wrap up of holiday season trading

i had tried to get rid of STLD over the holiday week, but missed both my slender chances at +.4 profit, first by sleep and second by phone call.  volume was very low so it was very hard to watch the tape go nowhere.  

i woke up on Monday of New Year's week, determined to sell it and unfortunately there was a very weak rally and i thought everything would go down and so sold it for a measly +.2, but you take what you get and things did go down.

at the end of the day, i thought RIMM was oversold and bought it for an overnite, since volatility is so low these days, the danger is not so much and was able to sell it today for modest gains, didn't go up as high as i thought.  GS was the real screecher, but i didn't see any of that, i should have shorted NUE or SPY for a small profit intraday, but went with IBM, which didn't really die and i didn't sell and late in the day it went up .5 against my position.  damnation !!  but atleast now i can play it as an overnite and not a daytrade when i make my profit on it tomorrow....hopefully.

relaxed christmas monday

i woke up late and by the time i was sipping my coffee it was 12pm.  i looked at the charts and it seemed like we were going to go down some more.  i roamed around and came back and i thought the worst was over, so I bought some STLD.  it had zoomed up too fast and was getting beaten up bad too,...down 12%.  but christmas week, so everything was low volume.  i like it's prospects at this price level, but will keep a hawk eye on it.

i'm back

back like the energizer bunny...no longer a daytrader since i'm under 25K, but got my account reset and back to trading....watched last 2 days and pounced today.

i should not have played AAPL...IBM or MON was the way to go, but i'm still a little out of touch with the whole thing and i dipped in at 90 this morning.  i went to Murky coffee shop after that and spent the afternoon agonizing over my call.  flip side was i watched the tape like a hawk and am getting back in the rhythm of that.  luckily towards the end of the day, AAPL cracked and i must say i sold it at the very bottom of the bounce down.  it was a master sell.

closed my AAPL short, bought at 90 at 88.8, very nice timing on the down, but the volatility....sheesh....

i wanted to go long SPY at close (actually the mad dip at 3:30pm, but i thought maybe it will go lower and then it went up and i was trading options on it and the spread the last 2 minutes was crazy (new to options on SPY) so i let it go......

in general, i don't like overnite's....too many variables for a little fish like me...the mad dip intraday play was the right one for me, but i missed it. live and learn.

and stop banging on beanie for not posting....his advice is a luxury :)

didn't trade

didn't trade Friday or Monday....on Monday, my NUE calls were profitable in the morning....wish i had sold them.

it's not looking so good....i have a feeling Wed./Thurs. we might get a new rally.

New JOB starts Wednesday.

ohhh man or i need my mommy day

PART 1

yesterday afternoon i had a bad feeling upon seeing the market action. it seemed very bearish, plus we were majorly overbought. my gut said if i am to buy, buy at close. i broke that rule, as you know, and bought AAPL midday. markets sank badly towards the end of the day.

instead of doing cool analysis at the end of the day...and i don't know what i was thinking....i very rashly went out and bought calls on BNI, RIMM and NUE. i used up all my money. one of my rules is never to use up all of your money. they were good buys, all at the bottom of the day...i figured worse case scenario i get a little bump and break even the next day.

unfortunately, after hours the markets kept on sinking. maybe the ECB / BOE would cut rates and that would jump start a rally. but, i had a bad bad feeling. there is a worse case than the worse case i'm thinking...but i'm trying really hard not to think too much !!

woke up at 8:30am after a restless night's sleep. the futures are all down...bad, bad and bad. please God I pray, a little bump and i'm out. we open low, rise a very little bit and then slam down. no please remember i couldn't even break even on my positions...we opened for all purposes atleast a $1 lower on all stocks...for a brief 3/4 minutes i could have sold at .5 - 1 losses...if i had just one position, but with 3 positions i panicked and said "how bad can it get".

well...we had another 500 point down day and except for brief moments it went down in a straight line. complete annihilation, especially BNI and RIMM.

well at 10am i didn't really know this...i still had hope and i really wanted coffee...so i throw on some clothes and drive to Murky, where i take a leisurely coffee break....what's the big deal...it will bounce back...look at the sky....look at the cars...a smoke...some music...finally i get the comp out...oh we are only 200 points down in a straight line....this is it...we will bounce back...more cigs, more cars, more shitty sky....look again...straight line down...i got another coffee...play towerz....don't think....peek...straight down....double cappucino...that's 3 shots dear....fuck....no food....i have so much coffee in my system i think i will explode if i even look at the girl by my side...avoid all human contact...peek at the dow...eeks...i'm a worthless piece of shit...chain smoke...nice sky..after all at the end of the day, when you have no money...there's always that fucking beautiful sky.

so everything is 6-8% down....all our hopes at this point lie on tomorrow's employment numbers being not so bad....bad will do, but it they are catastrophic bad...we are going down big time...and no magic wand is going to be saving my soon to be "shit house poor" TM ass this time.

