1000 lashes 10/31/2007

To end my sucky month, I thought I exercise a bit. Usually I do 30 minutes on a StairMaster or play racket ball for 60 minutes or lift weights for an hour. Tonight I lifted weights for 30 minutes and I did 45 minutes on the StairMaster and I played racket ball for 40 minutes - finishing it all off with a long hot stream. I hope this exercise exorcism gets rid of some of my trading demons. Between the work out and all of the Halloween candy, I am so pumped up right now, I do not think I will sleep. Maybe I will trade the Tokyo session.

Wednesday Trade Review 10/31/2007

Short post because it is Halloween. I hate days like today. I overacted to news and did not check it out before I pulled the trigger. Thank god it was only 100 shares. With in minutes I was down 500 dollars on it, but I did not panic and got out at minus 170.
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I had some other stupid trades too. I went long CMC and RIO and sold them both breakeven too quickly. They were not moving fast enough for me so I got out. CMC then ran 90 cents without me and RIO 60 cents. I need to sit on my hand. I had a trade in XTO after the FED where I could have made a couple of bucks too.
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This month sucked and thank god we start over again.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross -165 net -186 share traded 3800
Stock Futures: none
Other Futures: none
Forex: none

Wednesday Morning Thoughts 10/31/2007

I am looking forward for this month to be done. Each month, I seem to have one or two kills that just eat at me. I panicked one that one where I had a large amount of shares. Panic never makes you money. That is one of the few Cramer sayings I really agree with. That one trade cost me my month. If I just held through the panic I would have had a positive month. If I held until it did what I thought it would, it would be a great month for me.
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Today I played my first bio-tech trade in a long while and added to my negative month. I should have read more about it before I pulled the trigger. The stock was AMLN. The saving grace with this is I just started the position with only 100 shares before I figured I was wrong.
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Crap.

Tuesday Trade Review 10/30/2007

This was a boring day until later this afternoon. A course I decide to go work on the yard as Crude Oil and the Shippers tanked big time. I did not get back early enough to get a feel if I should do anything.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross -30 net -37 shares traded 1400
Stock Futures: none
Other Futures: none
Forex: none

Tuesday Midday Thoughts 10/30/2007

Three Big Mouth stocks from last night. None of them popped at the open and with the Dow and Market looking down, one should have shorted them as soon as the main exchange was opened for them. Trade 500 shares in each - take down about $800-1000 and go do something else for the day. Damn - I looked at them and walked away without doing anything.

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The rest of the day has been super boring.

Tuesday Morning Thoughts 10/30/2007

"On any given day" - a saying in sports meaning no matter how bad a team is, you just never know - they could win. I am a good racket ball player but not great. I am in a "B+" league at my club. The league has 8 players in to usually. For many years, this league would have four better players and four worst players. The top four would beat up on each other to see who would come in first place. Most of the time, I would fall into the top couple of places.
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We got a new player about 3 years ago. He was in the "A" league and would win half of his games there. When he dropped down to the "B+" league, he would kick all of our butts. Our leagues were 3 times a year and for those 3 years; he took the top stop each time unless he was injured.
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Over those 3 years, I have never won a match, alone a game against him in league play. He had told me, he was always been scared of me because I have the skill to beat him. Oh, did I say, he hates losing. The reason why I would lose to him is that I knew how good he was and I would try too hard and make extra mistakes especially if it looked like I was going to win. So many times when I was ahead late in a game just points away from winning, I would start pressing and I would choke.
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Last night was different. I know I get too hyper about this game. I worked out before the match to relieve this - to make sure I was calm. I made sure that any given point had nothing to do with another. I planned where each serve went. If I started becoming hyper, I took a deep breath. I did not pay any attention to anything he said or did until the end of the match.
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Guess what? - I greatly reduced the numbers of errors I usually commit against them. I never let him into my head. I played each point as it had nothing to do with any other one and I won. I kicked his ass. He even said I played a near perfect game and made fewer errors than he did. He walked away like a stream roller had hit him and it was great.
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Can you see how this compares to trading? Each trade has nothing to do with another. Each trade is new. Each trade needs to be prepared for. Concentrate on reducing errors not making money. It took me a long time to get into this mental mid set for playing racket ball. I only pray I get there with my trading quicker.

