The Cure, "Jumping Someone Else's Train"

Tough Day To Be Aggressive

I really wanted to buy WLT today. With the strong ACI earnings, I thought this could be a good sleeper play, as they have some coal operations (along with some metal production and, oddly enough, mortgage financing). But I couldn't find a good spot. In fact, the one time it would have been a good trade is just after 2:45, when it enjoyed a smooth run til the close.



But the thing is, I gave up on the stock at just after 2:30, when I lost 20 cents in it for like, the 3rd or 4th time. I highlight this stock first because this is how low volume days typically trade... with choppiness.

The good thing is that even my bad trades today were well thought out, and not disastrous.

I liked this trade in NEM today. I was looking for the stock to run to $45 support on the daily. He made a decent base around $45.50 and so I got short. The problem was that I got squeezed from my first entry for a loss and so was trigger shy for the second run.



Many of the stocks I was watching today just didn't have good enough volume for me to want to trade them aggressively or with any type of size. So basically, I made many 100 and 200 share trades. My best stock of the day was FCX. But even though I made a couple of 30 and 40 cent trades here, I only made $200 in the stock. No volume, no conviction, no size.



And then, at the very end of the day, a near miss in PX. Here, I was watching for the stock to break $93. And it did, but it pulled back and I lost a little. Since I kept getting caught in these little chop moves, I decided my day was over. At around 3:50 I looked up and saw the stock printing over $94... frustrating.



So I didn't make any money today. But I felt my ideas were good. It was a tough market to execute them though...

Hopefully tomorrow is more interesting.

NOTE: In case you missed it, check Dogwood's post here about my trades on Friday and how pivot points might have helped my exits. However, only read that post... because after that, he posted a Guns 'n' Roses video...

Here's the stats:

P$L, $85
Best, FCX, $204
Worst, WLT, -$114

13,800 shares traded.
11 stocks traded. 4 winners, 7 losers.

Virtual Office, $884. SPY, +.21, 138.72.

Dehtrader, $682 on 3100 shares traded.
Me, $85 on 13,800 shares traded.
OBAT, $70 on 5800 shares traded.
Denarii, $39 on 1200 shares traded.
Ainkurn, $8 on 650 shares traded.
Retardo, no trades.

Yeah, that's right... the VO is full of big swingers. We're taking stock trading to a new level right now... a new level of boredom. But hey, kudos to Dehtrader for making lemonade out of lemons.

If you're wondering if it's typical to trade just over 1.1 billion shares during the heart of earnings season, no, it's not typical. In fact, in downright sucks cherries. Indeed, today was the lowest volume day of the year. Fuck.

The stock market is a big fat cherry sucker.

I don't know what else to say... shit is dead. The VIX is back to 20, there is no volume... see you in September, I guess. Oh but wait... September will suck too, because everyone will be waiting for the election.

Okay, see you at Christmas. Be good.

Lowest Volume Of The Year?

It will be close... we're tracking for under 1.2 billion on the NYSE. In other words, there's not a whole lotta "juice" out there.

DT Wins Again!

So happy this fad is done... okay, now what the hell do they do with all that plastic waste?

It took a year of hating, but victory is mine. I hope TG abandoned her long position!

Ron Burgandy Burrito Baxter Scene

I have an unnatural obsession with the scene described below... I finally found a low quality version of it posted on Youtube, so I made it into a paraphrasology post that you all can enjoy!

Man driving car over a bridge while eating burrito. His dog, "Baxter" is in the passenger seat.

"This burrito is delicious but it is filling!"

He throws the burrito out the window, slamming a motorcycle guy who is driving alongside his car, in the face. The motorcycle guy wipes out.

"Anthony and Cleopatra!"

The motorcycle guy recovers from his fall and approaches the car. Below is the ensuing conversation.

Motorcycle Guy: "What the hell, bro?"

Ron Burgandy: "Hello neighbor..."

MG: "Did you just... throw a burrito out your window?"

RB: "I believe I did..."

MG: "What are you high or something??? Did you see what happened?"

RB: "I did see! That was a terrific little spill... that's quite a raspberry."

MG: "That's my chopper you just thrashed, broseph!"

RB: "Easy compadre... I'm your friend out here, all right?"

MG: "I want you to fix my chopper before I stomp your goofy ass!"

RB: "If you want to throw down fisticuffs, fine. I've got Jack Johnson and Tom O'Leary waiting for you... right here!"

