How to piss a Day Trader Off 8/31/2007

The names and places have been changed to protect the innocent (but I am Bob):

Mike: How's the trading going today?

Bob: I made a couple of hundred in AKS and YM.

Mike: What is AKS's name and what do they do? (he finds a piece a paper to write on)

Bob: I don't know their name and I think they are some type of Steel company.

Mike: You DON'T know their name? So what is their P/E?

Bob: Mike - I am a Daytrader. I do not care about P/E's most of the time.

Mike: How can you not know the P/E and still invest in a company?

Bob: I am a daytrader - Mike, a daytrader. I only held the stock for 15 minutes.

Mike: I still don't know how you don't know the P/E. What does YM do?

Bob: Mike - YM is the Dow Jones futures.

Mike: But I thought the Dow only had Diamonds or something on it?

Bob: (now getting irritated) Never mind Mike.....

Mike: Bob - how does the chart look of XYZ?

Bob: The chart sucks Mike, I am sorry to say.

Mike: Well I am an investor. I bought it in 1997 and I don't care what the charts says. I believe this company will make a ton of money for me one day.

Bob: (just shakes his head knowing Mike was up 400% at one point in 2000 and is now down 70%) So Mike, what is the P/E of XYZ?

Mike: I do not know. I need to look that up one of these days.

Bob: (now is hitting his head on the wall)

Mike: Maybe you shouldn't be daytrading Bob. It looks like you are a little stressed there. Maybe at least you should do a little investing or try decaf.

Bob: AGGGHHHH (as he runs out of the room)

Mike yells: Maybe we can watch Cramer later?

Friday Trade Review

None!

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I have spending the day getting ready for going to the beach next. I will be at Beach Haven Crest, NJ. You could do a Google Map on it and see the Satellite picture of it. The beaches are great there. The Island is 13 miles long and it becomes very quiet after Labor Day. Something I love. Sun, book reading and great Seafood.

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The Internet sucks down there but I may take a peek or two at the markets and who knows maybe a post once or twice. I will be looking forward to getting back to the normal markets mid to late September.

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The numbers:

Stocks: none

Stock futures: none

Forex: none

Friday Morning Thoughts 8/31/2007

Last day of the mouth - thank god. I hate this government. So many people are turning to fall all over themselves to save a bunch of people from foreclose when they should not of had a house and a loan in the first place. They are trying to rig the game again. We really need to clean out the system instead of just trying to keep the game going.
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The market reminds me of this:

"When I get to the bottom,
I go back to the top of the slide,
Where I stop and turn,
and I go for a ride,
Till I get to the bottom and I see you again.
Yeah, yeah, yeah." - Beatles - Helter Skelter
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That sums the market up pretty good.

Thursday Trade Results 8/30/2007

I did one trade today. I spent too much of my day trying to get ready for trading when I could back from the beach. I am getting rid of my TD account and splitting the money between IB and TS. I think TS had a great platform for trading futures so my futures trading will be there. I will use my IB as my stocks, options and forex accounts. It will be my backup futures account. The one major drawback to TS is you must have separate accounts for each type of trading and no easy way of moving money between. So I will have about 75% of my money will IB and the rest in TS. I will keep my TD account open for a while with just a little money in it. I also have been setting up in an more organized fashion - my QT setup. I like the fact I can page thru layouts quickly and bring up 10 to 20 stocks relatively fast - about 30 seconds. This will allow me to compare stocks in a sector quickly.
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If there are any great tools out there people are using - especially the free ones - please leave a comment on whichs one.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross -8 net -10 shares traded 400
Stock futures: none
Forex: none

A trade Idea

Buy RACK at 11.90-12.00 area and sell at 12.50-12.75 area. Shampoo, Rinse, and Repeat.
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I am pissed I did not think of this earlier. I have talked about Rack for weeks in some chat rooms.

Thursday Morning Thoughts 8/30/2007

My heads is spinning. I spent yesterday looking left, looking right, looking left, looking right. Remember I was watching tennis all day. Now I come back to looking at the markets and I feel like I am looking up, then looking down, then looking up, then looking down. My neck hurts.
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To continue to make my neck to hurt - Big Mouth's show was a repeat. Subject - Spotting Tops and Bottoms. I think I will thinking a lot about this subject next week when I am at the beach. Ouch - my poor little neck.
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As I type, the market is not reacting much to the GDP numbers.

Wednesday Morning Thought 8/29/2007

No thoughts or trading today - I am going to the US Open with the wife.

My day sucked - period 8/28/2007

I did not lose much money but I could scream. Other than I did not trade well, everything wanted to go wrong. First I was watching a trade for about 15 minutes and was ready to hit the bid with a short order, my wife IM's me and the IM screen appears over my order screen. By the time I move it the trade is gone. I need to remember to open my IM's from people I think I will talk with and then move them where they will not interfere. Then I was putting some tools away, cleaning up my desk, when I trip and hit my face on some hanging stuff. I spent the next 30 minutes trying to bend my glasses back in shape. Then I tried to download a file on to one of my PC's which killed it. I had to run scans and clean up crap being concerned maybe I downloaded something bad. That kill some time. And finally the lawn care crew came out and cut the grass. I do not understand but the Internet cut out about a dozen times while I could hear them. I could scream. I should have just got a book and read.