PART 2

man i was so caffeineted...my brain mono lined, you know like when your heart stops...except my brain did that....it was going so fast...it didn't even know how fast it was going...anyway, i managed to get home and through some small glimmer of self persevation... i thought, NO!.... let's not get drunk, let's cook some food and i cooked the worst dish of pasta ever...because in between i started smoking cigarettes and re-planning the US financial system....and the noodles turned to soggy mush...over boiled the salmon (that's the only meat i had) into shriveled pink stuff....the only sauce i had was a can of crushed tomatoe's, been in the fridge for 2 weeks...it's not enough...add some water till everything's swimming....boil some more...it was a beauty....one bite and i threw it over the railing...creating a mini Gobi desert in the vegetation below...then i took a shit...and off i go to get drunk.

don't you wish you knew me.

and oh yeah! NO TRADES FOR TODAY.

shitty day

i stupidly drank too much last night, celebrating the election victory and it was a real challenge to wake up this morning. which is why i dumped my BNI puts at the open. made nice coin on them, but if i had held to the close....

then i went back to sleep and woke up at 1:30pm.

the market looked awful. my gut said that we would sink all through the day. but, i broke my discipline and bought some AAPL at 106. the market absolutely tanked as i predicted and my AAPL calls are now in deep water.

i bought some NUE, RIMM and BNI at the close, hoping for a bounce tomorrow. they are at low's of the day...good prices, but not fantastic.

i have a feeling we might open up and trend lower before bouncing up for good. or we could open lower and bounce up....which would not be good...that's a bearish signal.

busy day

i had a job interview at 1pm so that was majorly messing up my day. i had to leave at 12pm to get there and god knows when i would get back.

i still had my RIMM position from yesterday and that was looking to be some major damage control. down 1 at start and RIMM quickly ramped up. eeks....i had been looking to short the gap up and went double short RIMM. usually, in the past this has spelled trouble, but the trades were a day apart and i really had a good feeling about today. i also shorted MON, albeit not at the best price. i had the price target 94.25 set but got greedy.

i was watching the ticker on RIMM and it was strong. the entire damn market except for AAPL was strong. there was hope. all of sudden around 10:15, RIMM broke and i was able to liquidate my positions. i took a loss overall, but now it was a bearable loss.

i was hoping for MON to break majorly, but it just wouldn't budge. i had about +700 on that trade, but i got scared, very rightly so and closed it for +200. very good call on my part. i'm a day trader, if the position doesn't feel right, let it go....live to fight another day.

i still thought MON was overbought and reshorted it around 94 and a little later i doubled down. now time is running out...it's 12am already and MON just won't break. i could collapse the whole position for a small gain or do what? the unthinkable. go to my interview, come back and trade it. i must have been crazy. but, get this i set a sell level about a dollar lower, to where i thought it might break for the day at least and go to my interview, where they eat up my head and i tell them i have to go, drive like crazy through DC and jump to my computer and VOILA....it sold at the level i set and that was the LOW of the entire afternoon. i couldn't have gotten a better price. man, i really rock.

that is some super fine day trading, folks...killer stuff.

i watched the market some more, later afternoon has been fluctuating like crazy and i'm not really digging that today, but BNI shows unusual strength and i dip in for a short. i set a sell for +0.5, but it won't budge beyond +0.4....illiquid stock options are so hard to trade. no matter, it's a good position and tomorrow is a new day. i usually don't like to hold overnight, but volatility is low these days and the overall sense of the market is pretty clear. the upside on these puts i bought also seems somewhat limited and the level of risk is not too much. overnight is okay.

btw, i now have a job, starting Thursday....i wasn't so happy about it earlier...goodbye to sleeping late....but i need some stability...let's just drink some beer and get happy :)

November 3, 2008

i was determined to get rid of all my dogs. i thought of various price levels i would sell them at and what the resulting balance's would be of my account. it did not look too good.

luckily, the day was in my favor...not massively....but enough.

i gamed MON perfectly and sold at 10:30am at the low of the day....literally the stock did not go lower than .30 cents from this point. you may not know, but with options that is very hard to do.

i was a little greedy on my AAPL and IBM though. i decided to hold them longer, since MON was 20 puts and the majority of my exposure. my risk levels were cut now.

i then stupidly decided to short some RIMM....the buy itself wasn't that bad, but multitasking stocks is a bad idea. the longer you watch the ticker of a stock....it kind of gets into your blood and after a while you get really good at gaming it. the brain works in mysterious ways.

later in the day i got rid of my AAPL. the IBM, by the way, i had bought 2 days earlier and then slept late the next day and completely missed my chance to make a profit on it. all i had to do was wake up. pathetic.

oh well, now for a new start....somehow i'm not so enthused.

seem's like i will be getting that State Dept. job. Easiest interview I ever had. I basically told them I was over their head and the next thing i know they were falling all over me. they asked me like 3 technical questions. i rock.

October 30, 2008 - awesome trading skills display

man i rocked. i woke up and was determined not only to salvage my losing positions but also to daytrade with the measly amount of money left. enough only to buy 8 calls or puts on any of the stocks i follow....you can see the chart for yourself...i kicked ass....ok, let me break it down for you:

10 mins = 1100
40 mins = 1400
40 mins = 500
35 mins = 0 (atleast i didn't lose money)
2 mins = 500

i basically raped IBM and AAPL at will.

my other bad long positions still stay on the books.

October 28, 2008 trades

I believe the top 2 AAPL trades and the MON trade were very successful again...greater than +1 profit magnitude individually.

Those trades at the bottom, now there's where i screwed up bigtime. The market ran up big time in the afternoon from 400pts to 900pts and all of those where bought at the 400pt range. I just over leveraged myself like crazy and totally disregarded the market. at the end of the day i had a third sense that maybe i should cut my losses, the market didn't feel right...it would hurt but it could get worse, but i just turned off my computer...you know it's bad when i don't watch the close.

