Smoked

I lost -$1650 being stubbornly short UBB. End of week, end of story.

Blogger "Death-Match"

POST BUMP

Today over at Wallsteak, I challenged "Ragin Cajun" to a "deathmatch."

I know, I know... that's like "challenging" George Bush to an IQ test or "challenging" Dick Cheney to a personality test, but still, I thought it'd be fun.

And, I feel bad for the guy. He lives in New Orleans, probably in a trailer somewhere, (let's face it) and no one visits his blog.

So here's the deal. I short JRJC today at $42.03 and he got long at $39.65.



In the comments section, place your bets (in terms of "R" of course) on who you think will win.

The contest is over tomorrow.

UPDATE: I've formed a quick poll on the subject. Voting closes at the end of the trading day tomorrow, so go vote!

FRIDAY PRE-OPEN UPDATE: Looks to be gapping higher... over $42... DAMN YOU RAGIN! We'll see what happens into the close, but with the futures up 12 pre-market, I'm not feeling too good. We'll see.

Radiohead, "Sit Down, Stand Up"

Slower Than Humid Southern Cities

Man... just over a billion shares. What the freaking heck?

A couple of weeks ago I thought we were waiting for the FED meeting to get back to normal trading volume. Now, it's waiting for "The Big Employment Data" tomorrow. Next week I'm sure it will be "we're waiting for earnings season to begin." In short, volume is leaving this market. It's all apparently headed to China. Anyone know where to surf in China or is the sea there a liquefied vat of poison?

Anyway...

I more or less took some profits early today and ran with them. I detailed my DSX trade in an earlier post. Of course, I managed to churn some of my profits from that trade away, but still it was my best stock of the day as I managed to net $958 in it.

My other good trade of the day was a short in UBB.



Here are my trades in UBB:

9:32:32 Buy 200 @ $135.79. (200)
9:35:53 Sell 100 @ $136.43. (100)
9:36:00 Sell 100 @ $136.41. (flat)
9:36:58 Short 300 @ 137. (-300)
9:37:14 Buy 100 @ $137.24. (-200)
9:37:28 Buy 100 @ $137.28. (-100)
9:38:05 Short 200 @ $137.17. (-300)
9:46:33 Buy 100 @ $135.85. (-200)
9:49:59 Buy 200 @ $134.46. (flat)
10:13:01 Short 200 @ $135.87. (-200)
10:14:15 Buy 200 @ $135.66. (flat)

Net profits, $765.

So my back is shot. I'm getting away from this computer for awhile to lay down.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $1564
Best, UBB $958
Worst, DSL -$205

12,800 shares traded.
10 stocks traded, 6 winners, 4 losers.
61 trades.

Virtual Office, $5191. Dow, +6.26, 13,974.31.

Misstrade, $2700 on 6000 shares traded.
Me, $1564 on 12,800 shares traded.
Momojuicing, $483 on 6000 shares traded.
OBAT, $362 on 6000 shares traded.
Evolution, $197 on 42,000 shares traded.
Akalawoo, no trades.
Bubs, -$115 on 3000 shares traded.

You know volume is light when I start challenging fellow traders to "deathmatch" trades via stock message boards... sigh.

We traded, 1,100,122,000 shares today. That's like, nothing. A sigh in the markets.

Anyway, the consensus over at Wallstreak today was that the market was quiet because everyone is waiting on the eco-data tomorrow. Of course, my guess is that CNBC formed that consensus and repeated it over and over again but I don't know that for sure because happily, I didn't have that particular channel on today.

Meanwhile, DIE JRJC, DIE!!! Go vote in the poll.

Stock Gender

Are the stocks you trade male or female? Momojuicing asks the tough questions on a sleepy day in the market.

Swing Trades

Okay, since I was AWOL for most of yesterday, I didn't have a chance to update my swing trading.

On a general note, swing trading is going well. Though I started small, I've almost doubled the $2000 I started with at the beginning of September... and that's after getting smashed in QID into the FED cut.

Anyway, here are the updates:

Yesterday, I short 300 ANW @ $37.21. I covered 100 @ $37.18 and 100 @ $36.24. The last 100 I plan on letting ride.

I covered my LAZ short. 100 @ $45.22 and 100 @ 46.08.

Today I added to my DSL long. 100 shares @ $59.09.

Today I short 100 shares of JRJC. 100 shares @ $42.03.

So for now, my account reads:

-100 ANW
-100 JRJC
50 POT
100 NMX
300 DSL

UPDATE: I covered my last 100 shares of ANW @ $34.72... I guess I need to work on patience... but really, I'm happy with that drop for the day. Ahead of employment numbers I don't want too much exposure.

