smoked bear

If you must know I was almost immediatly flushed out of GOOG & BIDU. Gee that was stupid.

must be time to buy

Yes,
I established bearish positions in, don't laugh, GOOG, RIMM, AMZN, BIDU, $RUT, & $NDX yesterday and today.
Why? you ask. These things are getting silly with the insane upside. Most likely I will get smoked here and cover quickly. I fear a rally on the fed meeting minutes release today. Every other piece of data has led to a rally so why not this one? If we get a higher close today I will be out of these silly positions.

nothing to see here

I read a lot of the financial blogs out there. Many are quite insightful, interesting, or investable. At this time I don't really have anything useful to add to the blogsphere.
My trading is ok, not great not bad. I make a bit of money, but don't have any real edge over other traders right now. I am currently working on my position sizing. Before each trade I ask myself:
1. Do I have a valid buy or sell signal?
2. What is my stop loss, is the risk acceptable?
3. What is my positive exit plan?
4. Is my position size appropriate?
Hopefully I will keep emotion out of my decision with these rules. Unfortunatly I trade for the wrong reasons too often.

wow, but will the rally hold?

I'm sort of thinking this is like the Greenspan put. Now, market players think the Fed wil be there to bail them out if things get too bad so risk aversion may go down a bit. Maybe things are not better but one fear has been removed from the market. I bought a bunch of stuff yesterday, now what to do with the inventory.
I'm more looking for an oversold bounce. We are getting that today. I don't think this is the all clear but it might be. I'm about %85 long right now. If we get a strong bounce today I will be looking to trim my exposure again. I look at HD, AB, phm a longer tern buys. QQQQ & WM are shorter term trades, but I can be stopped out of any position.
the suckiest blogger on the planet

flat

Sorry, I am not very good at this blog thing. I sold all of my index puts & bear call spread shorts. I also sold some naked IWM puts (Aug 77 at 1.5 avg price). If we keep going down from here I will be losing.
I am working a lot right now with travel to Asia. It is tiring.

wrong way bear

The bearish arguments make a lot of sense to me. Unfortunatly, these bearish ideas make a lot of sense to most folks. Many of the people I know are bearish. I am bearish. That view hasn't worked well for me.
I like to think my trading is agnostic, but it is not. If I get a sell signal, like I just got, I jump on it. If I get a bull signal I look for reasons to ignore it. I even hold some of my beraish spreads despite the bull signal. I am trying to take more bulish trades as they appear.
We will see.
Of course I bought some NDX & RUT Aug. puts as soon as I got my sell signal today (Long NDX Aug 2050 puts &RUT 870 puts).
If my next post is to exit these positions and buy some calls I have changed my pattern of ignoring the positives. With options expiration & earnings the fundies will be more important than my cheezy signals this week.

return from vacation

Arches & Canyonlands. Beautiful place, but hot!

follow the leader

I need to do a better job of following the indicators I spent soooo much time learning. Common things like MACD, RSI, Stochastics, support & resistance, bollinger bands. Instead I spend time watching the $TICK. My time frame is wrong for the tick. I don't need to care about +-1000 tick reversals and tick hooks. It doesn't matter over a 2 week holding period. That is about my normal holding period.
I held my bear call spreads thinking I could reap some 'free' decay over the holiday. AS usual that was a mistake. The NDX & RUT are still on buy signals. I should have bought some calls.
Now it looks like the market is bailing me out and I expect to be on sell signals soon. But that is not the point. Yes, my signals are often wrong. I do have a positive expectancy if I have the courage and discipline to follow the signals.
One problem with holding positions in opposition to my signals is the exit strategy. My signals give perfectly good exit signals. Now that I am on the wrong side of the trade when do I exit? What is my stop loss? I'll tell you, I don't have a good stop loss if I don't follow my signal.
Sometimes life is tougher if you are stupid.

notes to myself

Need to account for seasonality. Today hurt. Got my very late buy signals. New quarter / half/ holidays tend to be positive. I need to account for that.

Dive, Dive Dive!

I'm back into full money losing mode, er I mean I have my full bear call spreads in place. NDX 1975 (short) 2025 (long) & RUT 850 s 860 s 880 long. As always, the front month to take advantage of decay. Not always the best play FWIW. If I get a buy signal I will cover 1/3 this morning. That seems likely, and I will lose some money on this one.

regrets

Never bought those calls yesterday, boy was that a mistake. Oh well.
2:30:Chop chop. Lets see how the market handles the fed.
I Sold a bull put spread yesterday in the RUT. Long 770p -810p. But I over trade. So I bought to cover all of the short puts (810) yesterday leaving me long the 5 770p. The market went up a lot and I am down a bit on the overall trade. I didn't hold my short calls like I was supposed to. Not so bright. I don't want to hold those puts over the long weekend, This is July paper with lots of time decay. Plus, I don't have a sell signal. I should either resell (at lower prices) my 810 puts, of sell the 770 puts and take my loss like a real trader would. Not a poser.

fed shmed

I don't think the fed will make any significant language change. Given the big move yesterday I bet we chop around for the rest of the week. So I am selling some vol. Resold 1/3 of my NDX & RUT bear call spread. With the looooong weekend & slow July 4th week I hope to reap some decay.