MG: "You destroyed the only thing I love. All right? There it is... what do you love?"

RB: "Mmmm.... I love poetry, Dinosaur Trader's blog, a glass of scotch... And of course, my friend Baxter here.

MG: "Well guess what? Now this is happening!"

The motorcycle guy picks up "Baxter" the dog, and walks him over to the edge of the bridge.

RB: "Excuse me... excuse me... what are you doing?"

He punts the dog off the bridge, and into the water.

MG: "That's how I roll."

RB: "Baxter..... NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"

For poor quality reference material, click below.

What's With IBC?

It's been down this weekend and now it says you need a password to get in... I guess "the Fly" couldn't pay his server bills, or something.

UPDATE: Dogwood gets the scoop... the site will be up by midnight.

I just finished doing my research for the coming week. Should be very interesting as many coals and fertilizer companies report earnings. Stay nimble.

The Stock Market Is A Blessed Place

On Friday morning, there was strength everywhere in the market. On CNBC, they talked about the great earnings from GOOG, and the upside movement in C (despite their rather hideous earnings) as the main causes of the rally.

Surprisingly, they overlooked the Pope. As my readers know, the Pope was responsible for Friday's rally. Fuck the heathen at CNBC.

Anyway, so the first trade I made was in KEY. I was looking for a break of $25 on the daily graph. Since this is a rather slow-moving bank stock, I wasn't looking for too much of a move, so I had 800 shares to start and would have added.



The stock broke $25, I entered, but exited shortly after as it couldn't find the "juice" necessary for any kind of upward advance. The stock, while perhaps not committing any really bad sins in the past, clearly had angered the Pope somehow... perhaps it was a simple case of surfing porn on the Internet, who knows? Whatever the case, the Pope wouldn't let the stock move, and so I exited with a small loss.

For my second trade of the day, I looked to HON.



I was watching the $60 level on the daily graph, and the stock reported earnings as well, so I was expecting good movement. The stock gapped higher, and consolidated right under $60, in a somewhat convincing way. So when it traded $60, I bought and was filled at $60.05. The stock immediately reversed and dropped a half point in the next 2 minutes.

Now I'm sure there are many of you who read this blog to get some sadistic type of pleasure from my failings. That's fine. If I knew who you were, I'd laugh at you too. But anyway, here's an actual case where I can prove that I learned something... You'll recall that on Thursday, I entered MTL and was "ass-raped" and got all tilty because of it. I entered the position and failed to take my loss quickly, so it blossomed into a large loss, which then led to many, many, bad trades.

In HON, I entered at $60.05 and immediately placed a stop at $59.90. I figured if it worked, it would work, and if not, I'd get out for a quick loss and maybe revisit the trade later. In this instance, the stock reversed and stopped me out at $59.86, for a 20 cent loss, my worst of the day.

Now, had I been all stubborn, this trade could have been much worse. The stock dropped straight down to $59, (clearly, HON slept with his neighbor's wife, or something, causing the Pope to hate it) and didn't recover to my original entry price for another hour and a half, at which point, it WAS a buy, but I was already out in the sun, surfing. Fuck you, HON.

I highlighted the first two trades of my day because I thought it was important that I took the losses and moved on. No revenge, no anger... just let 'em go.

Next, came FLR, a pissy stock if there ever was one.



Here, I was watching $159 on the daily. The stock opened strong and played with that level in the first few moments of trade. When it pulled back, I bid for and received 100 shares of stock at $158.69 and placed my stop at $158. I thought the stock would base for a few moments, allowing me to pick up a little more before $159, but instead, after a quick test of $158, volume moved into the stock, and ran it straight up over $160.

I got stopped out on a choppy move down below $159.50. I was trailing a stop below the previous 5-min candle. Perhaps I need to work on finding better exits while the stock is running, because in this case, the stock ultimately ran to $161, so I left some movement on the table. Still, I took 80 cents out, and that brought me back to feeling good about the day's opportunity.

The next trade I took ended up being my big winner of the day, CMI. I was watching $54 on the daily. So when the stock opened up strong on good volume and then based for a few minutes, I watched closely and began to enter at $53.11. By the time it got up to $53.37, I had 500 shares. As it ran to $54, volume decreased, and so I exited the position around $53.80 or so.

