An old friend will be visiting for the next few days. There is also a nice swell heading our way which means plenty of surf. As a result, I will not have time to do my regular posts.
I'll "twit" an RO update here and there and have my Friday links up. You can follow me on Twitter by clicking here.
Enjoy your week.
Did you see that exclusive Geithner interview on CNBC today? The man looks like a mix between a chipmunk and a leprechaun. We rallied 500 points today due in part to his magic plan, but going forward I think he should do less TV and more radio. It's hard to look at the dude and take him seriously, is all I'm saying.
Anyway, you can't complain about a 500 point rally. The price and volume action in this market has been perfect since the March 6th bottom. If you've been stocking up on grain and guns and telling your friends to "tune into Glenn Beck" I hope you feel a bit silly today. But like I said, someone needed to bottom out the market, and Fox specials about revolution in America could be the new tell...
The RO kicked ass. Out of 32 traders, 30 were gross positive or 94%. And the two accounts that were negative on the day were both robots. 18 traders made over $1,000 gross and not a single trader lost over $1,000 gross. I was #18 of 32.
Give it up for "Trader A." He's really distinguishing himself in this market. Nice spray.
"Lucky Pierre" - Trader A, $163,706 on 1.6 million shares traded.
2. Trader D, $75,888 on 1.2 million shares traded.
3. Trader Z, $37,983 on 967k shares traded.
4. Trader N, $28,409 on 261k shares traded.
5. Trader P, $23,521 on 1.8 million shares traded.
"Chambermaid" - Trader 10*, -$380 on 500 shares traded.
2. Trader M*, -$324 on 0 shares traded.
3. Trader Y, $1 on 16,900 shares traded.
4. Trader H*, $59 on 0 shares traded.
5. Trader Q, $61 on 22,200 shares traded.
And so we're getting a huge rally in the futures. Let's see what they look like at 9:00am. It's always fun to compare how the market anticipates news versus how it reacts to it when it's released..
UPDATE:
Here is the Treasury's press release of the plan. The futures are off their morning highs but no huge sell-off.
I barely traded today. Made some money early and decided not to fuck around with it being a witching day and all. And I was fine with that, until I saw how much the RO made.
Damn! I was #18 of 29.
Anyway, I'm out of here. Have a good weekend all.
"Lucky Pierre" - Trader C, $27,378 on 803k shares traded.
2. Trader Z, $25,042 on 830k shares traded.
3. Trader B, $10,942 on 576k shares traded.
4. Trader N, $10,841 on 341k shares traded.
5. Trader A, $10,823 on 427k shares traded.
"Chambermaid" - Trader T, -$1,078 on 3,400 shares traded.
2. Trader 9*, -$1,073 on 500 shares traded.
3. Trader M*, -$573 on 0 shares traded.
4. Trader $, -$517 on 18,200 shares traded.
5. Trader Y, -$266 on 13,600 shares traded.
The US Is Facing A Weimar Moment
Some of you may know what the "bangbus" is... you know who you are. Anyway, now there's the "helpful bus." This clip is somewhat safe for work, but you wouldn't want to have to explain it...
I've always thought that figs were evil... pure fucking evil. Now I know why.
Shell Owes Pension $6 Billion, Kills Solar and Wind Projects.
Chocolate Skittles: Like Being Mouth Raped By Candy.
Speaking of mouth rape... Tyler is back from vacation and printing money.
The Reformed Broker redefines some common financial terms to better suit the times.
Okay, let's get back to mouth rape, shall we? NYSE to pay traders for adding liquidity.
Am I the only stock blogger not selling anything? Jesus. Question... what should I sell?
LOLFed explains what B-O-N-U-S really spells.
I haven't watched hockey all year even though I'd say it's my favorite sport to watch. More of this and I might watch more... (NSFW)
UPDATE: I'm on Twitter now. Why? I don't know... all the cool kids are doing it. Follow along if you need more noise in your day.
I didn't sleep well last night and woke up in a sour mood. I made a few early boneheaded trades and put myself in a hole. I surfed and had a shitty session. After surf, I was getting a coffee (paper cup you anonymous assholes!) and there was a hot chick at the counter. She said, "You have something in your hair." I reached up and felt and when I looked at my hand, there was some white stuff on it... a bird had shit on me.
