Friday, March 11, 2011

Trading Journal 3/11/11


Big quake in Japan shuts down the country, rocks the stock market. Hundreds die.

Oil stocks are down, so my oil plays for today are kaput.

However, they still might be valid for next week.

BRN and END wedge patterns broken by red candle, although END could still play out.

END lacks the volume of BRN however. Really a shame that this pattern broke down. It could potentially play out a week or so down the road, however :)

Trading Journal 3/10/11

3/10/11

This is a new trading journal posted on blogger so that it can be accessed from anywhere.

I have not written in my trade journal for quite some time.

I have “fallen off the wagon” in my trading.

Luckily I have not lost any money. Unfortunately, I have lost myself.

I have been dedicating most of my time to chasing trades on Twitter and in the chatroom.

It will be interesting to go back and see exactly when, why and how the changes in my behavior began.

It has not been very long, probably about 2 weeks.

At one point I remember deciding to give up trying to trade my own positions during the day, and simply follow Black Service while I learn.

I suppose there are probably 2 reasons that I did not stick to this plan, which was a good one:

1. Black Service has not been making money in this choppy market.
2. I did not have a clear plan or clear goals for my self-education initiatives.

I will now turn my focus to education, to developing a solid education plan. I will use my time during the day to educate myself.

Seems there are 3 areas involved in training to be a trader:

Education
Analysis
Trading

Analysis includes looking through charts and finding good setups.
Education means learning about terms, strategies, etc. Learning the basics of trading.
Trading is part of training. If I do not trade, I will not gain experience.

The last couple of weeks I have spent an inordinate amount of time trading. This is not such a bad thing. I feel primed to go back and educate myself and experiment with analysis.

These three elements of trade training are related linear dependency. Education allows me to analyze which allows me to trade.

There is some crossover. Using a stock screener is part of analysis, but I first must educate myself on how to use a screener. Everything is dependent on a foundation of education, of course, and Trading as a training tool is an unsteady construct without solid analysis development as well.

Anway, I will be more aware of my need to dedicate time to all three areas of trade training. Now I would like to do some

ANALYSIS

I’m going to use FINVIZ here to look for stocks priced under $15.00. Actually, the first thing I am going to do is take a look at the market.

Today was a rough down day. The market is trading in a range as it has been for the last 2 weeks. This is roughly the time that my own training started to become rather chaotic and unfocused. I would not be surprised to find that my own behavior and consciousness is directly reflecting the state of the market itself.

That makes sense because I was using scalps/daytrades etc. to attempt to compensate for the underperformance of Black Service. This isn’t a terrible thing since I did not lose money. In fact, I made a tiny bit and had some great trades. The problem is that this time led me to lose focus in my training. I won’t say that the time was wasted, but it could have been used more effectively.

Had I not turned to daytrading and scalping via twitter I probably would not be in a different position financially, but I would be 2 weeks richer education and training wise, and that is an invaluable thing. Educating oneself to be a better trader has the best risk/reward ratio of any single activity, I would say. You risk nothing and gain potentially limitless profitable knowledge.

Anyway, the market has been trading in an insane choppy clusterfuck. Breakouts are failing left and right. Black Service is about even. In fact, I don’t think Black Service has made me any money for the past few months. This is my own fault, however, and is directly related to my terrible loss on EMMS in February. I need to be setting stops on every trade, but am not. THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE! I MUST SET AUTOMATIC STOPS ON EVERY SINGLE TRADE!

The problem is that DAS Web does not allow me to place a stop loss as well as a target stop. This is not such a problem since I won’t be scalping or DT’ing for a while, but it is a problem nonetheless, and I am in dire need of a new trading platform. Hopefully Speedtrader 2.0 is ready in a week like the Speedtrader folks say it will be. I believe in you guys (Please hurry the eff up).

That settles it though. No more target stops since I can’t set them while setting a stop loss.

SET AUTOMATIC STOPS FOR EVERY SINGLE TRADE ADAM! THIS IS ONE ASPECT OF TRADING THAT SEPARATES PROS FROM TOOLS AND FOOLS! DO NOT BE LAZY ABOUT THIS! IF YOU HAD SET A STOP ON EMMS YOU WOULD BE UP ANOTHER $1,600 THIS MONTH! THINK ABOUT HOW MUCH MONEY THAT IS YOU DAMN FOOL!

