Ken dolls everywhere gather to celebrate.
NOTE: Guiliani ran 6th with a strong 3%. Ron Paul, who was not allowed to debate in NH, ran 4th with 6%.
All of the major networks need to apologize to Ron Paul. The American people should pick the contenders in a Presidential race... not have them christened by the media.
I tend to hate trading gap-down/gap-up days on the open. So I exercised a bit of restraint and discipline and stayed away for the first 10 minutes of chop.
My next 3 trades were all solid winners. I short AGU twice and made over 50 cents the first time and 40 cents the second time. My third trade was similar as I made a straight point shorting MOS. Thing is, since I'm still taking it easy, I was only trading 100 shares.
So while I didn't make huge money on these trades, they were successful. The more I make good trades and gain my feel for the market again, the more confidence I'll have. In time, I will build my size again and the money will come.
Anyway, I short AGU because he opened and tried to trade up through the low made yesterday afternoon. So when he traded above $70, I thought he would run into resistance because the market was so weak. You can see it here on the 30-minute graph.
My best stock of the day was COH. I'm really liking this stock lately because it trades fluidly and it hasn't been as volatile as the other stocks I normally trade so it's been a good stock for me to watch. I short him when he broke the opening range low and made a little money. However, I made more on the afternoon long.
I was looking long even though the market was getting smoked because the stock stabilized after some heavy down volume right around noon. After that, it started to show good volume bars on the upside and weak volume whenever it traded down. Also, TIF, another specialty/high end retailer was showing signs of life.
My worst stock of the day was CNX. This was a simple pair trade gone wrong. I was watching the other coal stocks go negative on the day and short a little CNX thinking it would play catch-up around noon. It did not.
I could blame myself for trading in the middle of the day. However, it wasn't a big disaster. I took the loss and let it go. As it turns out, I should have kept watching because it dropped sharply in the afternoon session.
Anyway, another good day of confidence building and learning. I'm getting my feel back.
Here's the stats:
P&L, $295
Best, COH, $144
Worst, CNX, -$119
11,800 shares traded.
10 stocks traded, 7 winners, 3 losers.
Misstrade, $3246 on 4000 shares traded.
Denarii, $624 on 400 shares traded.
Me, $295 on 11,800 shares traded.
Wincity, $84 on 350 shares traded.
Akalawoo, no trades.
Retardo, no trades.
Dehtrader, -$224 on 1770 shares traded.
Sanglucci, -$441 on 3400 shares traded.
OBAT, -$970 on 12,752 shares traded.
Wow, another bloodletting in the markets.
My father called me today and asked me if he should be worried about his portfolio. That means the market is starting to worry the "common man" who normally cares more about his golf game, or favorite football team.
Should the "common man" join the institutions in selling this market, a new element of fear would be thrown into the mix.
I mean, I imagine that demographically there are a lot of baby boomers who are retired, or close to it, who are wondering if they want to sit through another bear market.
When you get really, really old, why not just let your money grab 5% in some fixed income investment instead of chasing the 8-10% historical average that the market provides? Is that 3-5% extra worth the risk when the financial system looks like it's about to melt down, an idiot runs the country, and a bunch of clowns are trying to supplant him?
I'm thinking no, but then again, I'm not old yet.
Anyway, volume exploded today after yesterday's mediocre levels. We traded over 1.8 billion shares and the VIX ran up a bit, .53 to 23.43.
I found the VIX interesting today. I would expect it to run more on such a down day. Also interesting is the fact that one of the more disciplined traders in the VO, OBAT, had a big down day. This just shows how damn hard trading is... everyone has their dog days.
Let's see what happens tomorrow. Earnings season is upon us. The volatility may just be starting.
And then it trades higher...
Oh good. Back to reality.
NOTE: C also cut its quarterly dividend 40%.