The next day they went even higher and i did not trade. i could see that i was gonna lose a bucket load of money on these trades. the tide had turned. we just had a major bull rally and i was on the wrong side of it.

October 23, 2008 trades

The 2 IBM trades at the top were very successful. I believe I bought them around 13.

haven't been posting....why ?

here are the reasons:

1. i made a bunch of really bad calls and was near the 25K daytrading limit again. infact one day i was at about 15K...stressful. can i make money on this long term....i still think i can.

2. i was not sure if i wanted to do this fulltime. what kind of life is it sitting at home all day....RESOLUTION: i love daytrading and can do it almost everyday. i have moved a couple of steps up in my love / mastery of this art :)

3. i was having a mid life crisis at the same time....not fully resolved but somewhat under control now.

sadly, i just got a job....but that may be a good thing. i plan to continue daytrading and worst case scenario i get fired or quit. I WON'T QUIT DOING WHAT I AM REALLY PASSIONATE ABOUT >\ and I"M GOOD AT IT DAMMIT.

Batwings Formation

• Permalink
• Admin
• • Remove Post
  • Block username
  • Block email
  • Block IP address

beanieville Today 03:24 PM 0 points

Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

That sucks marbles... BatWings formation on the DIA and SPY... if i remember correctly, at best we gap up tomorrow but will likely end down.

reply edit record video comment reblog flag

5678 /people/beanieville/ /people/beanieville/follow/ http://www.beanieville.blogspot.com

• 
• 

• Parent
• Permalink
• Admin
• • Remove Post
  • Block username
  • Block email
  • Block IP address

vodka_tonic Today 05:10 PM 1 point

Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

nooooo.....not the BATWINGS formation....:)))

beanie, has other formations also !!!

will hold till Congress does something....plsss

• http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vN3yY3xwScE/Rixw5n8De2I...
  
  
• 1 point

  Please login to rate.
  
  

  Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

  ok im a wait till thursday unless we get an insane spike today or tomorrow.....i think we trade sideways till then....stock prices now are insanely low and credit market crunched as they are should be ok eventually.
  
  i mean theyre still making bread and honey (or jam since poor bees dying and they be making all the honies not peeps)
• 
  
• http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vN3yY3xwScE/Rm6wJSgjnAI...
• 
  
• 

  • Permalink
  • Admin
  • • Remove Post
    • Block username
    • Block email
    • Block IP address

  Huqleberry.com 9 minutes ago 1 point

  Please login to rate.
  
  

  Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

  fitb
• • 
  

  • Parent
  • Permalink
  • Admin
  • • Remove Post
    • Block username
    • Block email
    • Block IP address

  vodka_tonic 6 minutes ago 1 point

  Please login to rate.
  
  

  Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

  fitb ??
  
  == football iz da bomb ?
• 
  
• vodka_tonic 5 minutes ago 1 point

  Please login to rate.
  
  

  Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

  FITB Fill In The Blank
  FITB Future Income Tax Benefit
  FITB Fédération Internationale de Tchoukball (International Tchoukball Federation)

phew....

the markets are crazy....we all thought we would go down today, so on the morning rise on IBM to 119, +2.5, i shorted it, i got a little overzealous and doubled that bet, still at 119 to 20 puts. the market kept rising IBM at 120, shorted some more....it keeps rising and at 3pm it's at 122....i'm freaking out....all my profits for the week plus some more are about to go down the tube. i can't even hold overnight because of the bailout plan rally threat.

i short at 122 and pray for the late afternoon drop....i watch the tape....i'm like a ninja....compute all exit points....IBM goes down to 120....i collapse all trades...it took nerves of steel.....my 122 was the only profitable leg, i couldn't sell it too early as it was counteracting the losses....but if IBM rallied into the close....with only 10 min's to go i sell the 122 / 120 at 122.3, wait 5 min's and i sell the 20-119's at 120.

total loss of 1K, but it could have been much worse. i was very lucky. some skill too. PHEW !!!

see-saw on the Goldman Sachs ship

I shorted GS tuesday evening for a quick afternoon fade, but i didn't get it and so i was left holding GS puts !!!
as you know i hate holding stocks overnight in such volatile environment...a little bit of good or bad news and your position is fucked. especially with financials. so i was bummed, since after hours it was spiking higher.

But, on Wed. morning the gov. announced $85 billion loan to AIG. Logically, good news, but the market went ape shit over it. GS in pre-market was down $10....awesome. I saw the first 20 secs worth of action, saw that it would hit 120 and set sell level of $30 for my 150 puts. I didn't even have quotes, the options pit is a little behind in such cases. I was probably one of the first people to make market on that derivative that day. Great nice profit of $12.

