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.