That's what kind of day I had.
Luckily, the RO had a better day. How they managed to do so well in this chop is beyond me. If any of you care to share your days, please do so in the comment section. I wonder if the RO outperformed most prop shops today.
Out of 32 traders today, 21 were gross positive or 66%. 12 traders made over $1,000 gross and 2 lost over $1,000 gross. I was #29 of 32 or, a Manservant.
"Lucky Pierre" - Trader A, $15,670 on 118k shares traded.
2. Trader B, $13,226 on 362k shares traded.
3. Trader D, $13,101 on 248k shares traded.
4. Trader H*, $5,821 on 46,900 shares traded.
5. Trader F, $5,358 on 87,200 shares traded.
"Chambermaid" - Trader C, -$10,626 on 416k shares traded.
2. Trader &, -$2,592 on 58,400 shares traded.
3. Trader P, -$674 on 225k shares traded.
4. Trader S, -$592 on 30,900 shares traded.
5. Trader Y, -$287 on 11,000 shares traded.
After a recent visit to my mother's house, Judy and I decided to get coffees to enjoy on the drive home. My mother lives near a nice, old-fashioned village with the type of Main Street you can't walk down without seeing friends and neighbors. I parked in front of the bagel place and opened my door.
"No, wait a second," Judy said as she peered out the passenger side window at red block letters reading, "HOT BAGELS." "I think there’s a slightly nicer coffee place on the other end of town."
I re-entered traffic, and after a red light and a couple of near "cell phone wrecks," I pulled into another parking spot near where she thought the coffee place was. But there was no obvious coffee shop, just a clothing store, a pizza place and a florist.
“Just get out and walk around a minute,” she said. “It’s there.”
I opened my car door and stepped out into the Main Street traffic. A woman driving a white Cadillac Escalade and, yes, talking on her cell phone, nearly ended my life. I made it onto the sidewalk, walked a few hundred feet from the car, found no coffee shop, and walked back to the car.
Through the windshield I saw Judy leaning over the front seat playing with our daughter who was in her carseat. When my daughter saw me approach, I ran up to the car door and smushed my face against the window making "farty noises." A woman walked by and shook her head in disapproval but my daughter went wild with laughter. Judy rolled down her window. I put my hand on the roof of the car, leaned close, and dropped the bad news, “I see the place you’re talking about, but it’s out of business.” "Okay," Judy said, "Just turn around and we’ll get it from the bagel shop.”
Now there are a couple of things in life that I am rather stubborn about. One is that I’ll never, under no circumstances, pull over to ask for directions. The other, is that I hate to retrace my steps.
“No,” I said. "We’ll find another place. There are loads of bagel shops around here.” Judy rolled her eyes.
Outside of the main village now, there was nothing but depressing strip malls, newspaper-strewn roads, auto collision shops, self-defense centers, gas stations, and chain stores. Everything was gray. I saw a flock of Starlings lined up along the top of a large green road sign and a flock of Pigeons roosting in the shelter of an overpass. I noticed sagging electrical wires hanging from their splintered telephone poles. A dog with three legs hobbled along the shoulder of the road, stumbled and landed on its little doggie face. A flock of crows watched hungrily as it struggled to regain its footing. A man in a wheelchair wept.
The situation appeared hopeless but I desperately wanted a coffee. It was time to make the easy decision and get on with our trip. Against all of my better judgements and instincts, I pulled into a Dunkin' Donuts Drive Thru and narrowly missed hitting a confused-looking old woman who was wandering around aimlessly in her pajamas.
"Get out of the fucking road, you hag!" Judy yelled from the car window.
"Damn Judy, chill." I said. She really has no patience for old people... Anyway, just then she realized where I was going for our coffees and her jaw dropped in amazement. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Nothing," I said. Keep playing with Chela. Chela chirped from the backseat, "What Mommy? What Mommy?" And then, "Mommy, why is that lady in her pajamas? Does her nose bleeding?"
I pulled up and a man’s voice, heavy with accent, crackled through the brown speaker of the Drive-Thru menu. “Hello! Welcome to Dunkin Donuts, may I take your order please?”