I am at home for the moment. I didn't feel like rushing to work. So i am enjoying the moment. Watch the talking heads on CNBC, smoke a cigarette, take a crap (carry the laptop in there too :) and i come back thinking that's the worst. I do another quick trade on the upside, let it go down a little and go LONG. i wait a little bit and go LONG some more. Don't aske me why i must have still been hungover or sleep deprived or to exhuberant over my recent successes, that i went so heavily in. I get to work everything's down, GS down $25...i think great absolute bottom and i buy some more....you know the story the bottom on Wed. was $100....i had 29 $100 sept. calls with only 2 days to go. perfect way to blow your account.

i was up early thurs. morning. i had calculated various scenario's at different price levels and i was ready to take a hit. only thing in my favor was that volatility had created monstrous premium's so even though GS had moved down considerably, i was somewhat compensated. luckily, the market moved up and at $114 i had previuosly thought the risk / reward ratio was acceptable. i wasn't sure it would move to $120 and the hit at that point was not so bad, especially since I had made so much the day before. i am typing in the order, the fire alarm at work goes off, the boss is yelling everybody out, i hit submit and it's filled !!! yipppeeee....later on GS goes back to 100, then goes down to 91, where i wanted to buy it, then to 88, where i absolutely wanted to buy it...but for some reason my IB webtrader wouldn't accept my stock orders!!! i would have done call options but the lowest was 90's and they wanted $10 for it with stock at 88 and 1 day left. INSANE and DEFINTILEY NO WAY! 5 min's later that stock peaks back to 100. that was a definite gimme and i knew it. sigh.

the moral of this story is that i was able to salvage massive losses, buy not being greedy and keeping an eagle eye on the ticker of my stock. this is something i didn't always do before. but, now i know, that if you are trading options which are about to expire immenently you need to watch the ticker on that stock like a hawk. a couple of minutes could cost you thousands.

overall i only lost $500 (thank GOD) but i was up massively !!!

list of trades below:

BOT 10 GS IT SEP08 CALL 25 2008-09-17, 10:06:51
BOT 10 GS IT SEP08 CALL 23.5 2008-09-17, 10:11:25
BOT 9 GS IT SEP08 CALL 16.8 2008-09-17, 11:15:44
SLD 29 GS Option SEP08 100 CALL GS IT 16.50 CBOE(USD) 10:11:29 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 2 GS Option SEP08 125 PUT GS UE 13.50 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:50:55 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 2 GS Option SEP08 125 PUT GS UE 13.50 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:50:55 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 2 GS Option SEP08 125 PUT GS UE 13.50 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:50:55 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 2 GS Option SEP08 125 PUT GS UE 13.50 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:50:55 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 2 GS Option SEP08 125 PUT GS UE 13.50 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:50:55 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
BOT 10 GS Option SEP08 125 PUT GS UE 13.00 CBOE(USD) 15:25:53 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 1 IBM Option SEP08 130 PUT IBMUF 13.10 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:57:24 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 1 IBM Option SEP08 130 PUT IBMUF 13.10 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:57:24 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
SLD 1 IBM Option SEP08 130 PUT IBMUF 13.10 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:57:24 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new
BOT 3 IBM Option SEP08 130 PUT IBMUF 12.00 NASDAQOM(USD) 15:53:34 GMT-0400 on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 new

my buddy ZSTOCK commented over at beanie's

zstock quote: "QQQQ chart looking awfully bullish, going into tomorrow. Could go either way, and or, all over the place."

my response: "thanks, that really clears things up :) "

it just really cracked me up....keep up the good work Z.

LEH rumors sinks my ship

so i am doing ok today....i'm not feeling the market and keep on thinking i should go home and jack off or do something. last 10 min's of the market are my favorite and i have a nice short setup on AAPL, just watching it to set the optimal sell level. all of a sudden huge spike....everything runs up 2.5+ in 10 mins....unbelievable....

my online friend says LEH rumor that it is to be bought by BAC.....my gut feeling is there is a rumor out there too....this was news based trading, i have been dreading this whole LEH thing....

althought BAC already bought countrywide so that doesn't make sense. i'm dreading Friday now.

this is how accounts get blown out

super bad day for the markets. lots of traders getting decimated, including yours truly with his epic NUE long, which gapped down 10% today...ouch! no worries. i made up most of the loss with some profits on IBM on Monday. i play the intraday short on AAPL, more money for the account. i'm breaking even overall, it's okay. brutal market.

late in the day it looks like another down play on AAPL is forming. I get in nicely. and it goes down nicely, but i set my sell a little too high and before i can change it, it's gone back up again. it's at breakeven. basically, bought at 151.9, 10 aapl sept 165 puts for 13.9 each.

Fuck James Bond. You want to know pressure, trade options on AAPL.

I have 10 mins left in the trading day and I don't want to hold anything overnight. I could lose some serious money here. What to do?

i am desperately setting my sell levels lower and lower. an idea forms why not buy some AAPL calls for the bounce tomorrow. there should be a bounce !!! BAD IDEA ! time is money, 145 calls look okay, i set the price at 9.1. 3 minutes left. screw this...sell the puts for 14 ($100 profit) and buy the calls for 9.25. 2 minutes left. i refresh the page and all orders executed. $100 profit for all that angst and now i have a serious 10 calls position. what if LEHMAN explodes overnite or Paulson has a heart attack?