The stock then pulled back, in a fairly orderly way, back to the original breakout area, of $53.25. So I bid for and received some at $53.33 and then picked up a few hundred more at .45. I had 600 shares. This time, I exited most of the position over $54 and then trailed a stop for 200, hoping for a larger move. Unfortunately, I was stopped out just after 11, thus missing the run to $56. Clearly, CMI has been tithing. The stock has been blessed.



Okay, and the last trade I'll highlight is in the lunatic known as MTL. This stock has been on the HCPG watchlist for a run to $152. Indeed, that's why I bothered with it on Thursday when I took a big loss in the fucker. On Friday, however, victory was mine. He had better volume than he had on Thursday, and a long, tight base.

So I entered, (only 100 shares this time, because I was scared) when he emerged from his base on decent volume, at $150.55. The stock ran right up to $152, but instead of showing any signs of stopping, huge volume moved in and the stock vaulted right up to $154.



Kind of as a joke, I put in a sell limit at $153.70 when it traded $152. Given the volatility in the stock I thought he could get there, but I really wasn't expecting it. However, due to an egregious contribution to the Catholic Charities Fund and plenty of volunteer work at its local Children's Hospital, MTL found the power (from the Pope) to power higher and hit my target. As it turned out, it was a pretty good exit.

So that's when I packed it in and hit the beach. And surf was great... there were old guys out in the water hooting like kids and beautiful, long rides on perfect clean waves. I tell you, I don't know if there's anything better that the first days of spring.

Note: no stats because I can't get into my execution system on the weekends...

Trapped For 41 Hours In An Elevator

Poor guy.


Trapped in an Elevator for 41 Hours - Watch more free videos

Virtual Office, $1607. SPY, +1.76, 138.82.

Me, $814 on 7600 shares traded.
OBAT, $395 on 5000 shares traded.
Timmay, $180 on 2000 shares traded.
Denarii, $107 on 2800 shares traded.
Dehtrader, $89 on 3500 shares traded.
Ainkurn, $22 on 650 shares traded.
Retardo, no trades.

The pope rules. He blessed the entire VO... not one red (reporting... AHEM!) member.

Seriously, today was insane. I traded the first hour or so and then went surfing for the rest of the day. I just can't get into the market going up everyday on this ridiculous volume.

The good news is that my company's execution system went down midday and stayed down, so I didn't miss anything by not being here anyway.

My house is currently surrounded by 3 year olds... I see them outside, bitter and clinging to their sippy cups and mothers, just waiting to destroy my house. We're hosting playgroup...

Yes, I will be drinking tonight.

I will definitely have a daily post up for this weekend, perhaps up very late tonight. Stop by.

What's Really Driving Stocks Higher....

"Howdy folks, buy stocks!" Pope Benedict XXIVCXXIII, April 2008

A Disappointed Reader?

Last night, some poor soul searched for "up the ass with a candlestick" in Google. Their first option was this post... something tells me they left my blog disappointed.

Death Cab For Cutie, "The New Year"

Virtual Office, $270. SPX, +2.60, 1373.50.

Sanglucci, $2212 on 52,600 shares traded.
Dehtrader, $216 on 6698 shares traded.
Denarii, $29 on 4800 shares traded.
Retardo, no trades.
OBAT, -$48 on 15,000 shares traded.
Ainkurn, -$250 on 750 shares traded.
Me, -$1889 on 21,200 shares traded.

What a fucking mess...

Not sure what to think when it takes us until 3:40 to hit a billion shares traded on the NYSE smack dab in the middle of earnings season... an anticipated earnings season at that.

Are people throwing in the towel on investing in the stock market? Where is the money flowing? Not into stocks, despite the recent runs in the indexes.

It's waaay too fucking quiet out there and it's freaking me out.

I got my clock cleaned. I won't have a daily post up tonight, but I can break it down for you in this way... "new DT" lost $500 and then the "old DT" took over and lost the rest. $1300 courtesy of CLF.

Needless to say, "old DT" is not allowed in my office anymore.

GOOG looks like it blew out earnings... over $500 afterhours... I guess the rally continues.

Props to Sanglucci, for keeping the VO respectable. He "juiced" the ag stocks, I believe.

Tilt Session

I started the day well, with a few controlled trades in a shitty tape that had me up a few hundred bucks. Then, I ran into SLB and started giving money away. So I lost my gains and was down a few hundred. No disaster, but I should have read the warning signs.

Going from positive to negative is just never a good thing. My next trade, set me up for a real tilt.