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The chart up there shows some of my traded today. At point 1, it where I waited until a big bidding would disappear at the 52.00. Just as the time the buyer just was leaving, my wife's IM screen appeared. Another big buy on the bid was at 51.75. I was looking for the same type of trade. That is point 2. I had the order ready, just had to hit the button but the market started rallying so I went to hit the cancel and instead hit entered. Filled. I added to my mistake when I thought maybe this mistake would work. No luck and I covered for a 24 cent loss. At point 3, I saw that big buyer again at 51.75. I was thinking the same trade again. The buyer was finished. We tick to 51.73 and started moving up. I got out with a 5 cent loss. Then at point 4, I went long after the lows were taken out but then NUE started going higher. I got stopped for a 5 cent gain.

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The numbers:

Stocks: gross -113.50 net -133.50 share traded 4400

Tuesday Morning Thoughts 8/28/2007

If you have any hope on figuring out where you are going, you need to know where you have been. From the peak of the movement after the Fed rate cut, we really have not gone anywhere fast. We have entered a pattern of going up and down now. We then should go up today. We are getting close to end of month and that may get the market a pump. A very important are of the market would be Dow 13180. If we go much below that, we could go a lot farther down. My two cents as the coffee tries to work its magic.

Monday Trade Review 8/27/2007

The trading Gods blessed me with a gift today. One of the ways I try to make money is, if the bid/ask is crazy on a stock, try picking some up or shorting it. An example is SAI today. I have traded this stock and I know unless some crazy news is out there, it does not open a big amount down or up. The bid/ask was 16.90/17.94. It had closed at 17.82. No news so I bid at 17.15 and got 200 shares. I tried to sell at 17.77 on open but did not get filled so I dumped them. A nice simple trade. 99% of the time, the specialist or market maker gets these. Once in a great while I am lucky. One word of caution, you must understand how the stock trades.

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Other than that, I did little today. Market was very slow and hard to game. I had my doctors appointment and hang some shades to make the wife happy. That killed most my day.

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The numbers:

Stocks: gross +90 net +86 shared traded 800

Stock futures: gross +15 net +10 contracts traded 2

Forex: none

Monday Morning Thoughts 8/27/2007

I think the theme of the day will be DRINK LOTS OF COFFEE.
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Very little is moving. CROX is going crazy. CFC is getting hit again. The the craziest stock is ACH - up 25% so far.
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I think I will do a lot of reading today.

Sunday Night Thoughts 8/26/2007

I do not like this market right now. I think we will have a higher market this week - drifting up slowly. This decline happened too orderly -too easy. The Fed came in and everything was all better. Too simple and not enough pain. I am looking for the decline to possibility start again once all the players come back in September.
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The forex markets have gained about 50% of what they lost for the majors. I am just not following these will enough too trade. I hope that I have more time to trade - I will.
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Tomorrow should be interesting day or I mean later this week. I have another Cat Scan done to see if I have something growing in my lungs. I hope to know the results by Wednesday. I do not think there is anything wrong but who knows - maybe a Black Swan.
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On another note, I am posting a few posts on The Trading Goddess website. You can find me there too. I will keep my results, trade reviews and thoughts here.

A Strange Week for Me 8/25/2007

If you have been reading my blog, this is the end of my first week of full time trading. For the most part, I am a daytrader but I will make swing trades in my retirement accounts and try longer term Forex trades. I don't know what I should have expected this week. It is funny to me. After waiting so many years to try this dream out, anything less than fireworks seemed disappointing. I wanted to do things slow and try figuring out the best way to use my time. When to blog, when to eat, what to eat, when to exercise and when to do my research. This is all new to me. I want to push myself to watch every tick from 7 AM to 4PM est and trade like mad but I know this would be the road to ruin. I know I have a lot still to learn about the markets but what I do know should provide my with a living. I only need to first conquer my fears. The mechanics and the chart reading I know. The other big thing is how to deal with the times there are not much happening in the markets. Also as I said before, I need to get better organized. This is so much different than I am use to. I mean I don't even have to bath when I go to work in the morning.
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I want to thank everyone who have given me words of support - Missed Trade (head trader at DayTradeAdvisors.com), Dinsour Trader( the VO tracker), Gary (a gifted trader in the DehTrader room), The Trading Goddess (the most complete investing blog on the web) and including all who with posted comments/sent emails and a long list of Blogging Buddies especially Glen.
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Thank you all and I intend to start taking names and kicking ass next week.

Friday Trade Review 8/24/2007

This was a big month trade. It popped up nearly two points in after hours last night and the same in premarket. I was hoping to get short around 32.00 when it popped just before the open. I could only get 200 shares off. After the open and the stock falling below 32.00, I moved my stop to 32.15 to lock in some profits and two seconds later, I was stopped. I should have been selling more there.

The second trade here is were I saw the chemicals beginning to move so you buy one of the laggards. I got out too fast. Crap.

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The numbers:

Stocks: Gross + 102 net +95 shares traded 1400

Stock futures: none

Forex: none

Friday Morning Thoughts 8/24/2007

I am so tired. This was my first week doing this trading thing full time. I think I made a couple of happy meals so far. The frustrating thing about this is seeing so many opportunities and not taking them, not trusting, not trusting myself. I feel very disorganized and that is my goal over the next week or so to figure out the best way to look at things. I need to make this work.
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The markets have flat lined over night.

