Brief Foray Into Negativity

While I don't normally revel in the pain of other's trading losses, the blow to my awful day has been cushioned by seeing SWC down 15% or so. Sorry, JJ. Not really.



I guess it's a buy here?

A Musical Representation Of My Shitstorm

I don't feel like writing. Instead, here is a brief idea of what my day was like, musically.

First off, I was turned away at the gates of prosperity. In kind of a nasty, cold way.



Then, I took a drive. It was odd because I was happy to be heading to the beach for perfect surf with a full day ahead of me, but unhappy because I had to lose gobs of money to be in this situation.



Finally, a cleansing.



Now I'm off to watch the new Wes Anderson movie. Hopefully, that completes my escape from the day.

Back to your regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow. My apologies.

Virtual Office, $5830. Dow, -51.70, 13543.40.

Dehtrader, $686 on 7200 shares traded.
Evolution, $568 on 125,500 shares traded.
Akalawoo, $225 on 10 contracts traded.
OBAT, $140 on 8400 shares traded.
Wincity, no trades.
Stewie, vacation.
Denarii, -$29 on 1800 shares traded.
Me, -$2247 on 52,800 shares traded.

Lots of good numbers in the VO today, nice to see traders taking money from the market.

If you'll notice, I fucking sucked.

Anyway, I was out of the market and trading by 11:00 so I don't have too much color. Let's just say I hate things. I spent the day in the water, trying to get out of my head and into my body.

Perhaps more on that later... until then.

The Hybrid Market Is A Piece Of Shit

More later...

Citigroup Faceplant

Well, I know bloggerdotcom is off somewhere shaking his head at the television with the news that Citigroup is going to write down even more... like $6 to $10 billion more for their exposure to CDOs and subprime debt.



Bob Dylan said "the darkest hour is right before the dawn" but I'm kind of getting the feeling that it's 9pm and we're only on our third drink.

Dawn is still a long way off.

Anyway, the futures are gapping down big which, as far as trading is concerned could potentially suck. I'm hoping for a gap down, a strong bounce and then a new plunge to lows.

That, would be "Wombat" worthy.

NOTE: In other news from Blogistan, "the Fly" may be putting the shutters on his blog, due to increasing competion from a certain Dinosaur.

Weekend Open Thread

Feel free to discuss anything.

Also, I've added a game to the open thread. My friends and I often play this game, Wise and Otherwise, when we take vacations together. It works like this... someone picks a card from a deck and reads one of the sayings off of the card. The other players have to finish the saying. The player who fools the most people into thinking that their saying is correct, wins the most points that round.

Come back Sunday night and vote for the saying that you think is correct.

So, here's the saying you have to complete via the comments section.

There's an old Swedish saying,
One should choose one's bedmate...

Okay, and throughout the weekend I'll update this thread with some interesting links. Also, feel free to add your own via the comments section.

1. HPT has an excellent video of Ron Paul up at his site. A Republican I actually like and would consider voting for.

2. Check out this Indian condom PSA.

3. Sure, Chinese stocks may run into the Olympics, but once people see how freaking polluted the place is, perhaps they'll rethink their investments... don't expect many new world records, that's for sure.

4. Completely awful photography, courtesy of the Wall Street Fighter. While you're there, make sure to search out his post on things that were cool in 1977 but would get your ass kicked in 2007. Hilarious, original stuff.

5. Words of wisdom, from Bubs... or, at least, plagurized by Bubs...

Panda Bear, "Comfy In Nautica"

Some skating footage for Moneyskater, even though he hasn't blogrolled me yet.

Great song... atmospheric. Think Beach Boys meet the year 2007.

The Market Giveth And I Giveth Back

Two days in a row where I was up nicely and managed to give large sums of money back to the market. I've been trading nervously and overtrading with absolutely no patience. If something doesn't work for me right away, I've been getting out of the position... often this means I buy back at higher prices or sell at lower prices.

In short, I'm trading shitty in a market that's great for trading. I feel like I should be losing money... no joke.