Complete Chaos

Let me tell you, if you've never witnessed four, 2 and 3 year old children fighting over 1 chair (in this instance, a highchair, they all wanted to be the "baby") you have thus far missed out on a "tiny hell" that parenthood can throw your way.

Congratufuckinglations.

The "playgroup" that descended on my house yesterday just after the close was, in short, my worst kind of nightmare. Normally, I can be jovial and have fun with the kids. But yesterday, my plan was to get the heck out of here and head down to the beach since we have a great 4-5 foot swell running. However, I knew I was in trouble when at 4:01 I heard a male voice downstairs... a "Dad" had brought a kid... what the? And that meant I was compelled to stay.

It's like, you can't leave another guy in a house full of mothers and screaming children. It's part of the code... you just don't do it or you'll end up living in a trailer park someday with 11 red-headed step children and an ex-stripper as a wife.

A poorly aging ex-stripper. With tattoos in bad places that aren't as "taut" as they once were.

Anyway, that was yesterday. And the complete chaos that whooshed into my quiet and humble home kept me from the surf and from blogging.

Thus, I woke an hour before the sun to make sure I'd get some waves in this morning.

It was worth the lost sleep.

The waves were beautiful. It was a cloudy and gray morning here and 4 and 5 foot sets were rolling in from the mist. There was one guy out when I got there, an old guy who rides a beautiful wooden board. He was way outside, but I quickly realized that that was where I had to be to avoid getting rolled by the larger sets that were occasionally running through.

I had the best ride of my life today. I was straddling my board, bobbing around when I saw a set forming out in the gray. The winds here are calm, so it's been hard to really pick out the waves with ease... you need the winds to be a little offshore to make spotting the waves easier, but there was no mistaking the lines I saw forming out there.

The first one came and I let it through, the old guy jumped on it and I watched as he disappeared on the other side of the wave, the only thing visible to me was the churning water behind the break. That's one of the cool visions of surfing... most often you have the perspective of the waves breaking before you. When you're outside, you can see the back of the waves and the way it looks after they break. It's hard to describe, but you see the wave crest and then once it breaks it turns white and then the whiteness grows and spreads out into the surrounding water.

Anyway, I had only a second to appreciate the beauty of that first wave when I was picked up by the second. I barely paddled and got right up on it, very high on the wave and caught a nice 5 foot drop into the belly of the wave. The funny thing is that normally the break is a left but here I took a hard right to ride down the face and then did a left bottom turn to ride the wave in. It was a powerful wave with a good push and I must have been on it for a couple hundred yards because it was powerful enough to reconnect me with the inside waves. It was an amazing ride.

When the wave died, I laid back down on my board and started to paddle back out. With that first paddle, I also did a slight turn, to move the nose of my board into the incoming waves. That's when I felt the pull. My upper back simply gave out.

So, as I type this, I have an icepack strapped to my chair. My back is sore. It's not spasming anymore (it was no easy feat to paddle back in, luckily because my ride was so huge, I was only 50 or so yards from the beach) but it's uncomfortable. And I have to say, that after a ride like that and knowing that this swell should continue for at least one more day, that I'm really hoping it's feeling better by tomorrow morning so I can get in there again.

In March and April when my back was out, it was a nuisance, but no huge deal because I wasn't doing anything active anyway... now however, I find this injury to be completely frustrating... I just want to get out and surf again.

Anyway, so I got back to the desk really late. I made some great short trades this morning, most notably in DSX (the shippers tanked) and UBB.



I'm up nicely. Now, I'm going to lay down with ice, continue reading "The Dogs of Winter" and try to heal as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, I hope my daughter is the only toddler I see all day.

Toddlers

Okay, so I was surprised by a "play group" at our house that began at 4pm... normally I get some warning, today, none.

So, basically, I would love to write about what a crazy day it was in the market, but I have lots of pizza boxes to compact and juice spills to clean. Also, I have to coax my cats out of the basement and let them know the toddlers are gone... for now.

They always come back.

So I'm busy and exhausted. Sorry, but no daily post tonight. Cleaning up and then bedtime.

Virtual Office, $2910. Dow, -79.26, 13968.05.

Momojuicing, $2113 on 11,000 shares traded.
Me, $711 on 32,400 shares traded.
OBAT, $505 on 12,000 shares traded.
Bubs, $341 on 5400 shares traded.
Akalawoo, $114 on 4 contracts traded.
Denarii, vacation.
Tapeworm, computer "fucked."
Evolution, -$874 on 51,000 shares traded.

Well, damn there were some ridiculous moves in the market today... CHNR? I mean, what the fuck? LDK? Holy shit!

And while the market was alternately exploding higher or imploding upon itself, I was hanging out on a misty beach, hoping my 400 shares of RDN would go up a half point... interesting how you can miss a big day like that.

