A Place To Bury Strangers, "To Fix The Gash In Your Head"

Still Trading Lightly

Here's the deal, I barely traded again.

I'm trading gingerly this week as I regain my bearings. While I only officially didn't trade for 2 days, I've been on a mental vacation since the middle of August. I'm just getting my feel back this week.

Also, with my wife still ill and my daughter now running a fever, I haven't had the opportunity to focus on the market like I should.

Simply put I'm washing more dishes and blogging less these days.

That said, I did okay today. My best trade of the day was a short in ITU.



Here are my trades in ITU:

10:00:08 Short 900 @ $42.83 (-900)
10:00:41 Short 100 @ $42.73 (-1000)
10:01:31 Buy 200 @ $42.65 (-800)
10:03:37 Buy 100 @ $42.63 (-700)
10:04:10 Buy 200 @ $42.69 (-500)
10:05:06 Buy 100 @ $42.68 (-400)
10:08:47 Buy 200 @ $42.66 (-200)
10:18:23 Buy 200 @ $42.33 (flat)

Had I been more patient with this trade I would have fared much better. It never traded back to my short entry so you could say I messed this one up. I'll regain my patience in time. Right now I'm definitely trading a little jumpy because I don't have a great "feel" for the market. My gut tells me it needs to trade lower but for the last couple of weeks it's been trading higher.

So I'm a little confused.

That said, it's important that I "lose the story" I have in my head about which way I think the market should be trading and instead just focus on what it's actually doing. There's some religious message there somewhere...

Anyway, short post, here's the stats:

P&L, $596
Best, ITU, $212
Worst, LDK, -$265

11,800 shares traded
11 stocks traded, 7 winners 4 losers
81 trades

Virtual Office, $8243. Dow, -143.39, 13305.47.

Misstrade, $9614 on 20,900 shares traded.
Me, $596 on 11,800 shares traded.
HPT, $400 on 73 contracts traded.
Bubs, $105 on 400 shares traded.
Denarii, on a beach, tanning.
Tapeworm, -$32 on 8 contracts traded.
OBAT, -$108 on 7000 shares traded.
Evolution, -$2332 on 6000 shares traded.

Well, I need to get out of here for awhile but I figured I'd post a preliminary VO since most (if not all) of the numbers are in.

Volume is still light on the NYSE. Looks like another day where we'll trade below 1.5 billion shares. In fact, we haven't traded over 1.5 billion shares since the 20th of August. I dunno... call it a summer hangover. Everyone still wants to be on the beach.

It was a pretty choppy day in the VO. We lost money overall and that's never good. Evolution has been on a great roll and he took a little hit today. In his email to me he offered a one word explanation, "airlines." Check out his blog for the full details.

Anyway, I expect trade to continue light for the rest of the week. In fact, I'm beginning to think it may be light all the way until the Fed meeting on the 18th. There's just so much speculation and indecision about what they're going to do. I hope I'm wrong because I'm hoping for more volume and volatility... time will tell.

UPDATE: As you can see, Misstrade won't be watching football until tomorrow. He turned in quite a day bringing the VO into the green.

Dinosaur Part I

This is completely random. Still, the market is slow and I know that you have nothing better to do. While vacationing, I did market research on you. I had focus groups, taste testing... I spoke with your credit agency... I know a lot now. And you'll enjoy this 4 part series.

"Puppies! Puppies!"

This commercial makes me sick on many levels... I'll let you watch it and choose what you hate about it.



Anyway, they play it over and over again on CNBC.

Fall Migration

I haven't thrown a bird post up in awhile, so here goes!

The thing is, I used to bird pre-market. I'd wake and get down to the beach and study the mud flats between 6:30 and 7:30 looking for shorebirds. Right now, if I went down there I'd probably see hundreds of Tree Swallows. They gather at the barrier beaches with a nervous anticipation getting ready for their impossibly long migration flights. It's really a beautiful scene.

Surfing has taken over my morning time slot (temporarily?) and so I haven't been out birding. However, I've long read a great blog about birding and I'll share the link here in case any of you are interested.

The guy lives in Brooklyn. Since many of you are probably located around the city, it is a great blog for you to follow since these bird observations are happening right on your doorstep. The name of the blog is Citybirder. I'm also updating my blogroll with it's inclusion.

Vetiver, "Been So Long" (live)

One of my favorite bands of the last couple of years.

Virtual Office, $3455. Dow, +91.20, 13,448.94.

Evolution, $1327 on 30,600 shares traded.
Misstrade, $900 on 6000 shares traded.
Bubs, $557 on 1400 shares traded.
Me, $429 on 3200 shares traded.
OBAT, $268 on 7600 shares traded.
HPT, $139 on 65 contracts traded.
Denarii, sitting on a beach, no trades.
Tapeworm, -$165 on 6 contracts traded.