Thursday Trade Review 8/23/2007

Only trade of the day and it was a bonehead move. Again I was pushing the stop along too quickly and got me stopped out way too fast. Missed a bunch of trades too. I am trading very light until September and being very picky about my entries. I also am trading 1/4 to 1/2 sizes too. I am trying to get use to doing this all day long too. I did not help today that I had a doctors appointment and lunch have my wife. She misses me during the day as were we use to eat lunch together nearly everyday.

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This is just a whole new life to get adjusted to. There has been so many for me this year.

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The numbers:

Stocks: Gross +32 net +30 shared traded 400

Stock Futures: none - I pull a trade just before the system went down on the YMs today. Saw Black Swan written all over it.

Forex: none

Thursday Morning Thoughts 8/23/2007

CNBC was doing a lot of talking about on the study on Seniors having sex and they are not using Viagra yet. I know who is using Viagra too much. It is the market. Go look at the daily charts of the major indexes. We have been flying off the bottom like using too much...... You get the picture. And anything that uses too much of that stuff - well it hurts. I am hoping the market ripes a couple more days and gets in the 13500-13700 range on the Dow. At that point, I will unload some of my dogs who have not bounced and go long the Dow short fund SDS as a hedge in September. I was too greedy to do it this summer and now I am paying for it.

Caddyshack

Caddyshack Returns 8/22/2007

When I heard this, I was on a stair master machine working out. I nearly fell over and hurt myself laughing. From one of my old time favorite "Let's get drunk and watch a silly movie" movie, Bill Murray I guess decided to recreate his CaddyShack role. Read the story. It kills me. I got to run out to my local Walmart and get a copy of Kenny Loggins greatest hits.

Wednesday Trade Review 8/22/2007

Here is my favorite stock and all the signals I missed today. I should have just watched all day long instead of all the dinking around I did. Maybe one day I will learn. I took one of these early in the day but tried gaming it and lost. Had orders in at the 1:15 signal but missed and I had the order typed out for the one near 2:35 but for some dumb reason I did not hit enter. I had it setup right after AKS broke 35 on the downside thinking 34.70 would hold and that is the area of the next buy. Dummy me.
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On a different issue, I finally placed my first order using the Trade Station. It is really cool - even has a voice telling you were filled.
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The numbers on this very slow day:
Stocks: gross -36 net -42 shares traded 1000
Stock futures: gross +5 net +0 contracts traded 2
Forex: none but my brain is telling me I should be long the EUR/USD

Wednesday Morning Thoughts 8/22/2007

These thoughts are late because I did not have any this morning. This market looks to be eating a bunch of traders up. I tried one trade and got stopped moments later. I have missed a couple of others.
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My main reason for this post is I am pissed at the nuts in DC and this subprime mess. I am so sick and tired of people wining about this. I do not understand. The rich are going to get screwed for this. The middle class is going to get no help for playing by the rules and there is the possibility that a bunch of people who never should have owned homes in the first place - will get help from the government. Give me a break. If I see one more example of a person who is having trouble making it - who was using credit cards to buy things they should not and then they refinance their debt with subprime to pay off their credit cards and/or buy a motor cycle and/or remodel their kitchen and/or make a play are for their children in the backyard that they deserve - I am going to throw up. Example after example were stupid people are doing stupid things with their money. I have had friends complain about the lenders like they ripped them off but after asking all the questions like "did you know the rate could go up?" - I get the "I guess so but it shouldn't" - I then ask "why?" - i get "I do not know but the government should do something about it before they take my new bike away". People grow up.
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It would be one thing if someone was dieing of cancer and had to refinance because of not making ends meet. Sad, so sad.

Tuesday Trade Review

This is my big MISSED TRADE of DAY. I get so pissed off at myself. I saw the first signal a minute late. The bid/ask was 32.00/32.04. I put in an order at 32.02. At that moment it moved to 32.02/32.05 so I moved to 32.04 and then it raced off with out me. I missed the second entry the same way. In fact I missed a lot of entries today and to my frustration, many of them would have been good.

This is just messy trading by me. I chased this one when the stock was already 15 cents above my entry point. My stop was too close.

This was my bonehead play of the day. I pick a stock up at the right time. As soon as it looked like it was moving fast, I moved my stop up too fast and got hit and lost out on a big opportunity.

I forgot to put my points on this stock. I entered CROX about 1:37 at 58.26 after a big seller on 58.25 was taken out. A few minutes later, it popped up and I move my stop to BE where i has taken out just before 2 o'clock.

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This was a frustrating day that I really beat myself up on. I only needed one of the good trades to make this day a good day. I just want to pull $500 dollars out a day. So many near misses, it drives me crazy. I have so many of these days it is not fun.

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Maybe I can smart labeling my trades - one for each day - The day of the day, the bonehead trade of the day and the missed trade of the day.

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The numbers:

Stocks: Gross +6 net -2 shared traded 1600

Stock Futures: none

Forex: none

Tuesday Morning Thoughts 8/21/2007

The early bird gets the worm???
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This is frustrating. I have mention before that there seems to be a good turning point in the markets around 7 am EST give or take about 30 minutes. Today's move started at 6:40 and the dow futures "YM" ran 100 points or $500. So many times a test of a high or low is done at this time and the futures ran a bunch of points. Maybe I am nuts, but it would seem if I gave up about 30-45 minutes of sleep, I could pick off a good trade once and a while. The 13100 zone was the place to be this morning.