Anyway, volume was pathetic once again. As bearish as I was a month ago, I feel bullish now. I mean, just watch price and volume. Volume goes up on up days and down on down days... that's bullish.

We traded a measly 1,246,748,000 shares today.

No word from Misstrade which is not normal... I'm guessing he either made a bajillion dollars or was torpedoed by CHNR and has jumped out a window... time will tell.

UPDATE: Misstrade is still with us. He made $16,413 on 17,100 shares traded.

Missed Some Huge Moves

I had a choppy morning and started to give away profits, so I slipped out in the middle of the day. When I got back at 2:30, I realized my mistake... there were some gigantic moves.





I hope you, out there in internet land, caught some of them.

2 New Radiohead Songs, "Nude" And "Reckoner"

Ha, "Nude" in the title caught your interest, eh? Damn perverts.

Anyway, here are two live versions of new tracks from the upcoming Radiohead album.

Drive XV

Stereogum has followed up on the success of their tribute to the Radiohead album OK Computer by releasing a tribute to the 15th anniversary of REM's "Automatic For The People."

Man, I can't believe it's been 15 years!

you should see the stereogum.com drive xv player here if you have flash

My favorite covers are "Try Not To Breathe," "Sweetness Follows," "Ignoreland," "Star Me Kitten," and "Man On The Moon." The worst cover, and I mean, and I think it's embarrassingly bad, is the Meat Puppets cover of Everybody Hurts. Maybe it's just because if I have to listen to that song one more time I'll cut my ears off and send them to Michael Stipe... but it was like they weren't even trying.

Pretty much after REM released "Automatic For The People" I stopped following them, but that album is great.

Enjoy the covers. You can stream them on the player above, or visit Stereogum and download them for free.

Radiohead, "How To Disappear Completely"

In keeping with my "all Radiohead all week" theme (to celebrate the release of their new album In Rainbows, which you can download for whatever price you wish to pay on October 10th), here is a Radiohead song that makes you want to slit your wrists.

Ah! But then you realize, "If I slit my wrists, I can't listen to this song ever again" so you don't.

So, in a weird way it depresses you but then it makes you want to live.

A Good Day Of Stock Trading

A good day because I only really worked until 10:45 and then I pretty much walked away. I watched and monitored positions, but I definitely didn't overtrade.

At one point, I had $700 more in profits, but I got squeezed in all of my shorts when the market rallied between 1:00 and 3:00. I'm pissed I didn't lock those profits in, but at the same time, I had good gains on the day and I decided to try and let some positions run. This time I was wrong, but they'll come a day where I turn my $2800 gain into $4500 with that strategy.

Anyway, my best trade of the day was a short in EXM.



Over at Wallstreak we were watching the shippers. DRYS hit $100 but then sold off all the way back to $96. During that time, EXM more or less followed him and I was short about 500 shares. So, I made $846 in him. This was one of those positions that I let "ride" so as you can see, I gave back when the market rallied between 1:00 and 3:00. Probably $400 in this guy alone.

Basically, the whole morning I was selling stuff short. It was dicey for awhile, but eventually I caught nice moves in X, AZO (h/t Doug at Wallstreak), LDK and TSL. The solars and the shippers have really been great to trade.

I have my work computer off and I kind of hate to blog here on the desktop. It's a Mac and I just can't figure out how to get it into "compose" mode. So I'm signing off.

I don't even have the stats... sorry. What I remember is that I had an awesome winners to losers ratio.

Virtual Office, $11,229. Dow, -40.24, 14047.31.

Misstrade, $6025 on 21,500 shares traded.
Me, $2185 on 30,400 shares traded.
Momojuicing, $2132 on 10,600 shares traded.
Bubs, $940 on 3700 shares traded.
Akalawoo, $259 on 23 contracts traded.
OBAT, $207 on 8400 shares traded.
Denarii, vacation
Tapeworm, computer virus-ridden... porn.
Evolution, -$519 on 36,500 shares traded.

Well, back to low volume. 1,272,851,000 shares traded today on the NYSE. Yawn.

Still, it was an excellent day for the VO. Even Bubs, who's out hitting the pavement looking for a new job, made good money.

Anyway, overall, you have to really say today was a great day for the bulls. The market is acting great. Gains on higher volume and declines on lower volume. We have a lot of eco-data set to hit the last few days of this week. It will be fun to watch how the market takes it all in. When the market rallies (or at least doesn't decline) on poor data (like the housing data we got today) that is a very bullish sign indeed.

By the way, if any of you are so inclined, feel free to share your P&L in the comment section of the VO every day.

Erin Burnett Is CNBC's "Sexiest" Anchor

The votes are in. A startling 103 of you voted. It will be tough to match this poll as far as voting tally goes... apparently, sex does sell.