Volume is still light out there. We traded 1,313,936,000 shares today on the NYSE.

I guess things won't really pick up until next week. I make this mistake every year... I think right after Labor Day that the market will be back to "normal" but then we suffer for one more weak with paltry volume. In fact, I'd venture a guess that the first week of September has been one of my worst year in and year out.

Still, the VO did okay today. I mean, no one had huge days and no one got killed but the majority of "the players" made some money.

Volume on Dinosaur Trader will now pick up however... my vacation is over. That said, I won't be posting a daily post tonight. I spoke of my day in an earlier post today and I need to forage for dinner...

Good News For Stock Traders

Of course, I'll wait and see how this really develops and effects trading, but it's a good sign.

The NYSE is going to change the way specialists are compensated. This may mean more fluid, liquid markets again. Since December and the implementation of the hybrid market if you've been trading the NYSE, you may have noticed that fluidity and liquidity haven't exactly been hallmarks. I mean, I've noticed...

Thanks Ray for keeping that blog up and running. Perhaps Tony and I finally had our voices heard through it.

Surfing, Doctor's and Moths, Oh My!

I left the house at 5am today to get to the break early. The summer crowd has largely dispersed and when I arrived at the beach there was only one guy out in the water, barely visible in the dull pre-sunrise light. The waves were small, maybe waist-high with some slightly larger peaks to be found. The winds were from the west, so it was a little choppy. I had a good session and got home by 8:30 to find my wife and daughter eating breakfast.

I got to my screens but didn't do much research. I knew I'd only be placing one trade because I wanted to go to Judy's doctor's appointment. I read that AG was upgraded and that DE had it's estimates raised. So I placed one trade this morning. I bought 200 shares of DE at $136.86 and then head out to the doctor's office with my wife.

There was good news on a couple of fronts. First, the doctor wasn't too alarmed by her extremely high fever from the weekend and basically said that as long as she's hydrated and not hallucinating that fever isn't a big problem and just the body's way of fighting illness. They took some blood and will be testing her for all the tick-borne diseases.

We got home and my Dad showed up to watch our daughter so that Judy could rest and I could trade. I turned on my screens and was happy to see my DE position up a couple of points. So I was able to feel like a good husband and still make money. Very nice.



So I was eating my lunch, looking at all the good stuff I missed (specifically the fertilizers) when my wife called from downstairs, "There are moths in the rice."

As you probably know, I'm a birder. I search rare birds out and I also feed the more common ones in my backyard. I have 20 pound bags of sunflower seed and peanuts in a downstairs closet. A few weeks back, I noticed lots of moths in this closet. About 2 days ago, I noticed that they were eating the bird seed. Freaky, right? Like out of the movies. I threw all the seed out and figured I had solved the problem.

Nope...apparently, they have invaded our human food supply too. When I went downstairs we found them in basically any bag that contained anything "grainy." These moths love quinoa.

So that has been my day thus far. Not an ideal way to come back from vacation, but I'll take the easy trade in DE for now and hope to be more active in the afternoon session.

Thanks all for putting up with the sub-par and spotty blogging of late. I should be back now.

Back, But Tenderly

I have a sick family... specifically, a really sick wife.

She had a temperature over the weekend that hit 106 so needless to say, my blogging will be light until we figure out what is wrong with her. She has a doctor's appointment at 10 so hopefully, we get some answers.

We suspect Lyme disease...

So I'll be trading this week, but distractedly. I have lots to report but it will have to come in dribs and drabs until all is normal here again.

UPDATE: We'll be back at the doctor on Friday for the blood results. Good news is that if it is Lyme, we caught it early and it shouldn't be a big problem. Her fever, thankfully, is gone.

Virtual Office, Labor Day Edition $693.

Evolution, $1079 on 44,800 shares traded.
HPT, $500 on 12 contracts traded.
Tapeworm, -$886 on 46 contracts traded.

So as you can see, most of the VO took a break on Friday.

Speaking of "breaks" I can't begin to describe how much fun I had on my longboard today. I'll have to take a picture of it soon and post it here... I love it. I think I need to name it. Because it's so large, I may call it "Dinosaur."

Anyway, enjoy the beautiful weather on the east coast this weekend. We'll be up ad running again here on Tuesday. Looking forward to getting back into the swing of things.

Okkervil River, "Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe"

For "Noisy," who provided me with the live clip from the Conan show yesterday.

Longboard Surfing Video

When I'm on the waves I look exactly like these guys. ;)

Virtual Office, $2030. Dow, -50.56, 13238.73.