So now I was just angry at myself. Yes, it was a complete fuckjob in that stock, but more importantly, I was down big and should have walked away to take a breath or something. Instead, I found CLF... all the metals stocks are down except for him.

I got short, stubborn, and smoked... doubling my losses.



So I'm done for the day and walking away from the computer.

Paraphrasology

"Tomorrow night they would be outside the Escorial in the dark along the road; the long lines of trucks loading the infantry in the darkness; the men, heavy loaded, climbing up into the trucks; the tanks being run up the skids onto the long-bodied tank trucks; pulling the Division out to move them in the night for the attack on the pass. Dinosaur Trader would not think about that. That was not his business. That was Golz's business. He had only one thing to do and that was what he should think about and he must think it out clearly and take everything as it came along, and not worry. To worry was as bad as to be afraid. It simply made things more difficult."

A Disappointed Reader

Last night, some poor soul searched for "up the ass with a candlestick" in Google. Their first option was this post... something tells me they left my blog disappointed.

Shade Sheist ft. Nate Dogg & Kurupt - Where I Wanna Be!!!

Dedicated to "the Fly," who died earlier today... RIP.



NOTE: "I love scotch. I love scotch. Scotchy! Scotch! Scotch! Here it goes down, down into my belly."

Entries and Exits

There have been so many times when I thought I was "on the verge" of getting my game back, only to get "deballed" shortly after. In the last couple of weeks, I've had that feeling, but then have days like yesterday, that set me back. Then there are days like today, where I manage to make money, but feel "deballed" nonetheless.

It's a tough game we play.

So here are my exits in OXY, my best stock of the day. While I made some money in it, the action highlights how much I can improve. I had 700 shares of this stock at an average price below $80 and made about $425 total, or about 60 cents... it ran over 3 points.



My next trade was in SID, another HCPG watchlist play. Here, I had 1000 shares from around $41.85. Below are my exits.



So I made about 40 cents total, on my shares and left another 60 cents on the table. Very frustrating. Because really, while the stock dipped back down to 20 cents, it was no where near my entry. Maybe I should have sold half there... but I should have held on to some instead of exiting the full position. Indeed, that was a great buy spot...

My third "good entry" of the day came in PCU. I rather hate this stock... he always seems to kick my ass, but today I had the upper hand. I had 300 shares just ahead of $120.



I'm also okay with this trade... as he had a quick and nasty shakeout below $120 just after I sold.

On the downside, I lost $300 today in ICE. This guy is tough. There was no volume today in the stock (until the close), and I should have just let it be. The only positive is that I traded him with small size and didn't make any revenge trades.



So to tie this post up, despite my lackluster performance today, and this month, I'm beginning to have more confidence in my entries. Once I start feeling that every time I buy a stock I'm not going to get screwed, I think I'll be able to work on my exits. And then, I can worry about sizing up again.

Here's the stats:

P&L, $680
Best, OXY, $432
Worst, ICE, -$297

10,200 shares traded.
9 stocks traded, 4 winners, 5 losers.

Virtual Office, -$1613. SPX, +30.10, 1366.00

Me, $680 on 10,200 shares traded.
OBAT, $315 on 7400 shares traded.
Denarii, $88 on 3600 shares traded.
Retardo, no trades.
Sanglucci, -$48 on 3000 shares traded.
Timmay, -$238 on 2800 shares traded.
Ainkurn, -$268 on 300 shares traded.
Dehtrader, -$2142 on 4450 shares traded.

Look, I'm just as confused as you are... and if my "proprietary market research" on who you are is correct, that means I'm pretty fucking confused.

In the last year, we've witnessed a few instances of these completely low volume huge rallies... after last February, after last August, and now. It's like, for months at a time the sellers take off to go visit sex clubs in Thailand, or something.

We rip on low volume, and then the sellers come back and we tank on high volume... wash... rinse... repeat.

Could I pin this on the hybrid market somehow? The inverse ETFs? The uptick rule?

All I know, is that the derided "degenerate OTB guys" that "the Fly" bashes on, are eating his cake right now.

Also, and this is unrelated to the market, I did a little experiment today. Over on Timmay's blog, I linked my "The Bookstore Monster" post with the words, "hot, eager, naked college chicks" and got at least 11 hits.

Anyway, I'll have an extensive daily post up later tonight... I have some shit to go over, because I should have made ten grand today.