I ordered the coffees. However, immediately after I placed the order, I took a good look at the pictures on the huge menu. Cups of Dunkin Donuts coffee posed alongside various breakfast items... here with an egg sandwich; there, with a bagel. In each of these pictures the coffee was pictured in a styrofoam cup, with a little curl of steam, shaped approximately like a question mark, rising from the surface of the coffee. The styrofoam cups bothered me and my conscious stirred. I thought of a local wildlife refuge near my house and a display they have of certain items and how long it takes them to decompose.
The display is simple. It starts with an orange. A small white sign over the orange says, "Two weeks." Next to the orange is something that takes longer, like a chicken bone, and it says "Two months." To be honest, I don't remember how long it takes for each different thing to decompose, okay? But I do remember that the sign over the styrofoam cup reads, “NEVER.” Styrofoam never goes away. Not in this lifetime, not in the next, never...
I had yet to pull away from the window and I decided I had to act.
“Excuse me?” I said to the menu.
“Yes sir?” crackled the brown drive-thru speaker.
“Can you put those coffees in paper cups? Or do you only have styrofoam cups?”
An unsteady pause told me that taking this dude out of his normal transaction conversation was not a good idea.
“I’m sorry sir…" The man sounded impatient. "You ordered two coffees, correct?”
“Yes, I just don’t want them in sty…”
“Okay then sir," he interrupted, "please drive around.”
“No, wait," I persisted. "See, I don’t want the coffees if they’re in Styrofoam cups.”
“Okay sir, now you are saying that you do not want the coffees.”
“No, I want the coffees, I don’t want the cups.”
“I do not understand sir.”
At this point I stepped on the gas, tore around the drive thru, and gave the worker “the business” with my left hand. The man slid open the drive thru window and yelled, "Fuck you! Fucker man!" as I pulled back onto the depressing road.
Judy looked alarmed. "What the hell are you doing?"
“We'll find a place with PAPER cups!" I yelled in a sort of crazed tone as I swerved to miss a cluster of people protesting a larger cluster of hispanic day-laborers.
However, it wasn’t so simple. At this point, our options had become severely limited. We pointed the car towards the expressway and hoped to find some welcoming little shop that we had somehow overlooked on our many trips. In the rearview mirror I caught Chela's eyes. She was smiling and singing, "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music.
To be continued...
So many hot naked chicks in this video it's hard to know where to start...
There was no St. Patrick's Day hangover for the RO today.
I don't really understand what all the economic news means. All I understand is market movement. The fact that we ripped, I mean RIPPED off the FOMC news at 2:15 and held most of the ground into the close is very bullish.
This has been one hell of a bear market rally. But it's important to realize that we're still only at 7500. It could still have legs... we have been so beaten down. And really, although the shorts are getting squeezed here, they haven't felt enough pain yet. I kind of feel that this rally is going to end with a real blow-off top at some point. Of course, that's a very non-scientific feel I'm offering...
Anyway, the RO kicked ass. Out of 32 traders today, 26 were gross positive or 81%. 13 traders made over $1,000 gross and 3 lost over $1,000 gross. It's important to note that the 3 who lost over $1,000 gross are all swing accounts... active traders were rewarded by the market today. I was #12 of 32. Okay.
Solid days by a number of traders.
"Lucky Pierre" - Trader D, $27,985 on 1 million shares traded.
2. Trader B, $21,466 on 413k shares traded.
3. Trader Z, $17,032 on 429k shares traded.
4. Trader C, $12,583 on 847k shares traded.
5. Trader N, $8,993 on 131k shares traded.
"Chambermaid" - Trader H*, -$5,246 on 11,400 shares traded.
2. Trader 9*, -$1,224 on 2,300 shares traded.
3. Trader 10*, -$1,021 on 0 shares traded.
4. Trader F, -$559 on 289k shares traded.
5. Trader 4*, -$215 on 0 shares traded. 
Position sizing is important, so don't take on more than you can chew. If you do you could quickly fail.
Backyard Dancing Body Slam - Watch more Funny Videos
I don't have a history post for the day, so instead I'm going to switch on CNBC and get all "old DT" on you.
UPDATE: Fuck that. I can't torture myself by writing snarky posts about CNBC today. It's too nice outside. I'll be back for the FED news. Don't churn.