HPT, $1500 on 130 contracts traded.
Evolution, $450 on 49,100 shares traded.
OBAT, $260 on 3000 shares traded.
Bubs, $106 on 300 shares traded.
Misstrade, no trades.
Me, no trades.
Denarii, -$10 on 400 shares traded.
Tapeworm, -$276 on 40 contracts traded.

Welcome to the "I just turned my computer on at 6pm" edition of the Virtual Office.

I've been at the beach for the last 12 hours. It's been wonderful. Also, I splurged on a (used) Robert August longboard. The last couple of days the surf here has been small and the waves have been dominated by old dudes with long white hair on longboards. It's time I got me a piece.
Anyway, people made money again! This bodes very well for the market in September. The market has been good to trade the entire month of August, a month that is typically very slow for traders.

Meanwhile, volume was lighter today than it was yesterday. 1,279,614,000 shares traded today on the NYSE.

Tomorrow I will probably post only the VO again. I appreciate your patience as I take some time off to chill out and get ready for the maelstrom which will be the stock market this fall.

Charles Bukowski, "Dinosauria, we"

I thought this was a little appropriate. You people don't seem to like the music... fine. Eat some poetry.

I need to think up a new poll to bring the masses back.

Luck And Found Money

I was reading Attitude Trader's blog tonight and he put up a bunch of new links that have to do with "luck." He always has interesting stuff over there (especially his "attitude index"), so you should check it out.

Anyway, one of the links he has up is for a site where a guy invests money he finds. Like, he'll find 12 cents a day but he invests it all and keep track of it. Just a lot of fun to read. Here's the link. It's called "Found Money Jar."

Virtual Office, $3454. Dow, +247.44, 13289.29.

Misstrade, $2100 on 10,200 shares traded.
Evolution, $1652 on 65,600 shares traded.
OBAT, $236 on 5400 shares traded.
Tapeworm, $144 on 24 contracts traded.
Bubs, -$280 on 1600 shares traded.
Me, -$398 on 14,800 shares traded.

This market is so wacked out.

However, apparently if you're in the right frame of mind, it's worth trading. Me, I'm on vacation mentally and so I'm not even going to mess around anymore until Tuesday. However it's great to see Misstrade and Evolution making some hay.

Especially Evolution. Check his blog to see how he went through a mini-slump and has busted out of it. That kind of performance should be inspiring to all new or struggling traders.

Misstrade, well if you've been following this blog long enough you know he's kind of like a machine. He'll be off for the next 10 days. That should give some of us other slobs a chance to shine here in the VO.

It's good to see OBAT in the green, he's had a few rough ones recently.

And hats off to Tapeworm. On his first day in the VO he showed us stock traders that he has some chops.

Me and Bubs should have just stayed asleep today.

Anyway... my only market commentary is the following (and excuse me for sounding like a broken record)...Yes, the market rallied today but yesterday it sold off on higher volume... you'd rather see it sell off on light volume and rally on strong volume. Still, 250 points is 250 points... whatever.

It's wacky.

A New Virtual Office Member

We welcome "tapeworm" of Wallstreak and MovetheMarkets fame over to our Virtual Office today.

This worm contacted me a couple of weeks ago about joining the VO. At first, I turned him down because he is a lowly futures trader. I said we already had a "token" futures trader, HPT. However, after watching him post his numbers all alone everyday over at MtM, and after exchanging a few emails, I took pity on him.

Will the VO ever be the same? I doubt it. If I ever start talking about "R" on my site, you'll know the end is nigh.

Meanwhile you may be asking, why sign up another futures trader isn't your site about stock trading? Well, the answer to this question goes something like this... I keep these future traders on a short leash. Should we get a few more stock traders posting their stats here everyday, they will be the first to go. I think I can handle up to 10 traders total... Plus, I charge futures traders 10% of their daily take...

Every site needs a whipping boy. "The Fly" has Slope of Hope, Ducati has "the Fly" and I have futures traders.

NOTE: The Virtual Office post may be late today. Again, everything will be back to normal here after Labor Day. Until then, expect "service disruptions."

NOTE #2: You will no longer see the MtM link under my links. It is now listed under the name "Tapeworm" by the Virtual Office.

Virtual Office, $4711. Dow, -281.10, 13041.03.

Misstrade, $2610 on 24,000 shares traded.
Evolution, $2017 on 20,000 shares traded.
Me, $253 on 11,200 shares traded.
OBAT, -$33 on 3200 shares traded.
Denarii, -$136 on 4400 shares traded.

Wow, well, maybe I picked the wrong week to "take off." But you know, I'm just recharging the batteries.

The market got killed today. And while it got killed on relatively light volume, one should notice that while light, the volume was still stronger than it has been on our most recent up days. That means only one thing, the market is still going through bouts of distribution. It's ugly out there.

Volatility should continue into September. Thank the trading gods.

NOTE: No daily post tonight. I made my money shorting BBD...