Monday Trade Review 8/20/2007

Good short term setup, bad trade idea. COH was talked about in the DEH. When I brought up the chart, I jumped in thinking it was a good long but if you look at the daily chart, it was a good short. I got out making a couple of pennies playing the wrong side. Then the stock collapsed turning out to being a great short.


My favorite steel and it had given me a short term buy signal. It turned out to be false and I got out before getting hurt. The little scalp trades in the steels, I give little time to work. The stupid thing is during the base I have 3 buy signals and did not get long. The stock then ran 75 cents with out me.

This is the type of trade that really pisses me off. I buy the breakout and the stock starts to run. Thinking I had a good winner, I place a stop to make sure I have some profits. The stock has a 1 minute pull back hitting my stop before running off again.

Another breakout play - the type of trade I do not like doing often. Again I buy the BO and it starts to move and because it is late in the day, I have a close stop (too close) that gets hits.

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A review of my main trades today - good night.

The first Day of the rest of my Life 8/20/2007

I did a little trading today. Missed way too many easy opportunities. But this day is different for me. This day is a day long coming. Today is the day that life has allowed me to try day trading full time. I am taking a 3 week vacation were half of it, I will be trading. After that vacation ends, I start a Family Leave from work. I am taking this to give me the flexibility to do somethings for my parents and watch over my own health. I hope when I am not doing either, I will have time to trade the markets full time. Mentally this means a lot for me because at any given moment, I had to respond to work either with emails, phone call and/or customers. I need a break from that.
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Today my trading was no big deal. I just tried to play around with a few things and just get a feel for my new freedom. I hopefully figure out more things to post about and be able to make this site more useful for myself and anyone how reads it.
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Numbers:
Stocks: gross +80 net + 70 shares traded 1800
Stock futures: none
Forex: none

Monday Mornign Thoughts 8/20/2007

The world survived another weekend. The Asia markets had big days last night and Europe is doing fine. The futures are bouncing back and forth. The one things that sticks was TMA was up 2.5 points and then in the matter of minutes, it was down a point and half. It has only traded 300k shares so off.
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I am waiting to hear what type of response the Big Mouth gives Barrons article.
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Other than that, my wife is debating what colors to paint the inside of the house. I know nothing about paint colors - painful.
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With the markets, I am looking for a test of the 50 to 62% retracement points of the recent decline before we work lower again.

Barrons VS The Big Mouth 8/18/2007

I figured sooner or later Barrons would pick on him. It is frustrating recently that a lot of his picks have not had the same pop in post/pre-market as they once did. I am hoping he and his picks become lively again in September. The summer is not a good time to pick on his picks.
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I have written down all his major picks over the last year and a half. The results I believe I could get if I shorted them based on my own rules are as follows:

January 2006 +4,000
February 2006 + 17,650
March 2006 + 16,000
April 2006 +11,000
May 2006 +7750
June 2006 +7000
July 2006 +1750
August 2006 +4750
September 2006 +5750
October 2006 +1000
November 2006 +5000
December 2006 +3750
January 2007 +5000
February 2007 +7000
March 2007 +7250
April 2007 +6250
May 2007 +7250
June 2007 +4750
July 2007 +2000
August 2007 +750 so far.
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Some of the rules I use is he has to move it in the post-market during the show. I do not use any of the call in picks. Only his main ones hi-lighted. The stock must have shares to short. The trades are based on 1000 shares per trade or 5000 shares for stocks under $10. I figure this on the meat part of the move not the top and bottom ticks. I figure on a lot of the stocks I can do much better than what I write in my journal or the totals you see above. This is mainly because I may trade more than 1000 shares or pull off taking more than what I conservatively guess. I have traded a lot of these at times - changing my rules to better fit the situation and my own mental game. Also if it is a day in an up market, his picks make good buys and the first reaction to his picking it.
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But you can see from above why I am so interested in them. The Big Mouths contract I believe is up at the end of October and CNN and Fox are going to try to get him. This will give him a new format and I hope - more stocks to play with. We shall see.

Very confused and Frustrated 8/17/2007

Very confused right now. This blog is where I mainly talk about my day trading but the over all market seem to be at a major cross road. MY 401k is 100 percent invested and has gotten hit pretty good. I have an rollover IRA that has been in about 70 percent cash most of the year except when I try swing trading it. I took one big stupid lose there or I would be feeling ok about it.
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The question - where do we go from here? So many of the indicators that I follow are telling me that this is either a major bottom to buy hand over fist or if it does not hold, then we are in for a very bear market. Each day will be a wait and see where the indicators go. If as we rally over the next couple of days, the indicators fall quickly then the best I think we can hope for is a retest of the highs then a retest of the lows. If the indicators do not fall as we go higher, then this could be a great bottom. If we don't rally and the indicators fall, god help us.
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However this works not, this is the first decline since 2002, I feel that I should get out of stocks. Something does not seem right.
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The last two weeks my trading has sucked. I do not know why I have lost my guts again to trade the way I should trade. I have not lost much money but it has taken a toll on my brain. I will post more about it tomorrow. I too hard today to get trades in but ever got my asks to be hit. I tried to sell in the early morning but I just missed by a few cents each time of 4 trades and all of them would have worked out.
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The numbers:
Stocks: none
Stock futures: none
Forex: none

Crap Again Friday Morning Thoughts 8/17/2008

I hate having to sleep. I have seen so many times that about 7 AM EST there seems to be a reflection point in the markets. Many times there can be a low of a high on the charts that you can play off of until the markets in the US opens at 9:30. Today there was another one in the YM futures. It would be a buy at 12800 today.
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Guess what happen? The Fed cuts the discount rate. The YM futures go from 12850 to 13250, a move of 400 points in 15 seconds. Amazing. The shorts are getting killed.
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Later.