The market hasn't been this good to trade since August. Hopefully we can keep this up for a few more weeks. Perhaps that will give me enough time to learn how to trade again.

Anyway, my best trades of the day were shorts in ITU, CNS and TBSI. I also caught smaller moves in AB and RWT.



On the downside, I threw money away trading MTG. This stock frustrated me to no end. Another stock that destroyed me was ANW. I lost over $500 in each trying to short them when all they wanted to do was churn or move higher. These were silly, revenge trades.

Anyway, it was nice to surf midday. Tomorrow the surf here could be huge. I will try to get some video and post it over the weekend. While I was surfing I forgot all about the market... it's really nice to have an activity that takes your head away from the market. Really, I'm being serious here... if you want to be a better trader, get a hobby that you can lose yourself in from time to time... it's healthy.

Again, come say "hi" on the open thread this weekend.

Here's the stats:
P&L, $2087
Best, ITU, $953
Worst, MTG, -$507

60,600 shares traded.
29 stocks traded. 14 winners, 15 losers.
200 trades.

Virtual Office, $5150. Dow, +27.23, 13595.10.

Me, $2087 on 60,600 shares traded.
Akalawoo, $1346 on 8 contracts traded.
Dehtrader, $1150 on 1900 shares traded.
Evolution, $363 on 101,400 shares traded.
OBAT, $184 on 16,600 shares traded.
Wincity, $61 on 1200 shares traded.
Stewie, no trades, vacation.
Denarii, -$41 on 1300 shares traded.

Well, they brought the Dow and Nasdaq positive into the close... rah! rah! Dow 50,000! NOT!

Meanwhile, volume was good again as we crested the 1.7 billion level and volatility was good, despite the fact that the VIX closed negative.

I'm neither a bull or a bear, I'm a trader. As a trader I can say this, the market feels very heavy. However, that said, you could easily spot the leadership in the market today as the ferts and techs took off.

Sure, you could say that the selling is confined to one sector. This is largely true... however, it's confined to the most important sector in the whole friggin market. To pretend that the woes of the financial sector won't bleed all over the rest of the market eventually is a bit crazy in my opinion.

But look, I'm usually wrong about broad market moves. So, you can go into the weekend knowing that the Dow probably will get to 50,000 sometime next week.

A good day for the VO as almost everyone finished in the green. Evolution told me he was having a better day and gave a lot back, I had the same situation, even though I poked out midday for some surf. Had I hung around all day, I probably would have given it all back.

I suck like that.

Midday Surf Session

I gave back a grand and hit the waves.

Back for the last hour.

C'mon Wombat... Daddy needs a new toaster-oven.

Respect The Wombat.

Stock Earnings For Friday November 2nd

Who cares? The market freaked out yesterday. It's emotion and not earnings reports that's ruling this market right now.

Take out that "lint free" cloth and wipe your glasses.

The job number is about to be released... it will give the bulls the chance to argue for Dow 50,000 and the bears a chance to argue for Dow 10,000.

In short, anything can happen today and probably will. The close is more important than the open.

UPDATE: Nonfarm payrolls up 166,000. The market freaks out to the upside! Dow 50,000!




QUESTION: Who let Michelle Cabrusa Cabrera out of the 4:00am time-slot? Click!

Virtual Office Poll

The Virtual Office chews traders up and then spits them out. Lately, the rate of turnover has increased.

Who will be the next to go?

Akalawoo
Dehtrader
Denarii
Dinosaur
Evolution
Misstrade
OBAT
Stewie
Wincity

The Mae Shi, "Run To Your Grave"

Great song, cool vid.

Incorrect State Of Mind

I churned my ass off today popping in and out of stocks.

I kept thinking, "the market is going to 0!" and then alternately, "the bottom is in, Dow 50,000!"

I sucked.

I made good money early and then throughout the day gave it away in dribs and drabs. Big drabs as far as DRYS is concerned. Pretty much lost a point every time I traded this stock.



I made good money in DSX on the long side and in FED and MTG on the short side. But the sad fact of the matter is, I didn't trade stocks well despite the fact that I made money. I didn't catch any good moves with any type of size.