Monday Trade Review 10/29/2007

My day did not get anymore exciting this afternoon. I had a lot of orders in but I would cancel them if they did not get filled within 30 minutes I did have a trade in RIO but after it bounced around for an hour - I closed it out at a small gain. It then went up 50 cents from there. Not fun.
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The range of the Dow was very small. I would assume the volume is small. A big PITA.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross -30 net -48 shares traded 3200
Stock Futures: none
Other Futures: none
Forex: none

Frustrating Morning so far 10/29/2007

Missed winning trades in VMW and LDK by seconds. Chased NLY and just could not get filled. Maybe there is a delay in my quotes today? And I was in a trade with MOS that if I gave it a little more room, it would have been a great trade.

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This market wants to go higher in a painful manner.

KISS 10/28/2007

KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid or the first band I ever saw. As I stated before on this Blog, I have been looking at the currency market trying to figure out a good way to swing trade them. Someone mentioned why not try the 9/14 EMA cross over? So I put the moving averages on the EUR/USD and it looks very good. The person stated "just do not automatically buy and sell when the averages cross but when they look like they are, use your brain". In other words, read the chart at the time.
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The chart goes back a year on a daily basis. If you started out that year long, then the first crossover looks to be about Christmas of last year. At that point, I would see there is a triangle pattern. I would give that pattern the benefit of the doubt. The trade would be to sell the long and go short about 1.3100 level.
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The next trade would be the rounding bottom in January and February where you would get long again in the 1.3000 area.
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The averages do not roll over until just above the 1.3500 area in mid May - nice gain of over 500 pips.
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You nearly get a signal the first week of June but should cover at the end of June around 1.3400.
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The next set of signals would have gotten you out around 1.3650 then short then long then short again for a couple of losses in July/August before finally getting you long at 1.3650 in mid-September.
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You would still be long today and a head by maybe 2000 pips or $20,000 per regular size contract. At a couple of times, you may have a $2000 loss or watch $3000 in profits disappear and you need to figure out a Black Swan Stop Lossbut could it really be this simple (talking to myself) stupid?

Friday Trade Review

A small win for me. Trader Tyro posted this link and it hit me in the head pretty hard. Ever since I have been trading full time my results have sucked.

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I have two big problems - I can't seem to pull the trigger on or fast enough with about 75% of my trades and if I do pull the trigger, I stop out so many of my trades before they can work. This is think is the main problem behind my trading. So many times I see the trades work but I am not in them.

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And yes I have tried everything from small lots to small stops to wide stops to low priced stocks to trading only 50 shares on high price stocks. Nothing seemed to work. The article Tyro posted was about the four types of problem traders - Frustrated, Anxious, Overconfident and Defeated. I think I fall into the anxious type.

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One relief for the anxious is to focus on process. So I thought to myself what are the items of a trade - entry, exit, stop loss and size. I saw a trade (chart above). I knew what I thought was a good entry. I knew what I thought was a good exit. I knew that it would be a 1 for 1 risk reward with a high chance it would word and I knew what size I should use. Simple right. So I placed the order and it was filled in a few seconds. I then placed the stop loss, and exit price and I walked away. I went upstairs and got the mail. I came back in about 10 minutes and found nothing had changed. Went back upstairs and got something to drink. Looked again like it was going to work and bingo - exit price filled.

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That all may seem stupid to everyone but it was a very small victory for me. The stock moved down enough where I might of jumped out. If I didn't and held through the heat, I might have gotten out as soon as I had a profit. Instead, I laid out a plan and followed it and was paid. Maybe this is a solution for me. Time will tell.

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The numbers:

Stock: gross +129 net +117 shared traded 2200

Stock futures: none

Other Futures: none

Forex: none

Friday Morning Thoughts 10/26/2007

I just want to scream. I am so sick of this. One of my biggest problems is being able to think with the market. To have the right charts in front of me when the opportunity presents itself. I had the YM futures opened in front of me. I had looked at them and noted where the overnight lows are. One of the trades I like taking is if the futures have been in a tight flat range all night and there is no news out there, just buy the futures near the low in the time frame of 7 AM to 8AM EST. As I was looking at the YM and bringing up my TradeStation thinking I should get my order in because the setup was there, CFC earnings come out and the YM futures just soar. This would have been such a nice start to the day. The idea of the trade is to take 20 to 40 points and a risk of 10 or 15 points. Bingo - the trade would have worked perfectly.

