Instead, I caught a nice move in SWN early, and pretty much scratched after that.
For whatever reason, I can't save esiggy charts to blogger right now, so I'll just describe the situation.
I was watching SWN to crest $50. This has been on the HCPG watchlist for the last couple of weeks. The stock opened at $49.75 and then based around that level for a few minutes. At 9:34, the stock traded $50, I entered at $50.10 and the thing just went vertical. I exited a couple hundred shares at $50.43 and then a few hundred more just over $51.
It was 9:36 and I was up nicely.
I got a little greedy though, and decided to try to play the short side of oils when they started to roll. I was early to the trade though, and barely missed huge moves.
So I gave a little back from my early morning highs, no big deal, and chalked up another win.
Again, the RO had a gigantic day.
Two guys in the RO were up over $25 grand, and a number of other players traded into the mid-thousands.
However, I want to share a little tidbit from some of the chat today. I know a lot of people are thinking, "Geez, idiot... these guys in your office are making such huge money, why don't you just do what they do?" It's because I can't deal with the huge drawdowns that are necessary to trade like they do...
Here they are talking about their P&L swings today...
Trader A: my pnl went from -20 to +15 to -4 to +26 here. what was the biggest drawdown for u?
Trader B: was up 8 then went flat.
They're talking thousands of dollars...
If I think of this job as a career, it's all about the slow build back right now... while it's tempting to doubt myself after days like yesterday and today, I'm thinking 5 years out, when I'm not burnt out and stacking coin every day, just like the good ole days.
I'm not saying those guys will be burnt out... I'm just saying I can't take those swings anymore. So I'm gonna keep trying to make a few hundred a day, and slowly build it up to a few thousand a day...
If I can do that, in 5 years, I won't give a damn about missing the coal shorts today.
Good music will drop with the sun.
Normally, if you're standing on the shore and you can't see the waves breaking, you don't paddle out.
However, last night we were at the beach, so I had a pretty good idea what I was paddling into this morning. That said, I was pretty unprepared for the thickness of the fog once I got out to what I presumed to be "the lineup."
I was out with 2 friends and after I caught one wave, lost them. Now and then through the white I'd briefly see a silhouette of a surfer, but the conditions were a little wild, and it was hard to stay close together. I could hear dogs barking on the shore through the sound of the distant shorebreak and the terns above me, but I could see nothing other than the white walls of fog that were about 25 feet away from me on all sides.
It was lonely and quiet in that white room. You can really get some thoughts going in your head when you're out there like that.
The night before, a very good surfer paddled in and was talking about "huge whirls" that were coming to the surface. With a large swell, sometimes fat sea bass come and feed close to the shore, chasing the little bait fish into the rock shallows. So people laughed him off, talking about the "Great White Sea Bass" and stuff, but it definitely felt "sharky" out there this morning, in the fog. So when a fairly large fish jumped clear out of the water about 10 feet from where I sat on my board, I could only wonder was was swimming beneath him, chasing him to the surface like that.
I took a wave, a long right, and as the wave petered out, found myself among boulders. Where the hell was I? As it turned out, I was two beaches over from where I originally paddled out. I managed to get out of the water, unharmed, and began stepping among the huge boulders on shore to get back to the break. I walked by a parking area where a few surfers where standing staring out into the fog.
"Anything out there?" one asked.
"Yeah, if you can find it." I said.
I paddled back out and remarkably, found one of my friends. "We're over at Boulders, man!" I yelled over.
"No fuck! Let's paddle back over to where the car is."
And so we paddled, silently, through the fog while the waves passed under us on their way towards shore. We found our other friend. He was out of breath and disoriented.
"Where the hell are we?" he shouted.
We told him, and now three of us paddled west, through the white, through the quiet. After some time, we got to a place where the waves seemed to be breaking in a coherent way, and we stopped, exhausted, assuming we were back at our original break.
I took a wave, and as I neared the shore, I saw a couple of lifeguard chairs and a few houses dotting the dunes. Once again, I hadn't the slightest idea where we were. I paddled in to shore and stood on the beach staring out into the solid white mist looking for signs of my friends.
Nothing.
After a couple of minutes, a dog heaved past me, all wild-eyes and hanging tongue, chasing after a ball. That was reassuring and brought me back to land. Moments later, my friends washed in, rather loosely, on their boards.
Some workout.
As it turns out, we had overshot the original break by a half mile. All told, we'd only been in the water for an hour but probably traveled over a mile back and forth, from one break to another, parallel to the shore. We couldn't see how strong the drift was through the fog...
When you're confused about your surroundings, time really slows down... it felt like we were out there for hours, lost and paddling. It taught me an important lesson... you have to keep your cool... I mean, we were never more than a couple hundred meters from shore, but it felt like we were in the middle of the ocean since we couldn't see anything. I let that perception trump the reality of the situation, and the rollercoaster my mind went on, ended up exhausting my body.
Anyway, we were able to laugh about it over egg sandwiches and coffee 20 minutes later, but I don't think I'll be paddling into fog again anytime soon.
Sometimes it doesn't pay to anticipate anything when you're trading.
I mean, here we are July 4th week and the market chooses to freak out a bit. It's like last summer... I remember being caught entirely off guard by the late-July and early-August lunacy.
The market volatility is not on that level yet, but neither does it appear the market wants to go quietly into the summer night.