Sucked 8/16/2007

A big ass rally like this and I had my head up my - you know where. Unfortunately, I gave up too soon and had lunch and work on my plate instead. There is a lot I have to learn about this market. I am going to keep this short. I went to a county fair tonight so I am hot, sweating and itchy from all the farm animals. I need a shower.
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I shorted the morning rally and got killed then I put an order for some QLD way out of the market thinking maybe late today it would get hit. I got filled early afternoon while I was doing some work. By the time I figured out I had filled, the market had already gone so much lower and higher so I closed the trade with a little profit. Dummy me.
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The numbers:
Stocks: none
Stock Futures: Gross -520 Net -529 contracts 4
Forex: none

Thursday Morning Comments 8/16/2007

They are beginning to lose it on CNBC. One commentator stated "the markets are like 100 Ralph Kramdens trying to all fit thru the same mouse hole". Rick and Steve are starting to get pissy with each other. We look like we put in a temporary bottom about 7:30 this morning when the Fed was going into the market. The arguments are why the Fed funds rate is lower than the target rate. One is arguing that it is technical issues. The other is stating that the Fed is doing a temporary ease thru the markets. We have already rallied 75 points off the bottom in the YMs.

Yin and Yang 8/15/2007

Yining and Yanging. My thought process during corrections goes like this. One leg down then bounce. Followed by a retest. The retest should take out the low by a little and then we buy. If it starts being more than that, I look for a move going about 1.6 times the first leg down. Then a rebound equaling the first move up, finishing with another leg the size of the first leg down. My version of the wave analysis. If this is going to be a simple correction, in my books the market needs to find its low 2-3 percent lower or we are in for a bigger 5 wave decline.

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Again the after hours futures look bad.

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The numbers:

Stocks: Gross +35 net +32 shared traded 1000

Stock futures: none

Forex: none

Wednesday Morning Thoughs 8/15/2007

My head hurts - really. I play a lot of racket ball. On Monday night, I was playing doubles and one person on the other team is not real good at knowing where others are. I took an overhead kill shot in the back of the head at full speed. It really dazed me. My head buzzed for a couple of hours. Now I have had a couple of days of headaches. A real PITA.
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Markets are down. The dollar is strong and everyone is waiting for the CPI.
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CNBC is stating the billionaires are buying banks. I guess that is where the money is at.

Days go by and still I think of you... 8/14/2007

Good song and I should have stay longer.

Stupid, Plain and Simple 8/14/2008

Below are a bunch of examples where I just did not pull the trigger. Recently, I have had one problem after another finding trades. Today, the trading Gods gave me a bunch and that they were all my ideas too. What did I do? I sat on my f-ing hands. Usually I pull the trigger on one of three trades I see. Today - none. I do not understand my head right now.

Examples 1 & 2 - it looked like to me the markets may have a brief moment in the sun today and then go down. The YM futures looked like the perfect one to short using the morning high as a stop. The later, I heard the news about the MM fund and thought - sell them. Again a nice move in the right direction.


Example 3 - AGU just looked like it wanted to roll over with the market. My thought process was right on target.


Example 4- Same crap different stock. Another one looking to fall after both had nice bounce trades from their lows. Right again.

Examples 5, 6, 7 - ouch ouch ouch . My favorite long. It would have been hard to break even on these but it might have happened.

Example 8 - A big mouth stock. Sell them on the open pop and this would have been stopped out unless I felt I could have a big stop because of other positive trades.

Example 9 - A big mouth stock. Hit it on the open and count the money. Right again.

Example 10 - A big mouth stock. Hit it on the open and take some 10 cent heat and then get to count your money. Right again - big time.

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Their you have it. What should have been a couple of really good hours of trading. I would guess 6 wins, 2 losses and 2 break evens.

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And here are my numbers:

Stock: no trades

Stock Futures: no trades

Forex: no trades (but I nearly went long the GBP/USD and that would have been for a loss)

Tuesday Morning Thoughts 8/14/2007

The PPI came out and there is not much reaction. The GBP/USD is getting killed this morning - below the 2.00 level for the first time in 3 months. The COT report is showing to me a possible turn in the USD/CAD. I would hope for one more shot at the 1.04 area to get long.
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The stock indexes are in no mans land and volume was slow yesterday compared to the recent 3 weeks. A lot of traders complained of the volume levels but we are just back to the level they were in early July.
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I am not excited about anything I see this morning.