Thursday Trade Review 10/25/2007

Nothing to speak of. All my trades were small gainers or losers and my net was close to zero. Only my broker is happy with these days. I got my head back into the game partially. I did decide to take a break in the middle of the day and go have lunch with my wife. A course that is when POT, MOS, AGU and TRA all exploded. I had them on my screen when I left.
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It just was another day of not being in the right place at the right time. Even after the mess with the Big Mouth stock yesterday, I had my orders ready to do the same thing again today but the stocks did not pop and I did not chase them.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +3 net -8 shares traded 2200
Stock Futures: none
Other futures: none
Forex: none

Wednesday Trade Review 10/24/2007

Never got back on track at all. My head hurts.
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Need to read and reread and reread what I wrote earlier. This is the type of day that will either make me or break me. Losses are apart of the job.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross -1469 net -1486 shares traded 3400
Stock Futures: gross -95 net -110 contracts traded 6
Other Futures: none
Forex: none
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I need to find my happy pills. My congrats goes out to Glen - he was down bigger than me and fought back to the black. I think he is finally starting to get his shit together.

Let's think this out 10/24/2007

It is time to learn from the damn mistake.
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One - I have been trading lower price Big Mouth stocks using increments of 10 to 25 cents. SGR is high enough priced where I should have been using maybe 50 instead to leg in.
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Two - once the stop had been blown, take a moment to look at what is going on and don't panic. Panic never makes you money.
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Three - it is only $1500 loss. Not the end of the world. Pull the head out and get back into the game.
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Four - Look for the positives in the trade. I started following the plan but lost it when the heat was too hot. The bottom line is - I was right on the trade. The execution was not good.
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Five - One bad trade does not have anything to do with any other trade.
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Six - go have lunch and fricking calm down. A transmission job on your last car cost you over 3 times as much.
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Seven - remember you know how to make money. It is learning how to control your emotions. A high percentage of your trades would work out if you let them.

Double Crap 10/24/2007

I know once you are out of a trade not to look back but SGR is now falling like a rock. If I held thru the great pain, this would have been my best trade of the year in stocks.

CRAP 10/24/2007

I finally really f-ed a trade up. It was a $1500 loss. It should have only been a $1000 if I had gotten my stop in on time. The stop should have been at 72 and I got out at 72.30 instead. This is the first time I really blew a stop loss order. Now I am back in the red for the month and my head is spinning. Maybe I should go walking in the rain? It is raining hard here right now and my head is not clear. Damn-it.

Wednesday Morning Thoughts 10/24/2007

The Big Mouth Stock today is SGR. The crazy person starts picking stocks that are much harder to short when things get bumpy. I would love to see a nice easy climb in the market to get that game going again.
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Other than that I played around in the premarket a little and made a few happy meals on DRYS. I think I could have made a lot more if I just sat on it.

Tuesday Trade Review 10/23/2007

I did another very rookie mistake. After a nap, I came downstairs and looked at my charts and got all excited. Fired off a couple of orders and got filled. Then one of the stocks I was long, started falling quickly. I put in my stop and it got hit. Pisser - as soon as the stock hit it, it started to reversing. Oh shit, even a bigger pisser. My stop order had more shares on it than I got filled for my long. Get out. What a mess. Lost on both sides. So pissed at myself, I get out of my another trade at break even. In the next 10 minutes, that stock goes in my favor 80 cents without me. Note to self - do not trade right after nap.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross -13 net -25 share trades 2400
Stock futures: none
Other Futures: none
Forex: none

Tuesday Mid Day Thoughts 10/23/2007

I do not trust this market. It is amazing that everyone went from being too bullish to too bearish and now is quickly going to bullish again. A lot of traders are missing in action today and I do not know why. I have had many charting, quote and computer issues today.
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I forgot how many of my accounts had XHB in it. I was lucky and able to sell a little higher than yesterday. I have made one trade today but again I got out too early. Story of my trading life. Outside of trading, I seem to stay in bad trades way too long (aka - first marriage, and a job or two).

Monday Trade Review 10/22/2007

This has been my trading plan for XHB. Once we had massive volume that one day, I was thinking it was a good candidate to bottom fish for swing trades. Each time it came down to test a new low, buy a 1/2 position with the idea of selling the first rally or buying a second 1/2 about 1.25 points lower (5%). I had never tried something like this before. I has not thinking this way for the first buy. The second buy I was planning to make but somehow missed it. The third worked perfectly for me. The fourth I bought and the double buy but sold a little early because I was going to be traveling with no PC access. The fifth I took and just missed the double buy when it took off like crazy. I did not want to stay in this position for long not having a good outlook for this market.



This is an inter day chart of the XHB swing trade.



