Discipline

Today was an example of sticking to a plan. I've been giving the market less attention these days because of other nonsense happening in my life.

Anyways, I was told that the run up today was because of hedge fund managers taking profits. I held my positions (90% of them, sold a bit of SRS because the exposure was too much) and smiled when I checked on them at the close.

Must examine all kinds of time frames on each trade.

Power

I'm learning about power in my organizational behavior class.

Power is described as the ability to influence people. It can also be a potential thing, so you don't always have to exert it, you might also don't even know the power you have.

It's interesting and I am going to think about it more.

I'm really hungover from my birthday so I cannot blog too much.

I have to keep practicing Slovak!

The Long and Short of It

Here are some stocks I'm looking at right now:

Long JBHT - I'm watching it!

I liked this one a lot on a broader market move until I saw the approach to the 200MA. I think I read somewhere that it's a bad idea to trade into big support and resistance levels. This makes sense to me and I'll wait until it moves up and look for momentum from the other industry leaders to help it break through nervous fundamentals.

The things I liked about this stock included the low volume Friday sell off. Maybe this was the general profit taking thing. I also like that it looks like it's going to gap up tomorrow above Friday's highs. I am going to miss the first hour of trading tomorrow but hopefully it will keep riding up and gain a little more momentum. The 5Ma is also trending upwards and it got a recent buy upgrade.

Short FST - The Order's in!

It's testing support at the 50 and 20MA and I like the feel of that falling RSI. If it busts through 50 that will make me feel good. The 5MA is cresting I believe and I'd like to get short tomorrow as the slope of that line approaches zero and then heads to the negative. The reason I'm getting short here despite the support levels and what I just said about JBHT is that these ones have been tested three times and each time the highs have been lower so I am expecting a bigger fall on this high probability entry. In other technical jargon the CCI is really high which makes me want to get short and there is a big MACD emphasis on the D.

The only warning flag was the low volume sell off which could be a sign of consolidation and strength. That being said, I want to fade the small gap at the open.

I've been thinking about the democratization of information, start ups and the 80/20 rule.

Portfolio Review - Mar 29/09

I'm going to do this, hopefully it becomes regular. I have a few long term holds I'm not going to talk about, namely XPH and short Commercial Real Estate.

400 DUG - Add to position below 24, sell levels: 26, 28, 29, 34

150 UNH - Flag/triangle pattern, looks like it could bust a move up or DOWN. The 5MA is trending up, the CCI is pretty high, which I like to think of as SELL. The gap down Friday was on really low volume and so it was probably profit taking? The gap up on the futures looks like it is within Friday's range and thus could fade. If I was sneaky and fast maybe I could sell at the open for a loss of a dollar and then go short twice as much and make a profit the same day. That being said PPT scores have been improving all week minus a slight Friday pullback, to be expected.

200 ERY I like the looks of the CCI and this one in general, but I think it needs a few more days. The 5MA is still down and needs to come up on a bit of a bounce. I'm going to add a little bit more if it dips between 33 and 30, this baby is pretty volatile. I will sell on a breach of 27.

200 SRS Another pretty volatile bad boy. Friday's run up had relatively good volume relative to the general market sell off/run up for inverse ETFs. I don't know if that means anything, but I'm noting it. If volume confirms trend, at least it's not hemorrhaging? The 5MA is about to turn around, I believe. On the other hand, upon review it is making me a little nervous. I'll sell below 50, and add between 50 and 52. I don't foresee holding it for too much longer, however.

300 FAZ And the third crazy musketeer of my leveraged ETF exposure. Huge volume Friday on the gap up, LATER BANKS. I think I'll add if it dips below 20 but have to drop it much deeper than that. I also need to do a little more research on the whole market before I feel extremely comfortable making big claims on stocks that are able to punch my face off within 2 hours and 89 points.

This is pretty volatile, all in all. Actually, the above detailed equities make up only 20% of my portfolio, maximum swing long exposure would be 40%. My ability to sleep at night comes from a 60% cash position and a 20% exposure short REIT and XPH, bought sub 25.

Greedesty

Adding a blogroll to my blog was a great idea. I knew it would add value, but I wasn't quite sure just how.

On one level, having my

Most importantly, it's convenient for me. Yup, that might sound selfish but I don't really care. It shows me which of my favorite blogs has been most recently updates, saving me from having to comb my rough list looking for new posts. My real blog list is much longer, the ones listed here are just particularly value adding ones, I'll have you know. Reading Atlas Shrugged is really interesting and helping me to discern certain fairly obvious ideas in remarkable clarity. One of which, that I'm currently entertaining, is the notion and the dimensions of greed. I'm beginning to think greed is honorable because it's honest. When you are serving someone to serve yourself it is likely you are going to do a better job.

