If things were not bad enough...or former's KGB opinion

When people are bullish - they bullish to extremes,
when bearish - apocalypses is unavoidable.
Where is that long lost common sense few of us crave for?
What is common sense today?
Who is right, what will be, who will prosper and who...the rest?

Enjoy your morning flipping pages of what some thought of once as of "reputable financial publication"

USA will split

At least chances for that are not any worse than those who is getting married and will split withing 2 years - 1 out of 2 :-)

Gold anyone? Now?

New Year resolutions...or "should you be trading"

 

(Originally posted in December 2006, reposting for the benefits of Trading To Win community

New Year resolutions...or "should you be trading" )

 

We all humans, we all use dates to make important decisions, we need excuses like
"After New Year I will ..." - and those dots are just what I'd like to talk about.
But first lets have a quiz, simple one, "Yes" and "No" answers.
1. Recently you had a "fender-bender" cause that other person stepped on the brakes all in a sudden.
(Not because you were not ANTICIPATING such event)
Y/N
2. Your kid asked to go to the country fair together and you were too busy studying the stock charts.
Y/N
3. You lost on a trade because of intense argument with your better half ( Hey, the "other" half is ALWAYS better :)
Y/N
4. You did not do something in time ( you were too busy watching delayed YAHOO stock quotes) and your boss did not give you a raise.
Y/N
5. For your portfolio you created 2 separate watch lists - one for stocks in green and you watch it religiously all the time just for the pure pleasure of it, calling your neighbor to show this list and be able to say: "On average those stocks are up 5%",
and
the second list which is substantially bigger in all respects, such as number of stocks and negative percentages, but of course, no more than -50%, of course not - your broker most likely sold that deeply margined position to be safe, and that SECOND list is the one you prefer to never look at, agonizingly hoping that somehow, miraculously you will get your money back, sometime, not soon, but sometime - and you quit smoking in order to be able to live long enough to see that moment
Y/N
6. You come home from work ( let say 7 PM EST) and you run to look at your portfolio and then you say: " I knew it was going to go down - I had to sell yesterday!" instead of "SELLING YESTERDAY"
Y/N

This list can go on and on so I'd rather stop right here before I become even more cranky than I usually am.
THE BOTTOM LINE - If you answered "YES" to one or more questions, then the "dots" in unfinished "New Year resolution" MUST be replaced with
"After New Year I will NEVER TRADE AGAIN"

After you say that, you might
1. ( Most common one) - BREAK YOUR PROMISE, lose your money, lose your job, family
( SAVE YOU ALL GOD FROM ANYTHING LIKE THAT - I, myself, almost lost everything many years ago )
2. Really stop trading ( tough choice - I know )
3. Find the BALANCE between trading and life, family, work, all that really important non material stuff, re-analyze what you did wrong, stop hiding from reality of unavoidable losses, stop blaming someone else for your mistakes, in short "learn to stand the heat" - in this case
YOU MIGHT STILL BE ABLE TO MAKE MONEY IN THE STOCK MARKET
Many Happy Returns, Best wishes to you and your families in New 2007 Year.
DavidDT

Merry Christmas,

Happy Chanukah

and a very Happy New 2009 Year

to you and your families

"Giant on the feet of clay"

"The banking system is a monstrous giant on the feet of clay"

"Never in the history of the world have we faced so much complexity combined with incompetence in understanding it properly"

I came to United States from the country where logical thinking in political and economical terms were not permitted, thou it was achieved by brut prohibition rather than by employing CNBC's cheerleaders selling "endless American prosperity" to uneducated blindly patriotic over consuming John Q Public.

Only under these artificially cultivated conditions such things as

"cream pie fight" could appear funny,

leaving lots of food on the plate was as much as a norm as ignoring existence of hungry surrounding world,

killing Wal-Mart employee chasing after flat screen TV was "an incident" rather than CRIME,

producing high school graduates not capable of multiplying 2x2 was "equal opportunities education" (skyrocketing number of potheads dropouts was ignored...is ignored) rather than inability to maintain proper educational staff as oppose to CLOWNS,

politicians screaming about "illegal Mexican immigrants" and ignoring H1 Visa holders (covered up as "much needed due to lack of American workers in that field" - programming is a good example)

Above list can continue indefinitely, I don't pretend that I "know it all" or "smarter than some", I am not a "smooth talker" (or even "smooth writer"for that matter) and I certainly not a "fighter" anymore.

Why don't we listen from time to time to really smart people and not to worry about their "timing" - their "time" WILL COME if not "has come already"

(word of caution - you will probably have as much trouble understanding their accents as my writing, but it is to your very own benefits not to laugh as we, Americans, were taught to do when travelling to Europe...and... try not to think of "Black Swan" in terms of charts - it is a totally different animal...)

Enjoy...

The REAL Maverick: Present Economy worse than Depression

I am in "New York State Of Mind"

Well, to be exact - 'in Holiday state of mind"

I don't do a lot of shopping, my 3 ex wives take good care of it, I just go to New York and spend time going to Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan, meet with old friends, they all look really bad nowadays - most of them worked for now gone or about to be gone companies, yes, I did spend most of my work carrier during "New York Times" (before I moved to Connecticut after 9/11) in financial institutions, sounds just like "mental institutions" today, oh well.

Not being able or willing to decipher intermediate term market direction, I just clip few /ES trades daily and sleep well, except for tonight - I got caught in few long /ES @876.25, went out to smoke and saw it down 20 points - will be fine tomorrow. I will not be actively posting or trading till New Year - I think it is time to enjoy soma cabbage I made during this crazy year...

Enjoy Holidays, if not everything is "alright" in your world - think that "it could be worse" and the way it is going it most certainly WILL get MUCH worse.