Also today, I was trying to buy stocks on the morning drip. I was not being aggressive enough but I did catch one - DSX (in fact twice). The second buy I should have held on to longer but by the time I caught this one DRYS looked like it was running out of steam. I hate playing the knife game unless it is with Big Month Stocks.
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With the big move in my swing today - I have dug myself out of the whole for the month. It is not a lot of money but I am having a lot of mental trading problems right now. I need to get my head on straight.
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The numbers:
Stocks: Gross +236 Net +215 shares traded 4000
Stock Futures: none
Other Futures: none
Forex: none

Monday Morning Thoughts 10/22/2007

Everything is still down like last night. The only difference is the dollar is super strong today. The EURO has lost a weeks worth of gains just in the last two hours. Crude Oil and Gold have also doubled their losses from last night.
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Usually, we undo some of whatever happens during the options expiration session. I wonder if we will do that today.
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I am going to start looking for some stocks.

Here we go again? 10/21/2007

Just got done with watching tonight's TV with the wife (Desperate Housewives and Brothers/Sisters) and decided to peak at the markets one last time. Talk about a bloody mess. Crude is getting hammered. Gold is getting Hammered. Dow futures (YM) down 115. Nasdaq down -19. S&P down 12. Even Corn and Soybeans are getting hit.
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I first saw it when using Bloglines (it allows you to get notified when a new post in done on someones site you have subscribed to) I came across with. I like Brian. He is one of the good guys.
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Time for bed. Maybe I should get hammered too? hum.

Some charts 10/21/2007

Small Cap Index - Did not make a new high this last push and now is below its 200 day moving average - very bearish. Not what you want to see.


Mid Cap Index- Not much better then the Small Cap Index except it is not lower than its 200 day moving average (close).



SP500 Index - Very quickly it finds itself in major support area. If it declines much more - it will be very bearish.

Dow - Just holding up a hair better than the SP500. Needs to start finding a foothold here or it will be bearish soon.

QQQQs - Very strong - looks like just a plain old mini correction in the index so far. No big deal.

Emerging Markets - God I wish I had all my money there. At one point in my 401k, I had about 60% there. Over the last year, I have reduced that to about 25%. Trying not to be a pig.

China- What is there to say, it is just Insane.

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The circles on the charts are where the 50 and 200 day moving averages are. You can click on the chart to make it more readable.

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So depending where you like to invest, either this correction so far is no big deal or you could be in a world of hurt. In my investments, I usually have a little of everything but maybe a big piece in one place. It is always good to look at what are the winners and losers in this market and balance yourself correctly.

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A couple of years ago, the Small and Mid Cap stocks were the place to be - no longer.

Friday Trade Review 10/19/2007

Different day, same results. Crap.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +62 net +52 shares traded 1600
Stock Futures: Gross +50 Net +10 contracts traded 8
Other Futures: none
Forex: none
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A fun day for the stock market all around. I am out of most of my swings now and have a ton of cash. I also have a fair amount of cash in my 401K. I will be looking to deploy a lot of it if the market falls anymore next week. In the after hours, the YM futures are down another 30 points.

Friday Morning Thoughts 10/19/2007

It is amazing on how things change. When I first moved to Central New Jersey, Rutgers football team was a joke. The stadium held, I think, 32,000 and very seldom was it ever more than 1/2 full. One year for some reason, they got a Thursday night game that was on national TV. They gave tons of tickets away to get the fans in the seats. Still the stadium was only 2/3 full. Go forward a half dozen years and the program was been totally changed. Rutgers is a good team. They had to expand the stadium to hold 12,000 more. There is a waiting list of 10,000 for tickets now.
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Last night, Rutgers had a home game at 7:30. In this area, it was total gridlock for about 3 hours. After the market closed, I go work out. It takes me 20 minutes to get there. Last night even thou I do not get anywhere near the stadium, it took me nearly an hour.
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It was a great game and I saw parts at the club and listen until half time on my car radio. I get home and somebody (the wife) wanted to have quality time together and watch ER. Once ER was done - I forgot to watch the final minutes of the game. I was thinking Rutgers was going to get killed by the number two team in the nation anyway. I wake up this morning to find out Rutgers won 30-27 and it was one of the best college games of the year to watch. Dumb.
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I look at the chart this morning and it is weird. The ES(SP500) and YM(Dow) futures are going from the top left hand corner to the lower right hand corner but the NQ (Nasdaq) is going from the lower left hand corner to the upper right had corner. Weird. Again the NQ is up today and the others are down.
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I posted my thoughts on OIL, EURO and GOLD on the Trading Goddess website. Check it out.