Perhaps I'll try violence next.

Here's the final tally to the poll question, "Which CNBC Anchor Would You Most Want To Sleep With?"

Erin Burnett, 32 votes, 31% of tally.
Becky Quick, 17 votes, 16% of tally.
Maria Bartiromo, 15 votes, 14% of tally.
Trish Regan, 11 votes, 10% of tally.
Rebecca Jarvis, 10 votes, 9% of tally.
Melissa Francis, 6 votes, 5% of tally.
Dylan Ratigan, 4 votes, 3% of tally.
Melissa Lee, 3 votes, 2% of tally.
Jim Cramer, 3 votes, 2% of tally.
Bertha Coombs, 2 votes, 1% of tally.

UPDATE: OKAY, Okay... just kidding... clearly, that's not Erin... it's some other "news" anchor.

Anyway, watch Chris Matthews hit on Erin in this clip. Notice how bright red he gets at the end of the clip.

Swing Updates

Sold 50 GRMN @ $108.18. Position closed.
Sold 50 POT @ $112.24. 50 shares remaining.
Bought 200 DSL @ $59.18. 78% of float sold short... housing rallies on bad numbers.
Short 100 LAZ @ $44.27. This short position is getting old, fast. Still, I added to it.
Sell 100 WNR @ $38.58. Stock is down after getting upgraded. WTF?

As you can see, I initiated a new position in DSL. I mean, the stock is mostly sold short. Even if there's bad news, shorts will cover pushing the price higher.

I also added to my LAZ short position. I'm not loving it though... we'll see.

So as of right now, my swing account reads:

50 POT
100 NMX
200 DSL
-200 LAZ

A Solid Morning

The day didn't start out too great.

I woke at 5:20 to get to my buddy's house at 5:45 so we could carpool to the beach. When I got there, all was dark. I peered over their backyard gate and saw his wetsuit in a wet ball and his surfboard laying on the wet grass, covered by a towel as if it had died.

In a stage whisper I called over the gate, "Shithead! Wake up! It's me!" and listened for bedsheet rustling for the upstairs windows... nothing. I crunched through the gravel, got back in my car, and drove off into the dark morning.

I don't particularly like paddling out alone. Especially with the swell coming up, but when I got to the beach I was the first surfer there. I pulled my cold wetsuit on and walked towards the sand where there was a group of 4 old men surfcasting.

"Anything biting?" I asked.

An old guy wearing a baseball cap stuck full of pins and fishing lures turned towards me and joked, "Things were great out there until that one large shark showed up and scared all the fish away." His other 3 buddies snickered and twittered. That's when I reached down and pulled a large rock out of the sand and walked towards them.

"Are you guys going to laugh when I take this rock and bash your old-men-skulls to pieces?" I said, menacing them with the rock.

I shook my head at them and walked into the water.

I surfed for about 3 hours yesterday afternoon and upon chesting my board in the water I realized that my arms were not fully recovered. They were tired and aching. With no other surfers in the water as a reference point and the sun not yet risen, it was lonely out there getting to the spot where the waves were breaking. The swell had come up more since yesterday afternoon. I estimated it to be between 2.5 and 3.5 feet but the winds were gusting easterly and really making it sloppy.

I caught a few waves but didn't really have any great rides. The waves were closing out and sloppy. I put my chin down on my board and paddled back to shore.

The old men gave me wide berth.

A couple of surfers had shown up and were watching the waves while sipping coffee and sitting on benches.

"Kind of crappy out there, eh?" one offered.

"Yeah, a real slop and chop," I replied.

And that was it for surfing.

As for trading, I made some good money with shorts in EXM, X, LDK, TSL and AZO. I also caught MOS off the bottom for some quick money.

Basically, I'm done until the afternoon. Maybe today is the day where I should be bagging 10 grand again, I don't know. But whatever, I like walking away. I have some shorts in, some have already squeezed me out of about $400 in profits but for now, I'm out of here.

Erin Burnett Closing In On "Victory"

Just another feather in her cap I'm sure... you know, perhaps this doesn't seem like a big deal to her now, but when she's old and washed up perhaps she'll stumble across this poll and get a nice laugh from it.

For now, it seems that she will be the reigning "sex queen" of CNBC according to the readers at Dinosaur Trader.


I'd love for the poll to get up to 100 votes by the way, we have 5 hours left to get there. Regardless, it's a record for a Dinosaur Trader poll. Thanks for your participation.

And, it looks like sometime in the last week, we went over the 1000 comments made mark on the site. I think that you can really judge the health of a blog by the participation and comments it receives, so thanks for commenting. It keeps the blog alive.

UPDATE: We just hit 100 votes! Sweet!