Trader P didn't spray today, he wasn't even #1, but he deserves a song for his execution today. Well done, P.
Seriously, is there any holiday that has more gay overtones than St. Patrick's Day?
Let's all wear the same color, worship midgets and rainbows, search for magic prizes and parade. I'll forget about the green bagels and green beer... if ever there was a beard, it's the green beer.
Anyway, I'm busy this evening and need to run. No, I'm not going to drink green beer, I'll leave that to you idiots. I'm going to a poetry reading. Okay, that's a lie too. I'm not telling you where I'm going, how about that?
The RO did very well. Out of 30 traders today, 24 were gross positive or 80%. 11 traders made over $1,000 gross and 4 traders lost over $1,000 gross. I was #11 of 30.
"Lucky Pierre" - Trader A, $19,934 on 235k shares traded.
2. Trader P, $15,933 on 1.2 million shares traded.
3. Trader D, $6,713 on 145k shares traded.
4. Trader Z, $5,175 on 279k shares traded.
5. trader J, $2,458 on 59,300 shares traded.
"Chambermaid" - Trader H*, -$8,518 on 1,700 shares traded.
2. Trader C, -$3,598 on 133k shares traded.
3. Trader B, -$2,738 on 37,000 shares traded.
4. Trader T, -$1,923 on 2,400 shares traded.
5. Trader 9*, -$449 on 1,000 shares traded.
Here's your St. Patrick's Day heatmap... all green.
Let's just get one thing on the table to start... the subtitle of the David Ryan interview is "Stock Investment as a Treasure Hunt."
Anyway, I didn't realize this at first, but it was a good plan to profile O'Neil and Ryan in quick succession because Ryan works for O'Neil and is a disciple of the CANSLIM method. In fact, there seems to be absolutely no daylight between O'Neil and Ryan when it comes to trading style. Still, this is a great interview and it avoids being repetitious because Ryan fleshes out the stock selection process under CANSLIM quite nicely.
Ryan also offered a whole list of good books to read. I am going to list them here but not link them, as I plan on signing up for the Amazon Associates program and I ask that you buy them through the widget I'll have up by the end of the week. Of course, you should already be reading Market Wizards...
The maximum loss I allow is 7 percent, and usually I am out of a losing stock a lot quicker. I make my money on the few stocks a year that double and triple in price. The profits in those trades easily make up for all the small losers.Ryan is a proponent of keeping a trading journal and says that the most important advice he has for new traders is to learn from their mistakes. Only by understanding why you entered and exited a trade can you pinpoint trading errors and learn from them.
I look at the five-year earnings growth record and the last two quarters of earnings relative to the previous year's levels. The quarterly comparisons show you if there is any deceleration in the earnings growth rate. For example, a 30 percent growth rate over the last five years may look very impressive, but if in the last two quarters earnings were only up 10 percent and 15 percent, it warns you that the strong growth period may be over.All throughout the stock blogosphere, you'll find gay dudes and possibly women posing as men, drawing fib lines and coming up with price targets for their trades. That's great, but I like Ryan's "fast and loose" method instead... witness the following exchange between Schwager and Ryan. I wish I could say it was a "heated exchange" but alas, it is quite dull.
Schwager: Do you pick an objective on the stocks you buy?And let me mention one last time that if there is a criticism to be made about the CANSLIM method, it's that you'll often get stopped out of positions. So if you don't let your winners run, you will ultimately have a difficult time. Ryan offers the following clue to help investors avoid getting "whipsawed."
Ryan: No. I usually wait until the stock runs up, builds another base, and then breaks down. That is when I liquidate.
Schwager: Do you have a pumpin' sex life?
Ryan: Yes. I go to bars, meet women and get them drunk. That is when I take them home to introduce them to my "pet snake."
You can tell a lot by volume. If the volume doubles one day and the stock moves to a new high, it is telling you a lot of people are interested in the stock and buying it... [Conversely,] if the stock moves to new high ground, but the volume is only up 10 percent, I would be wary.Altogether, I really enjoyed re-reading the O'Neil and Ryan interviews. It got me thinking about CANSLIM again, and how it will be nice to swing trade again once the market settles down a bit. Perhaps I'll resubscribe to the IBD afterall...