Thursday Review 10/18/2007

Nothing write home about. I did 8 trades today and have nothing to show for it. My neck hurts from the doctors appointment and even thou I am a Rutgers fan - I think they will get killed today. Where is a bookie when I need one?
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross -16 net -47 shares traded 5800
Stock Futures: none
Other Futures: none
Forex: none

Yesterday charts finally 10/18/2007

Still can't upload charts 10/17/2007

The Big Mouth Stocks for tomorrow are PRGN, DSX, and GNK. All 3 are shipping stocks. This should be fun. As always I will be trying to short them tomorrow using the action of AH and tomorrows premarket as order placement. I was not aggressive enough today with the Big Mouth Stocks.
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I have a doctors appointment (Ultrasound of my neck). Hopefully it will not interfere with too much of my trading day.
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Peace

Wednesday Trade Review 10/17/2007

For some reason, I can't upload charts to my blog today. I tried to get long the YM futures. The gap up convinced me that market may go on a tear. I was hoping for a pull back and I got it. I bought at 14045 on the test of the last morning low. Bought again in the 14020's and sold in the 14030's to keep a couple of points. Bought another contract at 14020 and was looking to add at 14000. By the time we got to 14000, I did not like market action. I got stopped out at 13995 after watching the action there.
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I switched to sell mode and missed the first YM breakdown because I was playing with stocks. I sold the second breakdown but by then the market was too oversold to fall. I got stopped with a small gain.
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I did screw around with a couple of stocks but my head was not in the right place after my losses in the YM. I need to look at them as separate things like I do with my trading account verses my retirement funds.
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I also started a 1/2 swing position in XHB.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +41 net +25 shares traded 2960
Stock Futures: gross -265 net -325 contract traded 12
Other Futures: none
Forex: none

Big Mouth Stocks 10/17/2007

No pops today and made a total of $15. Pulled all orders - damn.

Wednesday Morning Thoughts 10/17/2007

As always I am looking at the Big Mouth Stocks - ALGN, LKQX and SNCI. I have my orders in and lets see if I have the guts to follow threw. I leg in and I am already in my first leg of LKQX. This maybe a big game of chicken because all of these have high short interest in them.
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I got up 15 minutes earlier today to see if I could catch the YM morning trade but it was between 6:30 to 7 EST when it tested the 14000 area. I did not turn the computers on until 7:35. The wife bitched at the earlier time. I want to even get up about 30 minutes earlier.
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I thought we had some topping action here with a pullback of 3-5% but it just does not look like the Bulls want to quit.

Tuesday Trade Review 10/16/2007

Not much more to say than my previous post. I had a couple of trades in SKS and one in NUE. Missed shorting DRYS in the morning and LULU in the afternoon.
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Spent most of the day watching other traders try to game this market and most of them failed.
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The numbers:
Stocks: Gross +58 Net +47 shares traded 1600
Stock Futures: Gross +10 Net 0 contracts traded 2
Other futures: none
Forex: none

Mid Day Thoughts 10/16/2007

See chart. Perfect plan - bad execution. I should have cover the first part have about a $250 gain and allowed the second part to get filled. On the second part, a gain of $800 would have been in order. The market slipped me on my stop which should have been lower and then I was stupid and pulled the other orders. Net for me after comissions - $34.

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Other than that, I shorted a new low in the YMs at 13948 and covered quickly when no follow threw happened.

Tuesday Morning Thoughts 10/16/2007

Oil is still going nuts. As it pulls back a little, the stock index futures are rallying. I am setting up my trades to pick on a Big Mouth stock - SKS. It was been very frustrating for a while with the Big Mouth stocks. I guess too many people are picking on them because they are not working as well.
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I had been trying to figure out an acceptable method to trade the currencies. I would like to get something in that area going. I think I will be trading more futures for now seeing my brain can't seem to deal with ups and downs of stocks that well. In other words, I can't seem to let my profits run.
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My results are frustrating me a lot.
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I wrote a long piece on my racket ball battle with a 12 year old on the Trading Goddess website. God I am sore today.

Monday Trade Review 10/15/2007

Days like these are so f-ing fun. I was expecting an upside pop this morning followed by a big downside reversal. I got the reversal but no pop (soda for those who are not from the Midwest). So the market declined while I am busy with, it seems like, a 1000 PITA things. Finally, I could get into the market after 2 EST. I was thinking we had the big decline and early in the day than I excepted - maybe it was time for the big upside reversal. I went long on the Breakout of the range and stopped so after. Ok - maybe I was wrong. The A/D sucked and the volume of the rise was bad - let's jump on any new low. The low comes in and I get short. Not to long after, I am stopped out again and the market ripes to a new Breakout high. Only one thing I can say - ouch.

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The numbers:

Stocks: none

Stock Futures: gross -185 net -200 contract traded 6

Other Futures: none

Forex: none

Not A Fun Day 10/15/2007

I have only taken one future's trade so far for a small lost. I have spent most of my day dealing with doctors, the bank, the post, the benefits department and my mothers crazy mind. Maybe we will get a good decline in the last hour and I will make some money on the short side.
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One thing of positive note, I got my health insurance resolved. Someone sent me the incorrect form.