On an unrelated note, at a BBQ yesterday, a friend of mine, to me debunked Socialism by asking me: who would spend my money more efficiently, me or you?

This week for the markets I'm going to try and really look at all time frames before trading. That's my goal for the week.

My birthday's tomorrow!

Prioritizing

I have not been following the market as closely as usual this week. I've spent more of my free time reading Atlas Shrugged (only 400 pages to go!) and starting to learn Slovak. That being said, my account has been pretty green this week and the commercial real estate shorts are paying handsomely.

I need to order a book about Slovak. I am also going to comb the internet for grammar exercises and shit. I yesterday talked to an American who just recently arrived in Bratislava. He said the English speaking is pretty limited, so I think I'm going to do my best to give myself a head start with the local language. I feel that immersing myself in it will provide me with the best experience and most opportunity to learn. The iPhone application that I downloaded is actually really helpful and worth the $9.99 it cost me.

Tonight is probably going to be one of the drunkest nights of my year. Awesome.

Based on forecasts, 32 days left in Kingston.

Another day, another morning at the gym. Although my flossing remains less regular than I would hope.

The market is raging up. I'm slowly adding to short REIT positions. I'm not too worried about it right now because I don't have too much of my capital exposed and I'm spending a lot of time doing other things.

I don't have too much to blog about. Unfortunately my life is not that exciting right now.

No Plan, No Action

The market raged upwards yesterday, effectively branding my short positions with a hot iron that boasts a "dicksucker" logo. Luckily my longs helped me stay somewhat hedged.
I'm afraid to make a move one way or the other after yesterdays giant leap to SPX825.

I guess I'll stay put for now and wait for some clarity. It's important to note that my shorts are longer term holds, although I'm not sure I will be able to weather a continued rally upwards until May.

I'm going to do some school work and then look at all of my stocks and portfolio overall. Until I come up with a solid plan. No fucking around.

Monetary Dependence and Financing

My parents are coming to visit today. They are rolling through town and are stopping by. They'd be taking me out for dinner but my friends are also coming up.

Having been a student for the vast majority of the last 21 years, has left me extremely reliant on my parents, when it comes to issues of financial concerns. This year in particular, seems worse than most. I lived away from home all summer so my expenses were giant. It's much more affordable when your mother pays for your food and utilities for 4 months.

I have a job lined up soon that should, barring my complete inability to perform, allow me to reach my financial independence. After a year or two of work I don't expect to have to rely on my parents ever again. I'm stoked about this.

In the meantime, I need some starter money to get my show on the road and set me up. I'm currently trying to figure out exactly how much coin I will need, and what my travel plans would be like. I'm going to try and ask my parents for a large sum of money. I've done some number crunching and, based on the 6 Euro liters of vodka, it seems my price of living will be substantially less in Eastern Europe. I'm going to try and crop thousands of dollars from my parents and structure up some sort of payment plan.

I think this would be preferable to continually asking them to top up my account. I've gotten used to a sort of autonomy that I now feel entitled to. Entitled is a dangerous word.

Happy Saturday! Spring is coming and I love it.

Back on the Wagon?

I've been in a funk lately. I'm experiencing some pretty hectic shit, it being the last 3 weeks of my undergraduate career and all. The last two days I have gone to the gym with a friend and I have felt great. I hate fat people, so naturally it makes sense not to become one. I am headed to the library now for an hour or so and then class. I was struggling with the notion that to get excited about the future while trying to enjoy the present were two mutually exclusive outlooks. Luckily, in the last few days I've been able to reconcile the two extremes and have been having a lot more fun as a result.

Time to keep learning!

YIKES

GOT POLEAXED!

My FAZ position got dominated yesterday in the later afternoon. I was drunk and don't really care that much. I've been up an undeserved amount lately and needed to get put back into place. I'm repositioning my portfolio and will do some serious research tonight.

The last two days of trading have not felt great. I think it's because of a lack of information. I'm reading less news, I'm doing less analysis. I need to step my hard work game up.

Lunchtime Madness

Yesterday I struggled during the middle of the day and traded compulsively. I'm currently trying desperately to avoid the same peril. I will stick to my plan and keep riding buying FAZ. Hopefully not gonna get poleaxed while I'm at it.

Happy Green Beer Day

I'm going to do a bunch of work this morning and then take the afternoon off to drink green keg beer.

I'm feeling a little better about the market today. Yesterday I did some dumb trading during the middle of the day that of course. I'm still not sure exactly what I feel but I think we pull back on the SPX to a higher low and then bounce up. That's my hypothesis?