ALSO, NO MORE HUGE POSITIONS ON DAYTRADES YOU FUCKING IDIOT! DO YOU SEE WHAT HAS HAPPENED? YOU HAVE BECOME A CLICHE IN THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS! SWEPT AWAY BY THE EXCITEMENT OF THE MARKET! REMEMBER, YOU ARE IN THIS FOR HIGH STAKES NOW! YOU HAVE MADE TRADING YOUR CHOSEN CRAFT! BE A CRAFTSMAN! BE A PROFESSIONAL! MAKE TONS OF FUCKING MONEY! MAKE $100,000,000 IF YOU WANT! YOU CAN! IT’S COMPLETELY POSSIBLE! YOU SIMPLY NEED TO DECIDE IN EVERY MOMENT THAT MAKING REAL MONEY OVER A LONG PERIOD OF TIME IS YOUR REAL GOAL, NOT TAKING CHANCES ON EXCITING TRADES! THE TYPE OF BETS YOU ARE MAKING ARE CHILD’S PLAY! WORK ON DISCIPLINE, FOCUS, TECHNIQUE, MATURITY! DON’T TRADE BLINDLY YOU FOOL! DON’T TRADE BLINDLY YOU POTENTIAL MULTI-MILLIONAIRE! STAY FOCUSED AND THE POTENTIAL REWARDS ARE LIMITLESS! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!

Wow!

That felt great! It was like this other being inside me came out and laid the smack down on my bitch ass weaker self. Nice

But I really want to focus on analysis now!

So the market is trading sideways. Well, what kind of trades should I be looking for?

Well . . . Consider that word on the street is that oil will go up cuz of Saudi protests.
If that chatter carries over to tomorrow, there are a few potential oil plays that could bank big.

First step:

Check out OIL COMPANIES.

Okay, there are only 36 Independent Oil and Gas companies trading under $15.

EASY!

First thing I notice is that every single one has tanked in the last week.

Could the chatter about oil tomorrow simply be wishful thinking? The performance I’m seeing here leads me to believe that this is the case. However, it is very likely that wishes could be fulfilled tomorrow, as we all know the market is self-fulfilling.

My next step will be to look for an oil co. with a nice breakout pattern in play.

BRN: I like the nice ascending wedge pattern here. Hmm . . . In fact, I think I love it! Looks ripe for a breakout. I am definitely going to add this to my watch list for tomorrow.

Ugh, I am not very good at using watch lists. I always forget about them. I think I will start over, erasing all my old watch lists that have grown stale, starting from scratch.

I’ve named my new watch list “Analysis Session 3/10/11.” I’m not crazy about the name, but it works for now. (Update: watch list name changed to “Oil!” in honor of Upton Sinclair. Makes sense to create sector/sentiment/etc. specific watch lists.)

Some would argue that it was a mistake to delete all my old watch lists. They would probably be right, but I think that the energy and mental space freed up by doing so will outweigh the benefit of going over a few mediocre stock picks that might still be in play. Generally speaking, though, stock picks that were recently in play are great candidates for the current day’s analysis session . . .

I’ll have to run this pick by the room. Actually, I’ll have to run all my picks by the room because I lack the knowledge to veto certain picks for various reasons. Things like float, short % of float, liquidity, volume - all these basic things are still a bit shaky for me. This is why chat rooms are great when used correctly (ie used to learn and not to chase after random stock picks).

Wow, looks like I played CFW recently. Shit, here is a stock that doubled from my entry point! What the hell happened? I don’t even remember trading it?! Sigh. It was recently too . . .

Oh well, no time to check it out now. I’ll save it for later . . .

You know, I’m not really sure what I’m looking for here. Any one of these oil companies could bounce tomorrow.

I guess I’ll just look for patterns because that’s what I know. I’ve already found a great pattern in BRN.

If I knew more about indicators I could use the Ultimate Oscillator or RSI or something else to find some likely bouncers. For right now I’ll just stick to identifying patterns . . .

END is a pretty decent wedge pattern, but no volume.

KWK is forming an interesting looking base right now. Could be ready for a breakout in a few days. Actually I think there could be a nice play here in a bounce off the 200ema.

LEI is sporting a blatant, sexy morning doji. This could bounce tomorrow for sure.

Looks like most of the oil companies have doji stars. This means that they’re mostly meaningless, or that oil is set for a bounce tomorrow!

PVX is an especially attractive doji because it is sporting a very long kangaroo tail to boot, another reversel indicator.

MXC also with a good looking morning doji.

Okay, that’s it for oil companies. All in all a good analysis session, and unfortunately probably the only one that I will have time for tonight. That’s alright though, because it was the experience I was really look for, more than the results.

That being said . . . it would be nice to be right, especially if I make some money!