Monday Morning Thoughts 10/15/2007

My beloved Packers won this weekend. With the Bears (the team is the division I worry about) and Dallas losing, the Packers are in pretty good shaped.
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I am fighting some battles again. Somehow my billing conversion of my health benefits got screwed up. I do not know if I have health insurance or not. My mother is giving me problems to. She is not in good health but thinks she is going to die tomorrow. She has been thinking this for 13 years. All I can think is Monty Python.
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For the markets - oil is going nuts and I am pissed that I had my stop too close on my RIG swing trade. I started building a QID position again in my retirement accounts and will add more today if we get a rally. We should sell off 2-4% over the coming days. I was looking for a pull back in the EUR/USD over the last few days but did not game it correctly. I will continue to look for an entry point. Gold is going nuts too.
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The coffee seems to be working this morning. My question then - did I make it correctly?

Can somebody explain this to me???

While I was recently in Mpls, MN - I received a parking ticket for parking in a Handicap zone with a Handicap person using an expired over a year Handicap Tag.
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In Minnesota, if you park in a handicap zone without a Handicap Tag, it is a $200 fine. If you park there with an expired tag that has been expired for less than a year, it is a $375 fine. If you park there with one that has been expired for more than a year - it is a $575 fine.
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My mother is in a wheelchair. It took me two afternoons, a lot of paperwork, and endless waiting to get the fine reduced to $250.
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Nuts.

Friday Trade Review 10/12/2007

Stocks: Gross -238 Net -242 shares traded 400
Stock Futures: Gross +90 Net +70 contracts traded 8
Other Futures: none
Forex: none
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I am pissed and need to take care of other business.

Thursday Trader Review 10/11/2007

It was a good day. I will be pissed at myself for not being more aggressive. I will learn. There was blood out there and I should have been feeding like a Vampire at the Red Cross.

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I was making many trades today - a lot of them in my retirement accounts. The two above were stock futures in my day trading account. To many times I am to aggressive in my profit taking instead of my order entry. Need to work on that but I had a good day.

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The numbers:

Stocks: gross +70 net +59 shares traded 2000

Stocks Futures: Gross +335 Net +315 contracts traded 8

Other futures: none

Forex: none

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Whenever I post numbers on this blog - it is only for my day trading account which may be a swing trade from time to time. Never are there any of my other accounts numbers inculded here.

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I do not talk much about my retirement accounts but that is where I kicked butt today. I wanted to get short into the morning ramp and I did. I bought a bunch of QID's and I sold them beautifully on the first break of the market. I tried to reload on them but missed. I think I will get a shot to do that tomorrow.

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Also in 3 other long term accounts, I had the XHB swing trade where I pulled out 4% in two days. It worked out very well.

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In this most recent ramp of the market, I have been pulling money out of retirement mutual funds and putting it into cash. If we get a really good market pull back, I will again place it back into the market.

Thursday Mid Day Thoughts 10/11/2007

I am so excited I had to put on a second pot of coffee. Lost a little money trying to pick a top in the YM (Dow) futures. Sold my XHB for 4% is my retirement accounts and started a swing long in QID (short Nasdaq) in my retirement accounts. I missed a couple of shorts and the Ag chemical stocks are hot again - damn.

Wednesday Trade Review

Most of my trades where posted below. This day really took a lot out of me. I must of had 30 or so orders in at some point and basically did not get filled. Many times I was just trying to be too cute with order placements. You can see that by my comments below with CF.
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I love my wife dearly and it is nice she is home again but because we have not been together much recently - she is demanding a lot of my time. This causes me to skip sleep and I am just not functioning well.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross +0 net -11 shares traded 2200
Stock Futures: none
Other Futures: none
Forex: none
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Nap time.

Let me work in the Mail room so I can go postal

A method of trading I picked up is to play the hot sectors. This is something DT turned me on to. If the sector up or rallying, find one of the lagers and buy them. If the sector is dieing, the sell the strongest.

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The 3 charts above are from the ag chemicals sector - AGU, CF and MON (you could add TRA). My thought process here is bad earnings from MON pushed the sector down but yesterday there was good news from MOS. So during the MON conference call, I assume the sector would bounce back hard.