I suck as a blogger

It's official. I do this to clarify my thoughts and when things are going well (like now) I tend to skip the blog. Luckily I doubt anyone reads this anyway. There is probably a way to see if anyone bothers to read my entries but I don't know how.
I've had a great time with this correction. I am mostly flat right now. I sold 2/3 of my short RUT & NDX calls yesterday and today. I've got a ratio -1 RUT 850 call & +3 880 calls. 1/4 ratio for the NDX 1975/2025 calls. That way if the markt tanks my long calls don't cost me anything. If we rally I am slightly delta positive.
I have had a great couple of weeks and now I have toned things back a bit. I would like to buy some calls but I need to step back and think about it.

confused

Still on my cheezy sell signal but it should go to neutral at any time. Not really sure what to do here,. I sold my last puts (DIA 137 puts bought last week). Now I have my bear call spreads on the NDX & the RUT left as well as my AMZN short & a few other trades (OIH bear call spread). Mostly in cash right now. I would like to go long but I have no signal yet.

IWM vs RUT

I like the IWM spreads but the RUT spreads aren't bad. The only thing I really hate about the DIA / IWM / SPY / Q puts & calls is the amount I need to buy to put my position on. I mean I can sell 20 RUT calls with Tradestation for $20. With the IWM calls it takes 200 calls for the same position ($200). I'm just cheap. Now the SPX bid ask spreads are way too wide. I would trade the SPY's options over the SPX's for that reason.
I'm just whining and still long a few DIA puts ;).

a bird in the hand

I may be somewhat bearish but I prefer a profit. I sold my July 850 puts at 26 for a nice $8 profit. I hate the time decay. Still on a sell signal. I will keep my bear call spreads over the weekend.

the broken clock

I'm bearish. There, I've said it, and I feel better. My signals are close to bullish. If they become bullish I will sell my RUT puts & cover 1/3 of my short calls in the NDX and the RUT.
I just don't see what drives this market higher in the short term. I don't have a long term view. If I look further than a few weeks my small mind rebels. We have supply now, with the Blackstones of the world generously letting the little people in. We have modestly higher interest rates. We have weak housing and consumers. Yada yada. And I am deathly afraid of a rally today.

merger thursday?

First it was a rally on merger Monday.
Then it was a rally in anticipation of merger Monday on Friday.
Is this going to be the Thursday rally before merger Monday?
Robert Marcin thinks so over at Real Money.
Marcin
1:08 PM EDT
Marcin's so right. I mean what was i thinking. Who would not want to get in now for Friday
a la Cramer.
My conundrum. I still have sell signals but this is where we usually rally and negate the profits from the drop. Do I sell in advance or wait for a signal to cover. I guess I need to wait. I don't know how to factor in that Friday is always an up day.

Doomed I tell you!

We've all seen this movie before. The immanent collapse of civilization, markets go to zero. Dogs and cats living together.
Of course the next day we rocket to new highs.
I still have my sell signals. I am looking for another down day tomorrow. So far.

Top tick of the day award.

Life is tough. It's tougher when you are stupid.
John Wayne ( I think)

I'm Awarding myself the blue ribbon for top tick nervous Nellie. It's just a classic of mine. Lets set the stage shall we. The NDX is still on a sell signal of my own construction. I am nervous because the market is holding up really well despite my pathetic little sell signals on all the major indices. We have a strong open today and I am ready to cut my losses. I am not supposed to do this. I need to wait for my signal to cover. But I see the NDX start strong, drop to 1939 and start to rise. Out of fear I look at a 5 minute chart ( I am not supposed to do this). I see the NDX pop thru 1946. I sell my July 1950 puts when it hits 1948.3. The market promptly turns around and Now I am looking at a 1932 print on the NDX.
At least I still hold my bear call spreads and my RUT puts. I will see if I can hold these till I get a buy signal.