Looking at my RO today hurt a little. Guys made bank, pure and simple. Top dog was up over $15k... 8 traders were up over a grand and 3 of those were up over 3 grand each.
However, I have to remind myself that I changed up my trading style not because I wasn't making money with it (even last year, my shittiest year ever, I cleared 6 digits) but because it was driving me crazy. I need a system where I can be profitable more and have fewer drawdowns. I need to remind myself that most of my profits from last year came on a handful of big days... the rest of the year was painful churn.
When I was single, had no financial obligations and had a sliver of the responsibility I have today, drawdowns didn't effect me as much as they do now... now however, I really hate them. Drawdowns freak me out, and post Hybrid, I just haven't been able to avoid them using my old methods.
These days where the market freaks out are not the norm... so I'm catering my trading style to be able to make money on the "normal" days... not the odd volatile day.
Anyway, I had a good day again, and it was all one trade. Then, I head out to the beach for a midday surf session. BID was trading with good volume and showing relative weakness off the open, and within striking distance of $25, which has been a support level since mid May.
See? I don't want to be rich... I want to be rich AND happy. I don't want to be stressed out all the time, waiting for the market to change and "be good." I want to take my money out of the market each morning, with a consistent, tried and true method, and get on with life.
Okay, that was really a pep talk to myself, to keep myself on "the path" as it were, and to remind myself that I have a plan and I'm in the middle of executing it...
If it would just rain for an entire day, I could post my June recap... but it looks like we'll be spending another evening at the beach, so NO RECAP FOR YOU!
As for the tone of the general market, despite the volume, I can only view today as a big short squeeze. Even I was squeezed, as I covered my LEH short. I short at over $40 in my LT account and covered today around $21... not bad. I think with my extra funds, I'll just buy more HCBK.
Indeed, slow and steady wins the race...
BTW, don't forget to check Tokyo's site for the VO... Meanwhile, I see he's now posting what he considers "good music" on days when he makes money and "bad music" on days he loses... Surely, mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery, but I won't be asking Tokyo to be my roommate anytime soon. If he takes up surfing, I will change my address and buy a big gun.
Good music dropping with the sun.
Here she is interviewing the CEO of HCBK, my favorite bank stock of the last year.
Good volume, volatility... some big numbers today and no "smokeages."
Top guy up over $13k... low man down $300.
Man, I love the way they've been all over the oil issue.
As we get closer to the election, I will rely on The Daily Show more and more for things like, truth, and accuracy in reporting.
My surfing buddy is away. Today, I drove to the beach at 5:30, alone, and didn't go in. The wind was strong onshore and the swell was just a bit too wild and loose for my taste.
So I picked up wet helium balloons from the shore.
"Happy Birthday!" "Congratulations!" "You're 50!"
Instead, they should just say "Future Beach Litter!"
I found 5 balloons in about 10 minutes, tangled around seaweed or blown into the dunes. With a light drizzle, gray skies and blown-out surf, it made for a moody beginning to the day.
-Evil children and their environmental weapon of choice.
This place is full of tourists this time of year. Some guy pulled into the lot in an SUV with out-of-state plates (and incidentally, given where the wind was blowing from, his state was probably responsible for the balloon litter). Anyway, he ambled over to me while I was picking up a balloon and said, referring to the surf, not the beach, "When do you think it's gonna clean up?"
I said, "Probably never. The wind is going to be onshore, forever." I was kind of being a dick, but it was also true. There was no chance of clean surf today.
So it was with that darkness that I arrived home to take a look at the market.
Since it was the last day of the month, I wasn't looking to take too much risk. I'm solidly green, and happy to take at least a little check home. So I decided to just focus like a "frikken laser beam" on the HCPG plays.
MEE gapped up a bit, consolidated quickly, and broke out. It was a fast trade, and really all I needed.
I also caught a nice little move in MUR, scratched in JEC, and lost a bit in SU.
Nothing else.
Anyway, since this is the first day without the VO, I feel the need to also add a bit of market commentary here. However, since I barely traded today (and probably won't trade too much all week, since it's a holiday week and should be slow) I don't have much to offer.
So how about this for market commentary? All things must pass.
I also haven't figured out how many other statistics (besides my newly absent P&L) I'm going to share. In short, this blog will be evolving again over the next few weeks. It'll take some time for me to figure out what to do with my free time and thought. Suggestions? Fire away.
Finally, if you're looking for the VO (and admit it, crackhead, you enjoyed it) you can find it starting tomorrow at Tokyo Trader's fine site.
It's like this... you know how you have a favorite band and you really liked their first couple of albums but then they changed their sound? Well it's like that around here. I just got a new drummer (old one died, overdose) and I'll be experimenting with some new sounds.
Some good music forthcoming.
I made a few trades right off the bat this morning, took my customary small monies from the stock market, and invested the gained confidence right back into my "trading confidence" account.
The account is rapidly growing in interest.
I will detail said growth in an upcoming June review post.
For now, I will take my daughter down to the bay beach, stand her up on my surfboard and push it around, all the while making swishy noises with my mouth.
We have beautiful weather here and she's not getting any younger.
Let's start off this week on a good note.
And listen... Tokyo Trader has adopted the VO. Him, Timmay and Denarii will continue to report their daily P&Ls over there. In addition, Tokyo is actively seeking out new members. I urge you to visit his well-written and interesting blog. It's definitely worth a daily visit.