Stress 8/13/2007

I find it amazing when I tell someone that I day trade stocks. They nearly every time say "that is too stressful". I ask them if their job is stressful and they say yes. That stress to me is harder to take.
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Jobs that I have had in the past, I have worked 80, 90, 100 hour weeks. I have on a couple of occasions worked 3 days in a row with out sleep. I have flown to a foreign country overnight and give a presentation with out sleep. I have given presentations in a country at war. I have worked on client sites where VPs have been telling how stupid I am. I have worked on Xmas, Thanksgiving, and all the other holidays.
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I have worked so much and eaten so much take out food, the food firms would send me the latest menus. I worked once on Xmas when my daughter was visiting and at the age of 20 she came down to my basement office at 9:30 PM and ask "When are we going to open our F-ing presents".
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I have lived where the first thing I did each day was read email and the last thing I did was read email. I have lived with beepers that would go off at all times of the day. Once I dropped my beeper in the toilet and I dug it out like a Coke addict that just dropped his stash.
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I have been on vacation far away in the desert, 60 miles outside of Las Vegas. We had not seen a human being in 30 minutes. No buildings anywhere - no sign of human life except for the paved road we are on. Guess what- my cell phone rings and it scares the shit out of me. It is work. They can't find some important file and they ask me hoping I know where it is.
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This is stress. Stress that never seems to stop. You never get off the cycle until the next vacation but then you spend the entire vacation taking to unwind.
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Day trading - at times incredible stressful. At times, nearly peaceful. The difference is that at the end of day, all my money is in cash. The day is over and the stress is gone for me on most days. In fact, as crazy as this sounds, I think I will have problems dealing with the lack of stress.
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The numbers:
Stocks: Gross +27 Net +24 shares traded 600
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

Boring 8/13/2007

I was all pumped to do some trading. I felt more awake today and we get paint drying. Made one trade so far and I can go to Mcd's tonight. Fun.

Monday Morning Thoughts 8/13/2007

I heard so much noise about the VIX and how high it has gotten. Give me a break. In the mid-90's it got down to the range of 10-15 for a while but spent most of the late 90's thru 2002 in a range of 20 to 30. That is where we are right now and we had some really good trading markets back then. We were there in the late 80's and early 90's too.

Frig Guy 8/11/2007

The Frig Guy came and put a band aid on it. He states he has given it a new life for 6 to 18 months more. Got to go to Sears. They have these things on sale today.

Wild Friday 8/10/2007

I do not know what to blame or say but my brain had too many problems keeping up with the action on Friday. I do not know if it me trying to finish some things up at work, or the stupid broken frig or my allergy shots. It just was not working for me.
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Even with the craziness in the market, my goal next week is to stay in trades either till the stop is hit, the profit point is hit(or the market gives my a reason to take a profit) or end of day. I need so badly to do two things - make more trades and sit on my hands. I am not going to get anywhere as a trader if I don't do those.
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The numbers:
Stocks: none
Stock Futures: Gross -10 Net -19 contracts traded 4
Forex: none

Friday Morning Though 8/10/2007

"Day of Judgement, God is callinggggggg" War Pigs by Black Sabbath
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Crazy day. This really random thoughts. I noticed most of the fast food restaurants raised prices across the broad during the last few weeks. I was a dummy trying to figure out why. "Are they all working together?". Does there need to be an investigation? DUH - even thou very few people in this area work at the minimum wage - it went up at the end of July.
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CNBC is showing clips from "300", "God Father" and "Rocky". What a combination!
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I was cleaning out my desk yesterday and came across an article from mid 1999. I showed a chart of the top 50 internet companies for the next decade. Out of the 50, only 10 are still trading (guess - CSCO, AOL, YHOO, AMZN, EBAY - etc). Some were bought out but they is amazing.
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CNBC is so funny. The futures have stabilized. Yes, I agree after looking at the charts. They have not gone down that much in the last 10 minutes. Give me a break!
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Blood is the Streets. You got it love it.

Damn Frig - 8/9/2007

This is not that long of post. The Denarii household is a little crazy right now. The Frig went out this afternoon and spent the last hour or so cleaning up and moving food to my wife's sister place. The repair man can't come until Saturday morning too and I have one hell of a headache.
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Did not trade much today. In fact, I hardly watched the market. I was busy with work. I did make a little on scalping a steel stock. I had left the market were Nasdaq was plus for the day and the Dow looked like it was roaring back. Next I looked it was down 250 then way after the close - down 387. Amazing. Thank god my trading account is 100% cash and my retirement funds are about 50% cash.
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The numbers:
Stocks: Gross +110 Net +105 shares traded 1000
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none
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Later - I got to figure out food for the next couple of days.

Thursday Morning Thought 8/9/2007

The markets are wild. I guess some hedge funds are having problems in Europe. The EURO is getting hit along with their markets. CNBC is crowing that this is no big deal. A bunch of rich people lose a lot of money being to greedy - just focus on the fundamentals. Funny. The futures are really bouncing around. If this market closes higher, the low should be in.

Ouch 8/8/2007

What can I say? I was a bloodied today. I shorted the ER2 at 790 and had a stop above the first high. Looking at it and market in hindsight, it was not a good trade. I walked into a buzz saw of bulliness.



Why did I get into the trade? Look at this chart. For a couple of days, the 790 area played a major role in the ups and down of the market. I was assuming it was a good place to pause and the other futures were not as strong.
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Ouch - but thinking about it, I was going to stay in a trade come hell or high water until I made money or hit my stop. This trade needed a lot of room so I gave it. In a weird way, I feel good about this because I held it for so long. One of my major problems as a trader right now. It also pointed out to myself that I missed a couple of good long stock trades. Those trades would have made up for the loss in the futures. The lesson learned is I can't stay focused on just one thing at a time.
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The numbers:
Stocks: none
Stock Futures: Gross -800 Net -805 contracts traded 2
Forex: none

Wednesday Morning Thought 8/8/2007

Last night was crazy. I have lived in NJ for 20 years now and I do not remember a storm like we had last night. The amount of lighting was incredible. For about 20 minutes it was like the nigh had turned to day because it was so bright with so many flashes of lighting. We lost power for two hours and winds were insane. Before we had strong winds and tons of rain, but this was the first time in a longtime the lighting was this crazy.
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We have rally in the market were we are getting close to the 50% retracements of each of the indexes. The Dow is leading the pack. Day should be interesting.