Seriously Munney Penney, we'd be PHACKED !!!

finally back after blowing account

well, i blew my account in end june and on the very day the worst was happening i got offered a job. so phew, i had something to fall back on. i think it's better this way, since i will have something to do all day other than sit and think about my trades. sometimes i get over eager to just trade. possibly i will have more patience this way. this is my last chance. after this there is no more money. EEKS!!

bought 10 NUE SEP 42.5 calls at 6.9 (commodities oversold)
bought 10 IBM SEP 100 calls at 9.1 (oversold -- bought it too early, should have gotten in around 8.8, but i didn't want to be greedy and i am a little bit out of practice :)

see you tomorrow.

a chart for you

various worldwide indexes:

all liquid....phew

i woke up early and plotted my strategy, which basically was all about selling everything. only question was prices.

i sold NUE at open for a small profit, although it spiked higher by $1. that was on news on STLD, which i missed. i sold BNI at a pretty fair price. I sold DRYS at a fair price. AAPL spooked me at the open when it dipped like mad. i sold it when it stabilized but not near the best prices of the day.

in the afternoon i slept to give the rally some time to form.

late in the day i shorted GS. not the best move, given that the weekend will eat some premium, but it flew so high that i felt some action was necessary. also, by mistake i bought July puts, so i will be lucky to break even on Monday.

it's fridayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy........

just awful

i sold my MER calls at open, was trying to sell my NUE but got too greedy. NUE crashed, AAPL crashed bad (on little news), BNI went down and DRYS went further down.

basically, i was long all of these and everything has drastically gone against me. so now i am in the red on my initial investment.

this is so like the decline in Feb., everybody kept on thinking now things will get better, but every damn day was a downward spiral.

i am liquidating everything tomorrow. start fresh next week.

getting screwed

well i wished evil and it came true. i was talking to my family over the weekend and i told them i wished for a complete meltdown of the markets, so that people could suffer. well, my wish came true as the market melted today. unfortuanately, my account was one of the one's that melted also.

what can i say ? i woke up in the morning and i could feel the storm building and i just couldn't sell, especially BNI down a $1 in premarket, i felt, i hoped that somehow we would pull through. total catastrophe. BNI dropped $4 in 30 minutes and overall dropped $7...unbelievable move !

DRYS also went down $4 and NUE is barely holding it's head above water. add to that i bought some AAPL calls, which are under by $2 and some more MER, under by .50. i just thought we would rally at the close...instead we went lower.

awful markets....BUT, i think we are oversold...i only wish i had more than 1 week till options expiration. that's gonna be killer.

now to get drunk, because you don't lose money like this every day :)

more laziness

i slept late and upon waking up at 11am was pleasantly surprised to see my RS puts had been sold at the price i had set yesterday. nothing like profit early in the morning.

i bought some DRYS calls but $2 from the low. it's made a strong move to the low. eeks ! bought some NUE calls at the bottom. it was down $3.5 and at that point i felt it was majorly oversold. i tried to sell them at the close, but i just didn't get my bid and since i am already up on them, i don't mind holding them another day. i bought some BNI calls at the close, but i think this stock is trending down also.

i get the feeling people are unsure of direction. oil IS breaking though.

it's so hot and muggy in DC. such is life.

missing journal mon. june 9

i was so tired from NYC that i slept at my parents place and woke up at 11am. i then lazed around the rest of the day and made some trades which turned out well.

my family life sucks. everybody's fighting.

WOOT

i was in the IB chat room and i saw the unemployment report and the oil action and i knew this was going to be a huge down day, one of those, where we go down the whole damn day....and i called it 400 points down on the DOW.

did i get it right ? Hell Yeah !!!

as you know, i had a bunch of puts and i made money on all of them. i didn't make mad money though, because some i sold too quick, like BNI and NUE and others like STLD, just wouldn't die. infact, in the morning both my STLD and MON positions were well against my position. MON in particular caused me a lot of heartburn and actually did not break till the end of the day, although i sold earlier for nominal gains.

while, i knew that the full impact would come at the end of the day, but still it was a tough day to hold through, so what little (NOT) i made is still welcome.

i would have made much more playing the volatility, but my family kept on distracting me with chatter. SIGH !!!

BTW, oil over 130 is very bad for US economy and around 150 is complete decimation of current levels of the GLOBAL economy.

now we go out to Yuva, for some nice Indian cuisine.

good day, big tomorrow

i woke up and saw that NUE was up $3 on some good news. Kaching !!! I watched MER at the open and it seemed anemic so I got rid of it also. Financials like GS and LEH were flying but MER was sagging. something's going on.

btw, NUE went up $6 for the day. Heavy institutional buying, which anybody with a brain could see coming a mile away. The thinking on my sell early was, look $3 move is average, i have rarely seen $4 moves, so upside seemed limited, while the downside gapped large. a bird in hand, is better than 2 in the bush. Eh!

Rest of the day I shorted some stocks. I am worried about my NUE short and also, my first MON short, which was initiated at a horrible juncture. Sigh!

I am going to NYC tonight, so tomorrow I trade from Manhattan, Upper East Side BABY ;)

facebook mania

i spent most of my day fiddling around on facebook...i am a newbie convert and i found a bunch of my friends from my vacation to Costa Rica online. Actually, one of them contacted me and that's how i got into it. so cool.

i wanted to buy some RS puts and the spread was 6.3 on a 6.7, so i put in a buy for 6.5, middle of the road. i thought i would get it, because i am a very good scalper of option prices...you have to be...especially for out of the money options, never pay the ask. but my order never got filled and the stock tanked big time and so i missed out on making some money. i was thinking of raising it to 6.6 too, damn facebook ;)

at the end of the day i bought some NUE and MER calls, for the overnight bump. i don't see anything drastic happenning in either sector, so they are fairly safe.