RUT

OK, I got my sell signal on the 60 minute RUT chart. I have very little confidence in this signal but I am taking it anyway. I shorted my last third of the RUT July 850 calls @ 16.00, with the RUT @ 846. If this goes against me I should be out by 852. Can't get much tighter than that. I will probably get shaken out of this anyway. Not a lot of confidence here.

beartard

Yes, I am.
Friday afternoon I sold another 1/3 of my calls short in my bear call spreads in the NDX & RUT. I still don't have a sell signal but the huge 3 day ramp last week seems overdone. I also bought some NDX puts this morning on the opening pop & some Aug. DIA 137 puts. I hate the time decay. I doubt these trades will work out but my stop loss is pretty tight here, and I do have a 60 minute chart sell on the DIA.
I get myself in trouble when I try my discretionary trades. What I am trying to do is limit my discretion on entries and exits. For a not very accurate example: I get a buy signal on a shorter term chart (60 minutes for me) on the NDX. If the NDX is at 1900 I may sell one of the NDX front month 1975 calls for 15 and buy 3 of the 2025's at 5. Then the NDX rallies to resistance around 1930. I may short another NDX 1975 call at 20. If the NDX rallies further I lose some money and cover one of the NDX 1975 calls. If we rally a bit and I get a sell signal I short my third call at whatever the NDX price is and wait for a buy signal to cover 2 of the NDX calls.
Some weak points here are the true value of my indicators.

ooto

Options expiration week usually kicks my ___. Of late, I solve that by doing very little trading. I still have some of my bear call spreads, but only ones that are out of the money. Like a RUT 850 - 880 June spread that should expire worthless this week. The 850's are trading .3 - .4 spread. I usually close these out to be tidy, but today I will let it go.
I am also working a lot this week and don't have a lot of time. It is best for me to avoid trading if I can't focus on it. I'll be back in tomorrow.
FWIW I think we get a bit of a pop today, but I'm not trading it.

go long?

I'm pretty short term for my index trades. I'm also not very good at keeping this blog updated, but I only do this to clarify my thoughts. I sold the rest of my index puts this morning. I kept one RUT July 850 put for no good reason. I'm glad I sold the rest. My cheesy short term buy signal also kicked of on the NDX & RUT. It's just a combo of MACD, Slow Sto. & and my support & resistance guesses. Things still look negative on the daily charts but that bet has worked out pretty badly.
I bet we get a bunch of analysis over the weekend on the effect of higher 10 year bonds. IMHO the sell off was justified. With options expiration next week we may get a lot of chop, but I doubt we get another move straight back up. I like Rev Shark over on RM. His commentary is of a similar bent.
One of my silly tricks is to start a spread delta neutral.** In this case, since I think we are going up I started a bear call ratio spread. I will turn it into a regular bear call spread on my next sell signal. If we don't go up I don't lose any real money. If we do go up & then turn back down (and if I get a sell signal in time). I sell more of the nearer to the money calls for a higher price. Here is how I am doing it (ratio wise):
RUT STO n Jul 850 calls @ 12.5
BTO 4n Jul 880 calls @ 3.7
If we drop like a stone from here oh well. I lose a little. If the market lifts and stays higher I lose a little since I would cover the spread with 3 weeks or so till expiration.
I get to make money if we rise and I get a good sell signal, then I would sell 3n of the 850 calls at my higher price. If the market ignores my sell signal and still goes higher, I lose less money than I would by buying the straight spread.
Question: why don't I just trade by going long puts or calls?
Answer Not sure. It may be better I'm still testing this out.
Thats the theory anyhow.

** not really delta neutral more like cost neutral. I'm net positive the underlying with this strategy.

stay on target

I often want to get out of a trade to quickly, like right now. I see some of my gains on the NDX & RUT puts going away and I want to sell the puts and save my profit. Often, when I indulge myself, and take my early profit I regret it later. I covered my UAUA short after the big drop on Monday @ 36.40, now UAUA is at 35.
One of my goals this year is to wait for the signals to trade.
I like to look at MACD, Slow Stochastics, RSI (2 or 3 day), support & resistance. I also look at ATR trend lines and a few other common indicators. I'm limiting myself to the 60 minute charts or the daily charts. Shorter term charts make it hard to hold a position.
When I figure out how I will add some charts here.
Wow, down we go again. That seems to be what Cramer wants, a washout. Over on Real Money he is complaining about the strong closes not letting the markets get washed out.
After selling 1/2 of my index puts I don't have as much downside exposure as I would like but that is what I get for selling early to ease my worry. I suppose this could be the bottom of the correction but those interest rates are a bit higher, so who knows.

no buy signal yet

But I fear the rebound. I sold 1/2 of my rut July 850 puts @ 29.5 & my NDX july 1900 puts at 36 for a nice profit. I will use discipline to hold the rest till I have a buy signal. When I get a buy I will try buying a few calls.

Giddy

Apparently, my stopped bear clock can be right twice a day. My bearish bias has been quite wrong as anyone who even glances at the business section of the paper would know. The question now is when to cover.

where are you dip buyer?

It's still early but maybe we will get an actual down day today. Anyway, the GES trade worked out well. I covered my short positions for $1.35 for a gain of $1.15. I'm always afraid to make these big trades due to the ever present risk of a blow up.

buy the dip?