It was very frustrating.

In fact, I'm already sick of talking about it. I'm turning the computers off and am going to get a lot of sleep tonight in hopes of doing better tomorrow.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $1202
Best, DSX, $953
Worst, DRYS, -$584

75,800 shares traded.
22 stocks traded. 9 winners, 13 losers.
297 trades.

Virtual Office, $3822. Dow, -362.14, 13,567.87.

Evolution, $1484 on 65,400 shares traded.
Me, $1202 on 75,800 shares traded.
Misstrade, $1100 on 1000 shares traded.
OBAT, $208 on 11,600 shares traded.
Wincity, $70 on 600 shares traded.
Denarii, $65 on 5600 shares traded.
Akalawoo, no trades, zzzzz,
Stewie, vacation.
Dehtrader, -$307 on 6800 shares traded.

Wow, well we had a great day in terms of volatility rising as well as volume traded. Over at Wallstreak I tend to trade barbs with Mr. Ragin Cajun, a permabull. It's fine to be bullish, I often am... however, everyone needs to note that volume rises whenever this market sells off and retreats when it goes up. That's just not a bullish trend. We traded almost 1.8 billion shares today on the NYSE.

Fine, whatever! It's been like that since February... it may just be like that until the end of time. Dow 50,000... whatever.

I'm all for a rising market, but this bull market is 5 years old. That's more than a little long in the tooth.

The market is just like a growing tree; sometimes limbs need to be cut to keep the tree healthy.

Poetic, no?

Anyway, we gapped down a lot. I had a hard time really getting good intraday traction. It wasn't the blowout day that I expected here in the VO... go figure.

Meanwhile, go welcome Wincity.

NOTE: Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Maria Bartiromo is a big idiot for once again focusing on the MOC sell orders on a day when we're down 300+ points. I want her to mention the MOC sell orders the next time we're up 10 points on the Dow if they're so important to her.

New Member Of The VO

I don't know what it is... it's like they hover like sharks waiting for blood and then they attack! It seems that whenever a VO member decides they can't handle the extreme pressure of the VO another person steps in to fill the void.

However, in the case of Tapeworm dropping out, it's almost like addition from subtraction, but still, we'll just say there's a "void" to fill... (wink, wink!)

Anyway, we have a new member of the VO, starting today. His name is 'Wincity' and while that's a very positive name, I have no doubt that he too will soon fail and be forced to make an embarrassing exit from the VO, since 99.9999% of all daytraders lose money.

His blog is somewhat difficult to decipher. But for those who figure it out it could make you millions and millions and millions of dollars.

Exclusive Footage! MtM Members Lay Siege To VO

Watch as the entire gaggle of "movethemarket-ers" lay siege to the VO after the announcement of Tapeworm's departure.



Of course, it's exactly this type of crowd activity and mob mentality that cannot be explained by lines and algorithms...

Meanwhile, note to MtMers... it's a "virtual" office... it cannot be destroyed.

Another One Bites The Dust

Listen, in the world of the VO, only the strong survive.

I tell the pikers (and futures traders) before they join, "Look, you're a piker and you'll never "make it" but if you want to risk everything for the glory of joining the VO, then be my guest."

Some join, many face the honest truth that they are pikers and move on. Don't forget, 99.9999% of all daytraders lose money... joining the VO doesn't change that statistic.

So, Tapeworm is gone.

It started with posting the porn over at MtM. I mean, you have Mr. Rodgers and a gaggle of old astrophysics majors trying to figure out the market with special graphs and squiggly lines and then out of nowhere, Tapeworm starts posting porn on their site. Was this just a desperate attempt to boost traffic over there? or was it the first signs of Tapeworm becoming unglued.

Who knows?

Soon, I expect MtM to set up a "sweatshop cam" or something in order to entertain the masses.

Fare thee well, Tapeworm! I'm sure that you will be readily absorbed into the shadows of this world, never to be seen again.

NOTE: I've just been handed a note by special courier... it is written in code but I've been led to believe it is a new request to join the VO by another stock trader.

The Wombat Beckons... Come Hither Volatility!