I SAW A TORNADO...for real...i have never seen one here in 18 years....it ripped out a bunch of branches from this big strong tree. i could see the wind swirling in the tornado style action. there was a woman running across the parking lot, i almost wickedly hoped to see her fly around...i ran down to feel the force, but the tornado was gone by then.

i kick ass

i didn't wake up on time. i woke up at 12:30pm. for some reason i decided to go out for a beer at 12 am in the morning. there were no seats at the bar. i sat on a stool by the wall. like a freak. i don't know why i enjoy doing things like this.

i was sitting there, wondering what to do, when the entire market started tanking hard. i had no idea why. CNBC had no idea why. the interactive brokers chat room i hang in, had no idea why. i don't stare gift horses in the face, so i got rid of my crappy BNI positions right away. then i looked for stocks to short and AAPL was a prime candidate. i shorted and covered 4 minutes 13 seconds later for a $600 gain. then i switched gears and went long MER and MON. i did good on MON, but got scared with MER, what with the whole Lehman thing. i sold that for a tiny profit, although it ripped up fairly nicely later on. i also shorted some Netflix (NFLX), but i think it was a bad position. NFLX is showing upward momentum and if there's something i have learnt in the last 2 weeks, it's DON'T FIGHT MOMENTUM.

overall, a good day.

new start

i feel like a new start. last week i just wasn't into trading.

i sold off 20 BNI 120 put's for break even. i still have 10 of 120 and they are fairly out of the money. also, 10 more of 115 puts which are the worst of the lot. really awfull positions. i forgot there was the last 10 of 130 puts, which actually came through decently.

i sold off my IBM puts for a nice profit, although i left over 1.5K on the table. it dived so much.

i still own my MER calls. it's getting close to getting into financials time.

i tried to scalp BNI for some downside action, but the stock behaved like a young drunk girl. wanting to put out, but not actually doing anything :)

fin. el morto.

screwed up big time

i drank like crazy yesterday and did not wake up in the morning. given the amount of exposure i had that was just plain crazy, but i'm tired of trading and i just didn't give a damn. i've had a great time doing this full time, but it's clear to me that it's time has come and i need to get a full time job and do this on the side. i am pretty sure that i will be a much better trader, if i don't think about this the whole time. plus it will be nice to work with other people again.

anyhoo, i didn't wake up and paid a heavy price. i would have broken even on IBM in the morning. i would have made a small profit on BNI and could have closed my entire position in that stock. IBM is still within target range, but BNI ran up another 2 dollars. it's on a monster breakout and my position in it is definitely hurting. but, i have 3 more weeks and this stock can tank just as fast as it's run up. hopefully, oil will make another run above 130, which is likely, and the stock market will dive one more time (for me). but, overall i am not making profits and that is pissing me off. maybe it was just a tough week, but i haven't been able to tell where stocks are going. all rationale seems to be out of the door.

i am burnt out. i should have taken that vacation to Jamaica like i wanted to. i would have only spent 2K on it and i already lost more than that dicking around.

too early

i started shorting BNI too early...it ran up something huge today. i might break even on it, but if i had waited i could have made some serious money on it. i got rid of my HPQ position, just couldn't wait any longer for it to turn the corner. plus with the coming weekend...oops, in the case of HPQ there would have been very little premium to lose. in any case this dog has had his day and we need to invest in other venues.

i have been sloppy in trading lately. my heart has not been in it. don't know what to do.

maybe this weekend i will go somewhere. or nowhere.

tough day

i was not on point today. i had a bad feeling about the IBM puts and should have sold them at the open for a .20 cent profit, but i was greedy and lost .80 cents on them each. Ouch !!! i went back to sleep after that fiasco and for the rest of the day kinda drifted around. i got rid of my NUE position, break even on 10 and small loss on other. I was debating whether to hold them, but NUE was up 2.4 and i didn't feel like tempting the gods. i bought some IBM puts and i feel fairly good about them, but IBM is busting out, so i have to be very careful with them.

i was jonesing for Coke all evening and then finally i went and got some. it was divine.

slow day

i slept through most of the morning. i kept a lazy eye on the market thereafter and except for a feeling at one point that i should go long, which i didn't act on, due to cooking food and building my resume, i missed that brief opportunity. in the afternoon i watched tv and watched Oil fall. i am not sure it's done, but the buzz is for a downward trend. NEVER FIGHT THE TREND. i shorted IBM towards the end of the day for an overnight play.

i need beer. i love my family, but they stress me out. know what i mean.

Friday, May 23 post

i took the day off to hang out with the family. markets are closed on Monday, May 26th also. I checked in the afternoon and NUE was doing badly, due to the extra shares they just issued. the issue price was 74, which was good though. that's my break even point also. Friday's sell off was unusual IMHO. definitely oversold. i put in an offer to buy MER at 43, but it never got filled. it gapped to 44 on tuesday. sigh.

no pic as nothing was traded.

friday-d-day and long weekend coming up

tumultous week. my long positions not doing so well, especially HPQ, but otherwise i am ok. i bought a bunch of calls on MER (merrill) and NUE (steel). first time in a while that i am buying on valuation. Mer at 44 is damn cheap and NUE at 74 is insane cheap. if they don't bump up on Friday, i might hold them till next week. my Oil short on USO went very well. I might become an Oil day trader yet. NYMEX here i come !!!