How many down opens have ended with a strong close? So we open down today will it last till 10:30 this morning? Or do interest rates really matter in a highly leveraged economy? I still have sells on teh NDX & RUT but the NDX is close to a Buy for me. Still overbought but strong markets can stay that way for a long time. Covered my AMZN short like a scalded dog once it began to pop tuesday. Another small loser. Still net short NDX & RUT puts & bear call spreads. The june bear call spreads are pretty close to the money (RUT 850c short, long 870c). My RUT july 850 puts are still ok but I am close to exiting the NDX july 1900 puts at a loss.
I tried selling the GES june 45 puts & the 50 calls for an earnings volatility crush. Net credit of $2.50. I got burned on a few of these plays lately so I am a bit gunshy. I will exit the positions this morning some time and see how it works out.

OIH still stronger.

Out of the OIH trade. A small loser. It hit my stop loss.
OIH 170p BTC OIH @ 171.45
Strong economic data seems to out weigh the weak Shanghai market. Not surprising I suppose. I did just buy some RUT Jul 850 puts with a tight stop, when the buy the dippers pushed us to positive on the day. I also got a sell signal on UAUA friday and sold my long position in that name, luckily.
I'm net short with puts in the NDX & RUT now but I will cover those quickly on a rally to new highs. The market may be overbought but it does not seem to care. I also got a sell an AMZN friday and tried a small short position there. Very small.

OIH

I'm pretty mediocre as a trader. Please don't look at what I do for good ideas. I put this here so that I will think about my trades. Unless you really want to lose some money.
Nice pop this morning in the OIH. I still have my sell signal from yesterday. I was unwilling to hold this position overnight due to the data storm we had this morning.
OIH BTO Jul 170p OIH @ 170.6 close if OIH above 171.75

Strong ISM, confidence, and employment report numbers this morning. Nice pop on the open. But we are pretty overbought. What to do? Fading the up moves has been a losing proposition lately. I will keep trades small and stops tight.

oih exit

OIH @ 169.1 STC a couple of the Jun 175p --> OK, it worked. I didn't want to hold it overnight.

deep thoughts

I've read a lot of books on trading. It's funny, but you know all of those mistakes you tend to read about in these books? I seem to make a bunch of those mistakes. I don't learn from my mistakes till I screw up a bunch of times. Lets see, here are two of my favorites:

Overtrading -> check. One of my favorites. Part of the reason for this blog is to make me busy so I won't just trade to much or without good reason. Reading other, more competent traders online makes me want to do something. So I overtrade on some weak justification.

Overriding my indicators -> check. You see, I'm a genius (LOL). I know better than the highly trained, super smart folks who do this stuff for a living. Sure they have decades of experience, supercomputers, and time tested strategies. But I ... umm. I just seem to think I know better. My last bear call spread on the NDX should have been sold at a profit, but I held on to the spread, it is now a loss. Which brings me to ...

Holding on to losers -> check. I should be selling my losers quickly. On my NDX bear call spread (-5 NDX jun 1925c / + 5 NDX 1950c) I got a buy signal on the MACD on Monday. I should have taken it. Once the trade became a loss I should have closed it. I don't do this as often as I used to, but when I get cocky I make mistakes.

Top / Bottom calling -> check. I'm too smart to follow a trend. I need a challenge.

Emotional Trading -> Don't trade on emotions. I got over this one after getting smoked day trading a few years ago. But I still feel the fear often enough to list this one. I think it kind of ties in with overtrading.

Perma-Bearism -> A chronic condition I suffer from. It's a twelve step program I'm in. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough ...

The list goes on. Maybe I'll finish it some day. I'm activly working on these issues. For me, these are my top trading faults. Perhaps I should use these as a checklist before I make my next trade and see if I am trading wisely.

I like that idea.

Intro

I've been interested in starting a trading blog for a while so here it is.


I enjoy investing & trading. I've been investing (fundy type) for many years. I few years ago I decided to try the technical stuff. I really enjoy the work. I'm still learning, but it is fun. Trading is not my primary gig but I do spend a lot of time reading and researching trading stuff.
BTW: I doubt this will be a very useful blog for quite some time, so, unless you want some bad trading advice I wouldn't try any of the silly things I post. Plus a lot of what I do is pretty short term.
I'm just doing this to clarify my own thought process. I find if I write stuff down or expose my thought process to others I tend to get better results.
I'm not going to post all of my trades
OIH @ 171.75 BTO a couple of the Jun 175p --> very short term trade. Stop @ 172.50
Why? I have written a couple of cheezy trading strategies for Tradestation and My combo of MACD, Slow Sto, and resistance tell me to short the OIH Possibly as a swing trade. This is a pretty marginal indicator for me, but it is the best I've got for today.