Continually struggling against knee jerk reactions and a compulsive urge to trade (aka a gambling addiction?). Awareness is a good first step in fighting this.

The Back Breaking Straw

First, the market:

Today was a weird day for me. I didn't feel in control like I did last week, let me explain. I thought it would be a down day, the market has gone up four days in a row. The down day didn't start until 2:00pm, however. The bull rush up until this point shook most of my confidence, although I did hold onto some commercial real estate shorts which did well. I'm going to take a look at the market after work tonight and try and figure out what my thoughts are for tomorrow. I need a better plan if I am going to let my trades ride tomorrow.

I recently had an altercation with a close friend. I think I finally experienced what it's like to see your camel keel over, by the addition of a single straw. My friend, whom we'll call Dorothy, is mad at me because I made her friend cry. I'm a terrible person right? Sure, I might have said something rude to a third party after being goaded on, and abetted for ten minutes. I also immediately apologized and resolved my issues with the third party. Dorothy just lashed out in anger. The thing Dorothy fails to realize, you see, is that exogenous, extraneous and extreme factors are always at play, shaping the worlds in which we operate. Dorothy's model of the world is simplistic and fails to acknowledge other forces at play, that are not immediately apparent. In fact, I'm privy to the knowledge that our third party friend has for quite some time, been subject to numerous other stresses that are far more complicated, urgent and contributing to her mood than a rude, blunt remark.

Other things to consider:
I've been close friends with Dorothy and the third party for 3 years.

Of course there is also the possibility that the model of reality I'm currently using to frame my thoughts in is lacking a crucial component, but I strongly doubt it.

I also ordered some books about Slovakia on the internet. I couldn't find any at my local Indigo. I'm hoping this will get me excited and learning for my new job!

Time to watch Jeopardy before work.

Simplicity

I'm still refining my style, so bear with me. There's a reason I haven't linked anything to this blog yet. I need to develop a certain swagger, if you will.

Today I'm thinking about the market in a simple way. Is it going to go up or down? 50-50 chance.
Bet accordingly.

Always Be Better Than Yesterday

I don't know if I'm in favor of having a motto. I'd live by those words though.

FINVIZ

http://finviz.com/

I'm a visual person. This helps me a lot.

Market Connections

I wanted to blog about this last night, but fittingly, my internet wasn’t working.
I cannot believe how badly I feel the need to be connected. When I don’t have access to whatever information I feel that I need (basically when I lack internet access, for whatever reason), I start to get upset. It’s pretty ridiculous and I can identify it when it happens. Regardless, I start to feel my blood pump with a little more vigour than usual, I hit the “refresh” button a few times, and last night I pulled out my cable and reset the network; to no avail. I don’t know how I would have survived years ago, before this information age we find ourselves a part of. I guess I would have imagined more.

The main point here is: the internet and my need to be able to access information are critical to my peace of mind.

On to more important things, I said this blog would talk about the market. So far I have completely failed to do that. Here’s an attempt at a remedy, in light of some new developments.

Now that I am no longer job hunting, I have an egregious amount of free time, and no guilt to accompany what would be wasting it, if I had something more productive to be doing. I’ve really re-focussed on the market. My friend has given me control of her Investopedia account for a class assignment. It’s my first [paper] money managing practice so I have to perform!

I try and figure out general market moves by reading charts, blogs and looking at some numbers. Sorry if that sounds lofty. I use a variety of sources to try and get a feeling for what the day is going to be like, before I start trading. I sometimes sleep in, but I almost never trade in the first hour. If I want to survive commission fees I need to execute each trade perfectly, with an entry and exit plan.

I will leg into big positions.

I am currently all long for the first time in awhile but will start adding shorts soon if the S&P breaks up once more.

Stop Expecting?

Here's a cool article about Obama economic policy.

I had a funny night, yesterday. Besides losing an additional hour of sleep because of a daylight saving time induced time change, I went to the Biochemistry Formal. I was really not that pumped to go, as it promised to be a veritable nerd show. All in all, it was a lot of fun, thanks in large part to the copious quantities of free wine I was able to consume. I had good company at my table too, I guess.

Either way, I went in with low expectations and ended up having a really good. It was refreshing.

If you haven't checked out Ideas Worth Sharing, you are missing out in a huge way. I'm going to watch a few talks and get inspired before heading out.

I'm drinking coffee and reading news. Sunday mornings are great. My hangover is much more dull than I would have expected. Red wine is usually the worst news, today not so. I'm going to go to the library this afternoon and read "Atlas Shrugged" which I heard is a must-read.

I'm excited about the market this week. I'm generally feeling pretty excited about life. I've been thinking a lot about the next phase, while trying to enjoy my final time here. It's going to be sink or swim time pretty soon!