going out for a couple of beers. tomorrow is my Dad's graduation from Executive MBA program. Shout out to my 60 year old Dad for putting in the 2 years of work.

i feel good

i woke up in a grumpy mood, because i didn't get much sleep last night and looking at the market i couldn't tell dinky donkey shit which way it was going to go or what to do. plus i didn't really care and so i sat there watching CNBC idiots. DRYS was going up nicely and my STLD puts, which i was afraid about, were within the strike zone of small loss. I said "what the hell" TM, put in sell orders for both for prices which i thought were reasonable and went back to sleep.

i get up at 1:30pm and both my orders are sold and at the BEST prices of the day. DRYS only went .50 cents higher from where i sold it and STLD's low of the day was where i sold and then it zoomed off in the opposite direction. I RULE !!!

sadly, my MER and HPQ calls are taking a beating. MER i am still optimistic about, but HPQ i think i will have to take a loss of 1-3K. thank GOD, i only went into earnings with 20 calls, i had 30 the day before. but, see that was good RISK management. YAY me !!!

over the afternoon my mood has improved and mostly i fooled around reading blogs and tormenting AAPL longs on the Yahoo message board. that's my favorite hangout to talk shit. I bought some NUE calls hoping for a bump and also shorted OIL, by buying puts on USO. Nue i had a chance to sell at close for decent profits, but a little birdy called GREED was chirping on my shoulders. oh well, i do have to pay my parking tickets somehow.

i need cigarettes. ran out last night. ate some indian candy for lunch.

cousin works in bulk shipping business

why do i tell ? because DRYS fell, even on good earnings, taking some of my money with it. not yet but i think it will. good company though. that's why i never play earnings. market reaction is often very unpredicatable.

market tanked. i bought a bunch of calls and puts. sold most but holding to MER calls, STLD puts (yuck), HPQ calls (earnings were a disappointment, should have sold yesterday when it touched 48, i was thinking that too). i should trade less and waste more time screwing around. i trade better that way.

it's tuesday, one of my favorite days for drinking, but i feel bleh, because i messed up my sleep cycle. don't ask.

good start to new monthly cycle

the day went well. i took it easy in the morning and went to Murky's coffee shop. i proceeded to get 2 more parking tickets, despite getting the same two last week. damn that heartless parking bitch to hell. i know it's my fault, but cut me some slack fellow soul fucked human being. anyway i thought the market would go down and shorted BNI and RS. boy was i right. i sold RS too cheaply, but held BNI decently enough. market tanked big time. i bought some DRYS calls at the close. their earnings report was good and they are up after hours, but it's anybody's guess what will happen tomorrow.

coffee, my poor stomach. and now i pour some beer into it.

horrible 2 weeks

i don't know what's up, either i have gone plumb crazy or i just got my ass handed to me. i lost about 18K in the last 2 weeks. a ton of it on my NUE puts and some on others. i did make a lot also, but i just feel that i did not follow my risk management schemes and i was all over the map. a month ago, i was such a risk adverse freak and then i made some money, and i am buying 40-50 puts on one position. it doesn't help that steel made such a strong rotational rally. i shorted NUE and it goes up big and stays up there, then i short RS and it goes up big and then i short STLD and it breaks out too. all three stocks in the sector, went up breakout big. should i have seen that coming? was it inexperience or stupidness or just plain bad luck that caused this fiasco?

i feel a little deflated. i will be on record mode, meaning double think/analyze all moves, till options expire in June. I need a longer term analysis of how i handle a month's worth of trading.

forgot to post on Friday. Saturday, went for coffee in beautiful weather, read a ton of interesting articles to satisfy my head, ate a cheeseburger at the East - West Grill, kabob joint but excellent fries, and now hopefully i will sit still to watch La Maman Et La Putain(1973).

big day friday

i have a bunch of positions both long and short and they all EXPIRE on friday. ah, the magic of options !!! i made a nice profit on my STLD calls and then shorted it when it rose later. ok position, i started shorting too soon. i also shorted RS and BNI at the close. these positions are not so bad. plus, still holding my HPQ calls and they report after close...quick let me check....nope no earnings yet...so as you can see a lot hangs on the balance of one day. not the best situation, but i am starting to see that i am not as much of an accountant personality as i presumed...i am more like a maniac gambler...and they always meet a grisly end.

sigh!!! i did grocery shopping, pasta with vodka cream sauce, then some cola and now i am going out with a friend to some show :) la dolce vita (while it lasts).

drank too much last night

oy vey !!! the title says it all. i had a brutal hangover and couldn't get out of bed until 1pm. i really agonized over my stocks, especially my RS puts, but, i was in serious agony.

anyhoo, waking up in the afternoon turned out to be very good for me. for one HPQ leapt 2+ dollars and all of a sudden my may calls were near breaking even. wow what a reversal by the market. i lightened my position on HPQ to 20 may calls. depending on tomorrow's action, i might hold them till after hpq reports on thurs. close. the risk now is manageable. i made very good profit on the one's i had bought at yesterday's close (see trades)....i shorted IBM and played it very well. sold it right at the absolute bottom !!! i tried to get rid of my RS since it had retraced all the way back to 66...but just couldn't. i think it will shoot up tomorrow, but hopefully in the morning's choppiness i can get rid of it. i bought a ton of STLD, but i am kinda regretting it now. absolutely speaking 34.5 is not quite the price level to back the truck up. we shall see tomorrow. i am also tracking DRYS closely, earnings for it after thurs. close as well...it's been on a tear.