A do nothing more day 8/7/2007

Other than my bonehead move this morning and missing a couple of trades (maybe I should just use market orders), I did nothing today except work related stuff. So please read the post below. I need to catch up on some emails.
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The numbers:
Stocks: Gross -22 net -27 shares traded 1000
Stock Futures: none
Forex: none

A boneheaded rookie move 8/7/2007

A way to make money is check actively traded foreign stocks and see if their moves in the US make sense compared to the move in their markets. MT is one of my favorite stocks to do this with. MT was down 5% here and only 2.5% in France and the other steel were down but not buy much.

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Nice trade setup and I screwed it up. I bought at 60.95 - stop 60.70. Looking for a small quick move. I moved the stop to quickly again and got stopped out with an ok gain but my stop had more shares than my position. I forgot to see I did not trade a full position. Idiot - so I covered quickly and loss a couple of dollars and then got to see the stock moved smartly up.

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Got to sit on my hands.

Tuesday Morning Though 8/7/2007

Most mornings this is just going to be a random dumping of my brain as the coffee begins to kick in. A fun start to the morning as I had to get up early to be on a client call. Guess what the client did not show so I lose an hour of sleep for nothing.
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For some reason , the volume in stock index future usually picks up around this time but other than the ES, things look slower than days gone by. A friend of mine who manages over 25 million in funds for people and is in the process of getting a lot more, bought leveraged EFTs at the close of the market on Friday using margin in the accounts for the first time ever. He is very happy today and we will see if he stays happy. He was a doom amd gloomer and sudden decided to turn very bullish as he states "longer term" on the market at the end of last week. He does this a lot by gut feel but has done very well over 20 plus years.
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The markets look relatively stable this morning with the futures a little below fair value. I have a feeling we have not seen the last of the craziness. I am glad the craziness is happening now because I like the more normal markets after Labor day.

Where the hell did that train come from - 8/6/2007

One of the frustrating things in my trading life is not knowing if I will be around when a major turn happens. After not getting a big melt down this morning MT and his chat room was looking for a bottom. If you look at the chart above, a near perfect triangle was being formed where the volume of the retest was a lot lower than the first spike down. A beautiful pattern and the lows were just being taken out in a way that kept most people nervous.

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As I stated, I just felt like screaming because the turn looked like it was going to happen and I had other things I needed to do. And boy what a turn in the market it was. The last few days for me is like being in the middle of a super highway. You look one direction and you see cars fly by going down. You turn around and see cars flying by going up.

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My trading was ok. I chicken out of one order and missed two other by a couple of ticks. That would have turn an okay day into a great day.

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I am cutting this short because I just got my 4th 24 inch monitor and I need to get it ready for the morning. I am also in the process of moving my TD account to Trade Station. TD frustrates my newer trading style too much. Time to make a change.

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The numbers:

Stocks: none (but all of big Mouths stocks would have worked out going short than long - damn)

Stock futures: Gross $240 net $222 contract traded 8

Forex: none (it still pisses me off missing the EURO on Friday)

Monday Morning Thought 8/6/2007

This stuff on the Boob Tube drives me crazy. You are beginning to see more and more people state we are in a pattern where we sell off late in the week and than bounce on Monday and Tuesday. When too many people see the same pattern, then that is when the most of them will get hurt.
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The stats do tell us that the majority of time when the Trin closes over 3.o on NYSE, we gap higher and close higher by more than 1.2%. A wonderful service that provides tons of stats like this is SentimenTrader.com. So this means two things, either we close lower today or well below the open or we rally the entire week and not sell off on Friday.
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The other item of craziness in CNBC getting all excited about Crude at 80. We have had a good pull back in the oil market and the COT numbers show the commercial are super short Crude and they are the smart money. I think it is stupid to go against the smart money.

July results 8/4/2007

After feeling like I turned a corner i n June, I feel like I turned back. The net for the month was -387.64. I calculated by using everything - net all stock, futures and forex trades minus commissions plus interest minus data fees. I like to look at my trades with and without the commissions in them. My two accounts have much different fee structures.
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Some stats - over all 33-18 with stocks being 22-14, futures being 11-3 and one big losing trade in forex 0-1. My average gain was $65 and average loss has $126 which is where the problem is. In June, my average gain was twice the average loss but that reversed this month.
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I started focusing on index future tradings. I think you need to do that with market going crazy. I hope to add a few regular future trades in the near term (Beans in the Teens). I think my trading going forward will be the index futures for overall market ideas, short Big Mouth stocks when I can, maybe throw in a x-trade or two, and if the forex presents an opp take it.
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I started the month in a hole and spent most the month trying to get out of it. This month is off to a good start so far.
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Question for my viewing public - would anyone like me to post my complete spread sheet of results? and would it mean anything to anyone other than being curious?

