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My best long and short trading ideas for the week ahead
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Key price levels to watch on the major indices
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Avalon (1990) is another very good Barry Levinson-directed film set in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. This one hits the right notes in terms of blending a family-centered melodrama with some comedy and romance.
Aidan Quinn, Elizabeth Perkins, Armin Mueller-Stahl, a young Elijah Wood, and Kevin Pollack highlight the solid cast.
A Polish-Jewish family arrives in the US at the beginning of the century and they and their children try to build themselves a better future in the promised land.
[This post was originally published on December 20th, 2011. Be sure to see the excellent video on poker at the bottom of the post, applicable to stock trading]
I recently learned about the death of Barry Tanenbaum. I assume you have never heard of him, as that is usually the case with even the most successful of “cash game” poker players (cash games, or “ring games,” as in playing for real money and risking your money you have in front of you via casino chips, instead of a fixed tournament structure with tournament chips). Barry was an old school Texas Limit Hold ’em poker player, grinding out the profits year after year in Las Vegas, the city where so many celebrity/famous “tournament players” quickly ascend to fame, only to stumble over to successful cash game players to ask for money when they soon go broke. He had made some money early in his life in the pre-Sicilon Valley days in Cupertino, California, before moving to Vegas with his wife.
I played against Barry many times when I lived out in Vegas several years back, when he was a regular in the cash games around town. He was a fixture in the Bellagio poker room, $30/$60 Limit Hold ’em game, where the average buy-in to sit down was about $1,000, and the volatility you endured as a player could be up to several thousand dollars per session. He was a very solid player and clearly a winner. Unlike many crybaby “pros” who berate bad players at the table when they lose a hand, Barry was a total pro, maintaing a sense of humor and not going on tilt, while keeping the bad players happy and playing longer, thus giving him an edge over the long run.
A few summers ago, during the hot cash game action that takes place when the World Series of Poker (“WSOP”) comes to town, Barry and I squared off in a $100/$200 limit hold ’em game at the Bellagio which is, generally speaking, one of the bigger limit games you can find in any brick and mortar casino in Vegas or on the east coast.
I was honored to read him blog about a particular hand the next day, referring to me as an “excellent player.” It was rewarding for me to get that kind of respect from an older, accomplished player. The hand went exactly as he recalled, and I found it quite entertaining to experience and then read about the other two players in the hand.
Even if you are not a poker player, I still recommend watching the speech he gave in the video below. Mike “the mad genius of poker” Caro gave the introduction.
Barry discusses patience and grinding out “one big bet per hour,” which means, as an example, earning $60 per hour in the $30/$60 Limit Hold ’em game. The parallels to disciplined stock trading are plentiful.
Here is Barry’s blog post, told in first person, from July 2007 detailing a hand played against yours truly. The “UTG” player was actually a friend of mine and the “cute girl” was indeed a cute girl and very aggressive player. I included the other portion of his blog about those two after the hand that I was in, for entertainment value. Click here for the full post and his blog as well. (“UTG” refers to “under the gun,” the player at the poker table first to act in a Texas Hold’ em game, to the left of the small and big blind, “BB” refers to big blind, “JJ” refers to pocket Jacks, “late-middle” refers to my position at the table when I re-raised or “three bet,” as he says, with pocket kings before the flop).
I played some sessions of $100-$200 recently. With the WSOP in town, the game is better than usual.
Perhaps you would be interested in some laydowns I made. Here are a couple:
UTG (average player, not especially tight) raises. Excellent player three-bets from late middle. I have J-J in the BB and make a marginal call. Flop is 7-6-6. I check, UTG bets, good player calls, I call. Turn is a 7. UTG bets, good player raises, I fold. Probably should have folded earlier, but there it is. Oh, on the river, check-bet-call, good player shows down kings, and UTG confides to cute girl player on his left (these two will be back in this post) that he had J-J! At least I put in $400 less than he did.
They were not all laydowns. Here is a play I picked off because of table talk. I have the button and a new player posts. Everyone folds to the new player, who checks (though the book says raise). I have 9-7 and do not wish to get involved. so I fold. SB (guy on my left again) completes, and cute girl (who is wildly aggressive, and gets way too much respect from the others) raises. Poster calls. SB folds. Flop is something, She bets-he folds. Fine. But now guy on left says to girl, “Nice play. I was thinking of doing that.” She rewards him with Mona Lisa smile.
Consistent with how this bull market has unfolded, it would not surprise me in the least to see a melt-up even in the dreaded September/October part of the year.
Still, my book has a few individual shorts hedged up against some longs. And I am ready to adjust quickly, as is our reputation inside the 12631 Trading Service, to whichever surprise the market brings with it, scary or not. That said, if you click on this 12631 link, you can see that @RaginCajun and I closed out August with a string of nice winners.
I am still honed in on the major casinos here, to see if the breakdowns are legitimate or instead simply another bear trap.
I suspect we will not get a clear answer until next week or mid-September.
However, seeing LVS WYNN take out yesterday’s lows has me sticking with my WYNN short.
I also believe the outcome of this setup, be it bear trap or the-real-deal breakdown, will offer valuable insight into the not just the health of Macau but also Las Vegas and indeed many consumers here in the U.S..
Courtesy of The PPT algorithm, here are the most current top five readings from my “12631 RELATIVE STRENGTH” custom-made screen, identifying which stocks are exuding some of the best performances to the market at-large at any given moment.
I look for stocks whose Daily PPT Hybrid Score surges, while the Weekly Hybrid has been negative over the past week. This can often yield stocks which are emerging from consolidations.
Members can click here to view and save the screen.
Sorted for at least 500,000 shares of daily average volume to ensure liquidity.