i had dinner at my Uncle's house...yellow daal and rice...yummy home cooked Indian food. tummy satisfied.

i need more fans

one of the day trader blogs i follow is http://beanieville.blogspot.com, infact he is the inspiration for this blog. beanie has many good points and some bad ones. good is he posts recommendations and has a huge fan base, who all post fairly good recommnedations. bad is beanie rarely tell's of his losses and seems to make insane amounts of money. he also flips on his positions quite quickly and pumps stocks fairly often a la Cramer. but, overall he's a good guy. also, his "buy this stock" links are quite informative and rumor has it he feeds pain killers to his dog (see his avatar pic).

in comparison, my main good point is that you know exactly what i bought, when and how much for and ofcourse my profit/loss. bad is i post after the trading close and often ramble on.

today was an EMO day (note i skipped the tional, that's because i'm the real deal). i woke up and hpq went down $3 more...disaster...bni was showing strength and i couldn't tell if the market was gonna go up or down. i felt it was a gray day. i felt i should write off the morning and come back in the afternoon. but, first i got rid of BNI, i didn't even like it when i bought it yesterday. i got into bed and i couldn't sleep. i kept seeing my account balance. no more eating out. fking bread and water from now on. maybe i should get a job. activate my resume's. actually, two headhunters had just submitted me for jobs. i had flunked the java test for one of them. none of my references seemed to be alive.

but, from my bed the sky was clear and the rose i had stolen yesterday from somebody's garden was blooming. i said to murky coffee it is. murky had a good effect on me. maybe i was just people starved. but, seeing everyone there, girls and guys, cheered me up. i was ready to fight. i tracked HPQ and bam got some right at the bottom. but, mostly i screwed around and checked out the chicks. me so horny. it's the reality. fuck it, i'll scream it in this crowded murky room right now. prozac anyone. i liked the restraint i showed towards the end and very selectively bought some RS shorts, which is breaking out, but should be good for an overnight dip. also bought some more HPQ calls, because i think the bottom has been set. or so i hope, please GOD.

i had silver diner for lunch...so so...i'm gonna go drinking tonight...4 days of rain fuckers...plus somebody i know it's their birthday so that's like, you know, flick my blond hair, another reason :-)

why even bother blogging?

no one reads this crap. sigh! sorry it's been rainy and sucky for the past 4 days, since Sat. and i forgot to post on last Friday. why, you ask? because i got rid of my super sucky money losing NUE positions. man i took a hit and yes i was taught not to start sentences with because. i wonder if ending them with because is ok? in my desire for revolution, in the world of grammar and otherwise i may have inadvertently shook the foundations for my own inner peace. how tragic !!!

i lay in bed most of the morning, because it was raining and i had the blues. market was up when i got up. shorted ibm, but was uneasy, too much strength in that stock lately. big money could be getting in. i watched like a hawk and sold soon on a dip. it never broke 126, but still wise decision to sit and watch sometimes. i sold STLD for a nice profit. and then cnbc did a breaking news on HPQ (hewlett packard) buying EDS. i checked HPQ's quote and it was going downwards and i thought buy, because HPQ in the service sector through EDS is a pretty good move, plus good buy, plus hpq earnings later this week. i bought some June calls, to give me time for the bump. but, lo and behold HPQ kept screaming downwards and then i bought some short term calls....and it kept going lower....argh another disaster so soon....but i really believed in this stock...so i bought some more. thankfully, it held these levels. but, it was a $3+ dip on a stock which on average doesn't move more than $.50 cent a day. INSANE. my position is precarious, what with 40 short term calls, but i will watch like a hawk.

then i went and got a Gyro. I also got a kibbeh, which was so delicious.

Friday May 9 - missing post

i woke up on FRIDAY and the entire market was going down and Nue with it and since i didn't know how much down and my Nue position was so badly out of shape, i sold it at 79. i should have held out a little bit longer, because it went down to 77.12 and i should have been able to nibble atleast 60 cents more of that, which on 40 puts would have been 2,400...but i was super nervous and it was a big weight off my shoulders with that sell. rest of the sells were good, MER at the peak and IBM close to the trough. bought some STLD, because at 34 it's just insane. i love that stock. then i went to sleep.

as i slept, i thought about what i did wrong with Nue (ok actually later, as i was drinking). first of all my play was slightly bad. i entered at 76, when i should have waited for 78/79. at 78/79, i would not have lost so much money. 2nd, Nue did do an insane break. it just screamed upward for no reason, no other steel stocks following, just Nue going nuts by itself. sucks, but it happens. 3rd and most importantly, i just didn't know how to handle the risk. i am used to 10-20 puts, where even a $2 loss translates to $2-4K. i think when i saw the $5-10K loss (on 50 puts) my position was initially taking, my brain shut down and my heart was like NO NO NO...basically i gotta grow the balls for these kind of big positions.

i woke up and saw NUE had gone down even more. ofcourse i over analyzed that for the rest of the afternoon. cmon people it was a $16,000 loss over the course of 1 week. i'm good, but that hurt.

STLD had dipped down even more under 34 (wow, backup the truck :) , but it was at basically unchanged levels and i felt ok holding it over the weekend, since i was LIQUID other than that.

then i got drunk. really drunk.