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I first tried trading CF. I chased it and chased it and chased it. This I thought was going to be the best bouncer. At point 1 on the chart, it was just breaking out of it small openning morning range. I had an order in at 72.22 - no fill. Then it ran to 72.50, came back to 72.20 and I thought it was in a range of 72.20 to 72.50. Buy it at 72.30 and sell above the break of 72.50. No luck. At point 3 - tried buying at 72.70, then 72.90 at point 4. Ok give up - no luck - go play with something else.

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Later, I see it start to build a big buy point at 74. I am going to lose out on this again. Buy a 1/4 position at 73.95 and a buy stop above 74.00. Get stop on 1/4 position at point 6 - 73.70 but for some reason leave buy stop in. Buy stop gets hit and get stopped again around point 6 again.

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After I created this chart - I went short and covered my earlier losses.

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On the other charts - I missed AGU when I took a break from CF and then screwed up a trade in MON. I bought MON at 88.40 before 11 and then got stopped on it at 88.40 after 11. It runs over 89 minutes later.

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Bottom line - the right stocks, the right ideas - bad execution of those ideas. I missed a lot of money. On top of that, while I was pissing around with my own ideas, MT was making a ton of money with his.

Tuesday Trade Review 10/09/2007

I am really tired tonight and fat fingering a lot of things. My main trade for the day is listed below. I also made a trade in CAT and my first trade in Forex for a long while. I closed out the Forex trade quickly because it looked like the Bid/Ask was screwed up. Instead it was my eyes.
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Tomorrow, I want to share with you a new way I am trying to enter Breakout plays. I just do not have the energy to do it tonight.
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The numbers:
Stocks: Gross +273 net +263 shares trade 1800
Stock Futures: none
Other Futures: none
Forex: Gross +50 net +45 contracts 2
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For those who look at Dino's numbers in the VO, I gave them to him wrong.

Tuesday AM Trade Review - Finally 10/09/2007

The two charts above are again Big Mouth Stocks. I have been playing around with different entry methods and I finally got a hit on one. The first chart is JAKK. With the amount of short interest on it, I wanted to play it a little safe. While I played it too safe and did not get filled.

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The second chart is VCLK. I wanted in on this one. When the first surged started, I threw a market order to short 100 just to get in. As the surge continued, I had my orders ready to go - 100 at 28, 200 at 28.30, 300 at 28.60, 400 at 28.90 and 500 at 29.20. The AH trades got as high 28.75. I believed an overall stop above 29.50 would be good. I waited a couple of minutes as VCLK moved higher before I used a feature in IB that commits all your orders on a page. I wanted to do that so I would get better fills on my lower priced orders. It worked while today. As on the chart, I got filled on my market order at 28.28. My other 100 share filled at 28.47. Seconds later my 200 share order was filled at 28.475 and as the surged continued my 300 got filled at 28.60.

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So I was short 700 shares at a cost 28.50 - right where I wanted to be. It was an odd amount so as VCLK, I covered 200 at 28.16. Covered another 300 right under 28 then the rest at 28.20 on a trailing stop. It was not pretty and a little messy but this is the first time I pull this method off and I like the results. I should have reloaded my shorts at 28.40 - a 50% retracement of the opening range but did not.

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I so far have not taken any other trades even thou I had tried. I am very tired today seeing I did not get home from the airport until 2am picking the wife up.

What the Hell 10/09/2007

Everyone else is doing polls on their sites - so here is one from me.

Tuesday Morning Thoughts 10/09/2007

The wife is back in town.
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Some of the sweetest words this trader could ever here - "Honey - it is time to get your butt out of bed and go make some money. The market opens in less than an hour" as she slaps me on my butt a couple of times.
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Her plane was late and we did not get to bed until 4 am while we caught up with each other.
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My Pookie is back. :)

Monday Trade Review 10/08/2007

Again I failed to capitalize on the market when my planned trades did not work the way I had expected them to. Both of these are Big Mouth Stocks. The top one MASI I had planned to short 100 at 31.50, 200 at 31.80 and so forth until my last was in at 32.70 to short 500. I only had the last one just before the market opened. The others I was going to put in right after the open as the stock popped. The stock did not pop and I did not get in. The same for AGN. I was really expecting a bigger bounce for these stocks this morning after the run up on Friday.

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I tried to bottom fish the oils and fail. Volume and the ranges dried up quickly and I was never in the right place at the right time. I spent most of the day cleaning the house. My wife comes back today after visiting her mother for 10 days.

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The numbers:

Stocks: gross -51 net -53 shared traded only 200
Stock Futures: none

Other Futures: none

Forex: none

Monday Mid Day Thoughs 10/8/2007

There is none. I tried to get cute with one of the big mouth stocks and did not fill. This market is really boring. I am still in mental pain seeing my Packers blew the game last night. I fear I will trade out of boredom. It does look like the market wants to roll over right now.