My Job is killing me 8/3/2007

It was a crazy and great day in the MT chat room. Things were really slow until the market dived at 2 PM this afternoon. This just kills me because I am running around between home and work and doing other job related things missing these great trades. I am proud of myself because in the slow morning I was out trading MT! but I missed my EURO trade (see below) and was pissed. Then I missed the bringing of the sell off and never could get a trade pulled off at work.
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Regardless, MT has spent a lot of time this week explaining his trades. This has been a great learning experience. He is not trading some black box but just simple chart patterns, indicators and so forth. None of the trading I have posted here has been a black box. I believe in learning the markets by the patterns and the feel. No, silly computers here. This is why I enjoy MT's chat room because I am learning so much (and I am an old fart).
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Above I posted the charts of the YM futures. Do not take my notes as being perfect. I might here missed a trade or two (again I am at work but on a very slow Friday) but that is a sample of the trade points late in the day that I remembered.
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Again I will point out -why I am not making a ton of money off of MT's chat room is because work gets in the way most of the time or I just try to out trade him (stupid idea 99 percent of the time). I will be taking a break from work and get sometime to trade full time. I can't wait.

This was an example of MT's only stock trade today. He has not been trading much stock since the market started going a little nuts but look at the entry and exit point - how more perfect could it be?

Again to prove I am NOT a MT robot, I came so damn close to pulling out a great day trade in the EURO. I always watch the first reaction to the news, give it about 15 minutes and go with the trend. Many times two things happen - the currency runs away from a small range area just to come back to it and then run away again - like above. You buy/sell it when it gets back into the range using the range as your stop loss.

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Or it will run in one way, pull back but not to its small range, then fail to take the initial move. You then go against the initial move using the max of the initial move as your stop. So many times you can get 50 pips out of a trade like this with little risk.

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The numbers:

Stocks: no trades

Stock Futures: Gross +200 Net +190 contracts traded 4

Forex: none (damn again)

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Again MT's chat has a week's trial for only $25. His results are here. No BS. I have been there and I know the results are correct. In today's chaos, MT had one break even trade and all the rest I believe went for gains (I could be wrong) but he is human. He left a lot of money on the table today.

Very slow morning 8/3/2007

That missed EURO trade is a real PITA. Made a couple of future index scalpes and made $190.

Damn 8/3/2007

I missed the EURO just by a few ticks. Had orders under 1.37. The low was 1.37.

Friday Morning Thought 8/3/2007

The jobs report is out and the YM dropped about 50 points. Just before the numbers they had rallied for 25 points. Why I do not know but someone had a guess. The EURO gained about 30 pips and that might be the morning sell point. After the numbers come out, I look at the reaction and the re-reaction to the numbers trying to game things. If the EURO comes back to unchanged and starts moving higher then its a buy in my books. I never trade in the first 15 minutes after a very good number. The EURO might be setting up for a buy under 137.0 risk 25 pips and I would figure out at the end of the day if I hold it or not.

Not Much of a day 8/2/2007

This whole bridge thing has my head not screwed on right. I did not prepare today and I did not trade well at all. Made a couple of bucks but it felt like I lost a lot. It is weird. I did not understand how my brain is wired sometimes. Some of these disasters effect me and some do not. I never understand why. I am going to try to get some good sleep tonight and be better for tomorrow.
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The numbers:
Stocks: none
Stock Futures: Gross +55 Net +40 contracts 6
Forex: none

Thursday Morning Thought 8/2/2007

I hate the major networks. I have been watching this morning the coverage of the Bridge collapse and all I see are the National anchors trying to pick apart the situation and find all the bad points of the situation. It sounds like from a lot of the coverage there was a common people doing a lot of heroic acts. The idiot from NBC just keeps picking on "Was their Panic? Did you see died people? Did the construction workers bring the bridge down? Was the response too slow?" I want to throw up. I know the area and it is very hard to get down to the river at that point. There is a lot of amazing stories of people helping including a group of teenagers bring a pregnant lady to safety.
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On a market note, the futures are nuts back and forth. I t looks like we could be getting toward a good bottom here. A good place to get good longerterm technical information - go look at Jason's work - SentimenTrader.com. He is from Minneasota too.

Bridge falls into Mississippi River 8/1/2007

I cut my blogging short tonight as I heard this story on the TV. I grow up in this area and have been over this bridge so many times as a kid. I am freaking a little so many friends in the area - Peace.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070802/ap_on_re_us/minnesota_bridge_collapse

Helter Kelter - ON STEROIDS 8/1/200

"When I get to the Bottom I go back to the top of the slide

Where I stop and I turn and then I go for a ride

And I get to the bottom and I see you again, yeh yeh yeh" - Beatles

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Did you know we had a 10% move in the markets since the close of trading yesterday? But you say the Dow was up just a 150 points! If you add up all ups and downs of the major moves today, you come up with about 1400 points. Amazing.

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My trading was ok today. MT kicked ASS today.

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The numbers:

Stocks: Gross +55 Net +50 shares traded 1000

Stock Futures: Gross +170 Net +130 contracts 18

Forex: none

Helter Skelter 8/1/2007

This bouncing around is insane. Up a little on a bunch of small future trades. Need to take a break. Trying really hard not to fat finger any trades even if I miss a few.

Tuesday Morning Thought 8/1/2007

New month same crap. The markets look very messy this morning. The futures are taking dives all over the place. Two points here - two points there (S&P). The market has scared enough body were even the Big Mouth does not seem to have his magic to pump stocks. I hate all the TV commentaries - stocks are do this and that because of this and that. Bottom line is people who have stocks are selling stocks and are having problems finding people to buy them.
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In the few minutes it has taken my to type this, the YM (Dow) futures have gone down 60 points and then gone up 40 - all in a blink of an eye.