PULL UP A COUCH

Trading has definitely turned me into an asshole. I don’t know if any of you feel the same way, but I think it’s fair to say that in many aspects, it’s ruined my life.

There’s something about the constant self mastery though that is unlike anything else. How to manage fear, anxiety, greed, confidence, and the amount of time spend to develop individual skill sets and an edge. I’ve found this to be what I love the most about trading, aside from the monetary gains and the look of horror on peoples faces when describing what I do for a living.

My biggest professional struggle is finding balance. It may be just me, but post 2008 the game changed significantly. Prior to the financial collapse, people in general were more positive. Trading still had its challenges, but the process was more enjoyable. Even after a dominant performance in 2013 here at iBC, I had to take the time out of my money printing to tell all of you what a bunch of assholes you were. The lack of enjoyment at this sport now days makes it hard to be positive and energetic when I am away from the monitors doing things other than pressing buttons all day. Granted the world is different and people have reasons to be pissed off. I joke often about how each year of this bull market could be defined by a an anti-depressant or amphetamine…but at times it literally took that just in order to suffer through the process of making money.

This last month has really helped me reset from the shit storm of 2014. I’m not back to that high watermark, but will be there by EOY. That’s been my most obvious goal this year. My next, and most important goal is to focus on getting back to finding balance.

Moving forward, I may knock off a part of my day blogging here about something other than stocks. Hopefully, this is something you can tolerate. I hope to get back to the gym…again. I gotta turn this stuff off at the close and focus on a few things more important than the bottom line.

If you have things that you do to find balance, or have thoughts on the topic, feel free to discuss.

See you in the morning.

OA

Shares of $FEYE finish -$6.66.

I’m officially married to this piece of shit, but what a perfect mark to close the day.

OA

I bought DEC calls in $URBN as I want to partake in some retail down here.

I still have 4 more names I want to trade in that space. I will be looking to book gains in $CMCM and $SOHU to finance some new plays tomorrow.

OA

While in the process of researching some trades in retail, I found myself long Dec $TWTR calls here.

Watch for a breakout.

Select retail names are seeing some favorable reversals this month. $RL, $KORS, $KATE are a few names ripping today.

In After Hours with Option Addict, we did a top down of this group…and tried to sort down to those that were actionable. Of that list, today I am dialed down to $URBN, $DDS and $JWN. Would love a 2-3% drop in $LULU or $COH to add them to my list.

Most of these still have ER on the horizon, but they’ve all been heavily discounted here and volatility in the options isn’t unreasonable.

Will take a position in one or more this afternoon. Haven’t determined which I like the most yet.

OA

Wow. $FEYE barely holding onto a $22 handle. F.M.L.

$FEYE has now become my portfolio STD…taking the place of $BABA. Anyone remember when I went off on that stock earlier this year? I searched all morning for the write up but couldn’t find it. Anyway, yes, now I am officially married to this fat ass loss for me to stare at and curse upon everyday.

I’m going to rotate out of a few names and book some gains this afternoon to pay for some new risk. I have a few biotech and retail names I am interested in. I’ll write up my overall favorites in an hour.

OA