Monthly Review 10/06/2007

My monthly numbers:
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Wins: 30 Losses: 22
Avg Win: 39.45 Avg Loss: -62.20
Gross Trading: -184.91
Commissions: -205.40
Net Trading: -390.31
Biggest Win: 222.00 Biggest Loss: -250.00
Data Fees: -81.64
Interest: 218.00
Account Net: -253.96
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This is the third month in a row that I felt my trading sucked. The good thing is during this sucky period - I did not even lose 1% of my trading account. That is sucking done right.
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Really, looking at all my trades, the two biggest losses should have been my two biggest wins. I thought when I shorted the electronic T-bond contract - it was a mini. There is no T-Bond mini contract. I put a very tight stop loss on it. I got stopped by 2 ticks before it turned and went in the way I thought it would by $1250. The other trade was the EFT XHB. It was going to be a swing trade but on the second day it hit a new low without recovering much by days end. I sold it. A couple of days later, it was $1500 higher and I was visiting my parents away from any computer. Such is life.
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We start another new month and I say to the markets - "Bring it on!!!!!"

Frieday Trade Review 10/05/2007

Most of the trades I did today were posted below. I lost $339 today but I want to look at this as a glass half full instead of a glass half empty. If I traded my plan instead of what I did, I would have made my goal for the month today. I should have made 10 trades today and 8 of them would have made money. I will say it again, if I followed my trading plan. This gives me confidence in my ability to read the market and its stocks. I know I can do it - I just have to do it. I have heard that somewhere before.
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I began the review of my September's trades and I will post the totals this weekend.
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The numbers:
Stocks: gross -285 net -304 shares traded 3800
Stock Futures: gross -30 net -35 contracts traded 2
Other Futures: none
Forex: none

AM Friday Trade Review 10/04/2007

A lot of frustration here- I had the right stocks at the right time but my execution left my with a loss overall. Lets go to the charts.


This was a Big Mouth Stock. I jumped on to it too quickly. I was going to use the scale in method for all of the Big Mouth stocks but I got to excited then I quickly panicked. I bought a half position right on the open when I should have used the scale orders shown in RED. The scale orders would have given me a cost of 26 on a 1000 shares where my last short order would have not gotten filled. If I would have sat on my hands during the sideways motion around 25.80 I could have covered the short in the 25.40 area for a nice gain. Once a Big Mouth Stock finds a bottom, it makes for a good buy if the market is strong as like today - crap.


Another Big Mouth stock with the orders in red I should have placed but didn't. Not as good of a result as STAR above, but still a very good trade - crap again.

Cat - I was buying a small lot looking to double it on a break out. Instead I moved my stop too close too fast mainly because my head was still f-ed up from my first trade - crap again.

MT called out to buy new highs in the Indexes. The 3 other major ones were breaking out so I went long the YM. Again the market stalled for a few minutes and I just got out with honoring my stop that was 10 points lower. I could have took 20 or 30 points out of this easily - crap again.

While I was playing with CAT and YM, my favorite steel AKS had soon great buy signals - crap again.

Seeing I was late to the game in the steels, I saw RIO setting up on another buy signal. I did not stay around long enough to benefit - crap again.

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Some really good trades there with not a lot of heat if the orders were placed on how I know they should be.

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All I got out of it was a bunch of crap. My results - down 300 and I think I should be up about 1000-1500 maybe more. I panic too quickly and do not follow my plans.

Thursday Trade Review 10/4/2007

As I stated before, I am trying to recover from my trip back home. I only made two trades today and neither are worth the time to write about. I did pull another Rookie mistake. I wanted to short the morning pop in the YM futures if they did not take out the high. I had forgot to bring up my Trade Station because I was running late. I saw the trade developed on my IB charts. Time to make the trade but no TS. I was trying to get TS up but it would not come up fast enough and the trade got away. So what was the mistake you say? I had my IB open and I can trade futures there - so dummy why didn't I?
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The numbers:
Stock: Gross -11 net -13 shares trade 4000
Stock Futures: Gross +25 net +20 contracts 2
Other Futures: none
Forex: none

Thursday Mid Day Thoughts 10/4/2007

I am back but mentally wasted. My flight was delayed and I did not get to bed until early morning. Four cups of coffee and I still can't see straight. And guess what? - I am trying to trade - HaHa.
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I hope to be back in action fully soon. I was visiting my parents which neither are doing well in my eyes but both are a live and thinking they are doing okay. It is sad to see them get old and fall apart.
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Time to get more coffee.