Sunday, February 21, 2010

Monday, February 21st, 2010

What is writing?

Good writing exposes the motives of characters you care about by presenting them with fearful obstacles.

He was reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night every day for at least an hour, often while taking a shit. It had bothered one of his roomates in college that he would do such heavy reading on the toilet: Tolstoy, Aristotle, The Dalai Lama - but to Peter Bronson nothing was sacred.

*************************************

He was as sure of his dependence on women as that of satellites on gravity, and was aware that all of the major decisions in his life had been made under the influence of this or that heavenly body.

*************************************

"Seventeen years ago I walked into this valley and set out to build a life for myself, with my own hands. I only followed the rule that the things that hurt the most, the things that I was afraid of, were the steps I needed to take. And I have scars on every inch of my body to prove it. I'm respected, admired, even loved. But I will tell you one thing, something that I would never say to anyone else on this earth: I fuck sheep and I like it."

**************************************

It wasn't until he gained the courage to live the story of his own life that he was able to commit to the characters in his writing. By shying away from conflict and complexity he had been able to avoid accepting the hard truth that people such as himself were forced to fight a psychological battle against fear at the start of each day.

*************************************

"Roger," she said, singing his name, "you can come into the bedroom now." But he did not.

*************************************

"You can say that they coddle their readers, that I'll let you get away with. But to say that the New York Times is melodramatic just makes you sound like a pyscho."

"A psycho?" He looked behind his drawn shoulders at his friend. "Now that's melodramatic," he said, punctuating the air with the perfectly timed pop of the ancient croquet ball between his legs, which then went on to settle quietly next to the goal.

"Jesus. Who's actually good at croquet?"

"Put your mallet away. It's an antique."

"You're an antique."

************************************************

"I don't know what to write about," he said without looking up at her.

"Just write anything. Just get used to typing quotation marks and imagining people and events that frighten you."

"Quotation marks? What does that have to do with anything at all?"

"They're tiresome. They break your concentration if you're not careful. I'm convinced that's one of the reasons dialogue tends to sound stilted even in great works."

"Stilted. I can't imagine what you mean. But why not just do away with them altogether? I'm pretty sure I've seen it done. That will solve the issue, won't it?"

I suppose it could, but it's taking the easy way out, and that's never the thing to do.

"I guess you're right."

****************************************

"Oh Jesus! Jesus Christ!" He looked down at his hands. He was amazed at the blood there, at the way it had coated his hands so completely. It was hot on his skin, and he vomited. The weight of it was the special horror though, and he passed out on the street.

*****************************************

His life had become a consuming cycle of drudgery and solitude, and the feeling of desperation was too thick to ignore. "This is not the way it's supposed to be," his mother had told him. But he was old enough and educated enough to know that there is no one way. Not here.

****************************************

The boots of the 171st airborne pounded the hilly greencocks of the Spurrow Molly as they made their acquisitions known. "Don't eat your oranges now!" the gunnery driller screamed between blasts of fat pudding and bullets, "the enemy will see you and become unreasonable!"

****************************************

Always the same feeling like he's wasting time, like there is no way to reconcile his intellectual shortcomings with his need for self-expression.

****************************************

"Don't. Fucking. MOVE!"

"Oh Jesus. Jesus, Tom. Jesus I'm sorry."

"Stand up."

"Tom? Tom. Hey, Tom. Hey wait. Wait a second."

"I SAID STAND UP!" A roar. A primal expression of rage, a fierce cry of the animal night. His face inflates, his body heaves with its passing through the very core of him. Tears stream unceasing from his wide, horrible eyes. The other man stands -

- and places his hands up, as if to say, hey, Tom, cool it, be reasonable. But this is a situation beyond any of that.

Tom fires the gun several times and the bullets tear apart the other man's chest.

Later, Tom sits beside the corpse of him, cries, falls asleep. Upon waking nearly an hour from then he empties his gun into the face of the body, his rage different but eternal.


***************************************************
Breaking night, quiet feelings in darkness, losing touch with myself. Waiting for inspiration I instead become more and more aware of my weariness.

How do I find the words that send that feeling through my nerves?

****************************************************

I won't do it! I won't pretend that it's fine.

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Rice cakes and turnbuckles and she had long fingernails and was underwater at 2pm.

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Lakeside, he turned to the woman and reported the day's findings:

"We can rent little two-person sailboats for $25.00 an hour."

"There is a shop in town that sells incredible vintage stuff. I want to take you there, you'd love it."

"The lending library by the fireplace is stocked with great books."

"I think I might buy this old pickup truck I saw."

"There are geese on the roof."