In other news, I learned now to link to websites. No more messy url shit, this is way slicker.

Still Flossin'

I just flossed too, bitches.

Haha enjoy your Friday eve!

Victory, at Last

I finished a midterm today, it went pretty well. I'll admit I had trouble focusing on it, hence the hectic state I found myself an occupant of, in the days prior to now.

I HAVE A JOB!

Sorry if that's obnoxious or offensive but I am employed and my future is hopefully, somewhat secured! It made studying for an elective, in my last 4 weeks of university, something less of a priority. It's exactly the job I wanted.

I found that it existed on one of my daily combings of various job databases online and I was pretty stoked about the opportunity. It's a cool chance that will leverage my science knowledge and skills with the business savvy/drive that I think I might possess. It's a real challenge, I hope I have to test myself in a great environment. I'm ready to learn in new ways, and achieve new kinds of success. It's also in a far off country that will require me to learn a new language! I'm going to download the iphone application for said language now. Can you tell I've been writing "hella" cover letters lately?

Job hunting has been really frustrating and a veritable lesson in perseverance. If I'm going to get any further in life I'm going to have to start networking. Mostly I think I just need to put myself in a good environment and make friends.

I'm going to party this weekend, hopefully get a funny story or two. I haven't been paying attention to the stock market today because of all the crazy stuff that was happening. I've really tried to make it my full time job, now that I'm not going to school all that much. I've learned a lot in investing and the PPT has taught me a lot already, and I'm just learning how to use it. Now that I don't have to look for a job anymore I won't even feel guilty about doing it so much.

My best friend from my hometown is coming up to visit tonight as well. He has a court date tomorrow to fight a drinking in public ticket he was slapped with at Homecoming. Unjustly, of course.

I can't wait to get a new chair.


Still wondering what the PPT is?
http://www.ibankcoin.com/ppt_pitch.php

The Come Up

I've got a lot to do in the next couple days. I feel quite disconnected from information feeds, which I've been ignoring in the name of productivity.

By 4:30pm tomorrow I'll be in a much different head-space, and hopefully in the mood for some reflection and prose.

I want to blog about how awesome this website is later :
www.ted.com

I also stumbled across this http://passionweiss.com/2008/12/17/the-25-best-hip-hop-songs-of-2008/ which will keep you bumping with the best of 2008.

The Importance of Flossing

It's one of those things you have to do every day. Or your teeth will suck.

Magic Monday Mornings

I'm having a great Monday morning. I'm going to roll to the library soon.

I'm starting to like the idea of starting my week Sunday night. It makes sense for me, I'll explain.

The stock market is pretty quiet over the weekend. Sunday night however, I can start getting ready for Monday morning, when the market opens. I like the stock market a lot so I usually find myself interested or even excited to start looking at charts again. It's also important to note that I don't ignore the stock markets on the weekend, just relative to the week.

This model of reality is deemed efficient for me at this time for another reason. I don't have class Monday morning. In fact I don't have class today until 2:30pm, bitches. This is rare for me, in fact an all time first. Just last semester my Monday morning was marked with an 8:30am class. The point is, I can now sleep in. I don't like sleeping that much to begin with so I use the term pretty liberally, meaning about 9:30am. By the time I get up, caffeinate, read the pre-market news and generally get my life together, the market has already been open for an hour! This would sound like a bad thing, to the naive market enthusiast. It's great for me, however. The first hour of the market is the dangerous one. Most of the time it doesn't even matter, chasing the trend just leads to knee jerk reactions and lost money. If I have an open [swing] trade, I have a plan for it. Ignoring the short term fluctuations by adjusting my schedule usually keeps me level headed and ready to take on the Monday.

The Important Issue of Blogging

When I decided that I would start a blog, there was the pertinent issue of a name. The one I settled on wasn't the first idea I had. There were a bunch of lame ass non-committed bloggers, wasting user and blog names both. Their blogs contain a single post from 2006, you know the sort. A failed, half-assed attempt at sharing their invaluable perspectives, no doubt.

I must commit, although I will try to refrain from espousing views simply for the purpose of espousing, or feeling important. I will always do my best to add value to your day. I will do my best to keep offering perspective and not let this project fall by the wayside.

If someone wants my blog name, they won't be able to have it. D'uh, I'm using it. Hopefully they will come across a vibrant and evolving corner of the blogosphere. I owe it to future bloggers to create something of value. I want to feel confident in my product. If someone were to want to start a blog with this name, they would at least see that it already existed and that it was more than one somewhat introspective post about a vague topic, never to be fully addressed.

Get ready for a fresh week!