 

Barbra Streisand • New York State Of Mind • [1977]• " Streisand Superman"

The answer I'd like to know (Kudlow)

Larry, do you have ANY moral standards whatsoever to be able to face the camera and being watched by "-533K jobs lost by REAL PEOPLE" and not to apologize for "Being WRONG on the market, WRONG on economy" and, as small symbolic compensation, offer to redistribute all the money CNBC paid to you into sinking unemployment compensation funds?

8:30am
USD

Non-Farm Employment Change -533K

In the pack - Kudlow

"You are out of your mind!" J.B.

Arrogance, paid cheerleading and just plain stupidity

vs. "Smart, quiet, confident, concerned, honest"

The answer I'd like to know:

"Why they put bagel thief  or pot head in jail and morons you see in this video are still at large?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw

In Consumer We Trust?

[ original photo location ]

Roughly 70% of this economy is built on these people buying things they don't need and spending money they don't have. They call "that" sound economy?
Do these people look like they have no closes to wear, no TVs to watch, no food to eat?
WHY ARE THEY STORMING THE STORES???

"Windows XP does not save user settings" - FIXED!

What fixing bug of Windows XP has to do with trading?

A lot! It was driving me totally and utterly insane for quite a while, when after yet another Automatic Update from Microsoft all in a sudden any customizations I made to Windows layout were not there after reboot. Taskbar gone, menus reordered, windows sizes and positions set to some ridiculous forms and shapes.

Finally, after long, really long google search and combining multiple recommendations I found solution which worked (fingers crossed)

For tech savvy solution is below (registry access is needed, save before you tweak it - one wrong move and your system might become non-operational)

Good luck...

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoSaveSettings"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
"SystemTray"="SysTray.Exe"

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\BagMRU]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\Bags]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell]
"BagMRU Size"=dword:00001f40

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam]
"BagMRU Size"=dword:00001f40

Yet another "mechanical" day

Really boring and totally predictable intraday action.

5AM countdown advised "sell on open"

1:20Pm to 2:30PM buy countdown coupled with buy setup hinted on release of some "good news".

Pivots contained ranged trading quite efficiently - what a boring, but very profitable day.

Order Book

Time	Order ID	Description	Status
11/21/08 13:28:13	********	BOT +16 /ESZ8 @752.25	5
11/21/08 11:50:45	********	SOLD -6 /ESZ8 @758.50	5
11/21/08 11:21:49	********	SOLD -10 /ESZ8 @751.50	5
11/21/08 10:53:39	********	BOT +10 /ESZ8 @751.00	4
11/21/08 10:30:24	********	SOLD -10 /ESZ8 @754.50	4
11/21/08 10:23:47	********	BOT +10 /ESZ8 @756.50	3
11/21/08 10:22:56	********	SOLD -10 /ESZ8 @760.25	3
11/21/08 09:59:52	********	SOLD -10 /ESZ8 @759.00	2
11/21/08 09:58:36	********	BOT +10 /ESZ8 @756.75	2
11/21/08 09:46:21	********	SOLD -10 /ESZ8 @768.00	1
11/21/08 09:39:17	********	BOT +10 /ESZ8 @763.75	1
11/21/08 02:04:07	********	SOLD -10 /ESZ8 @776.00	yest pos.

"Hope" is gone...time to start over

At the time when the last TV personality whore who could not care less about our money for as long as they were getting paid for whatever they were told to say by supervising crooks (long sentence? I don't care), so at the time when hysterically giggling Erin Burnett, nonsense talking Chinese Girl, bullish all the way down curly none knows about trader Peter Costa ( list goes on and on and on) - at the time when they stopped talking nonsense like"America #1" and "Financial Capital of the Known Universe", at such time market is getting close to the bottom.

Time to stop pumping borrowed prosperity, time to stop admiring cheap Chinese goods and start building factories in US, time to kick out Nardelly who screwed up at Home Depot, got obscene amount of money for that and resurfaced at Chrysler because he knew someone, time to stop admiring Warren Buffet (GS is $50 now - great deal he's got at $115) and Brad Pitt for one on a MILLION chance they were given, time to outcast Gasparino who "believes in Big Dick Fuld.

This IS THE TIME

Time to ask ourselves: "Whose fault was that? "

Time to be honest and say: "OURS"

WE let them DO THAT.
WE let them rob us.
WE let them get paid for nothing.
WE borrowed from THEM in order for them to get richer.
WE let THEM outsource our jobs.
WE let THEM leave us with no retirement we paid for.
WE let THEM ask us in an emergency room if WE have money to pay.
WE... WE... WE...
When are we going to stop being stupid lazy politically inert self deluding nation?
When are we going to stop playing "democracy"?
When are we going to stop saying: "Everything is really bad, BUT WE live in the GREAT country"? Huh??? Compared to what? Haiti?

Oh well...time for some charts - there is some light at the end of the tunnel there, some major ETFs completing TDSetup Buy this very week - up we go next?

 

Transports TDsetupBuy

Small Cap - TDSetup BUY

 

Financials - DTSetupBuy

 

Energy - TDSetupBuy 3 weeks ago - holding TDST - buy

 

Dreaded $VIX (why pay attention after they started to trade options on VIX and totally skewed data?)

Not counting "super Spike" - it stalled at the current level - time to retreat?

 

DavidDT

P.S. I am biased indeed, I've got stopped from multiple bullish positions (long calls and short puts) with losses and BIDU long trade initially totaling to 20%(!!!) of my portfolio is off 25% pulling portfolio down over 7% in just one week!!! That is too big of a risk I took and steep price I paid ( Am I talking Yoda?)