I had an interesting month, to say very little, trading hot potatoes with plastic explosives nestled inside the spuds.  Some of you are very obsessed with instant gratification.  I get that.  I appreciate a good “fix” myself.  However, trading is a process I enjoy more than nearly every other modern endeavor.  I am figuring this game out, gregariously, because I refuse to pay someone to teach me.

For the month, I earned 20 basis points (paid for my lunches, essentially) in my swing portfolio after commissions.  I have been buying and selling options this month, and getting a feel for the way they move.  They certainly are curious little instruments.  About 8 trading sessions ago, I was up 8 percent on the month.  The selloff corrected that early lead.  One of the biggest regrets I have on the month was talking up a TZA hedge with the traders in 12631 at literally the perfect moment but never executing.  I don’t dwell on these types of events.  I only reiterate it to cement it into my experience directory.  Remember, this blog is more important to me than it is to you, the reader class.

Elroi was turned live on 01/15 after a power coding session and optimization.  He was turned on and immediately began a drawdown period.  Such is life my friends.  His monthly statistics are weak, losing one hundred dollars.  Since going live, he has lost only fifty, however.  This was a trial period of sorts, where he was fed only one contract.  After commissions, the next project has cost me one hundred and fifty dollars.  Here are the daily statistics:

What may seem like a waste of time has actually been one of the most insightful endeavors into the futures market since I began trading them last year.  While I watch along, waiting for Elroi to fire, I began noticing nuances in the tape that I never saw before.  I am getting a very clear vision of order flow.  My scalping game is about to get serious.  Remember the game where you have to spot the difference between two cartoon pictures in a newspaper?  Six or seven little nuances, I see them now and rapidly process them.  The volatility in the NASDAQ futures is a tremendous opportunity for a trader to earn a nut.

Should the market continue “getting jiggy” I will be increasing my day trading beyond algorithmic.

My book went out of the week long, very long in fact.  I have been buying the whole way down.  The correction road map pretty much nailed the weekly low, nailed this morning’s buy the dip opportunity, and has now assumed the proper pouncing position.  If we rally Monday, like the plan calls for, I will have completely forecasted five days of stock market activity.  That would be some sage stock market prowess (no impala).

I own all the names I like but one.  I sold BALT yesterday into a chart I perceived to be bear flagging.  Now the chart looks wonderful with ten trading days until earnings.  Do you know how much money I can make in ten trading days?  Sometimes we just lose interest and patience.   Nevertheless, I intend to make a great sum of money in February simply by eating tacos and pumping iron with my personal trainer.

http://youtu.be/8YSq7KiT3_c

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Facebook is up big after hours since reporting earnings.  We are getting sympathy moves in GRPN, TWTR, ANGI, and YELP.  I have a big heaping pile of exposure to all of these names, as well as many others, in a book of risk I can only describe as an autonomous, morphing blob hell bent on consuming all internet traders into its belly.

I continued my buying campaign today, chugging down calls in AMBA and common in CUDA like a raver six molly deep.  I have consumed a disgusting amount of caffeine over the last 48 hours, toiling over market charts and building my next empire, something much bigger than anything you see on these interwebs.  I smell like a Monster and old ladies are scoffing at me while I walk around in deep-V t-shirts in the arctic north.  I do this because it reminds me I am still a living entity and not a zombie robot.

The market has pressed the boot deep into my stomach, yet it cannot make me regurgitate the libations boiling in my gut.  I have no interest in ending the party.  If I must, I will BE the party.

If my prophecies prove correct, educated guesses built on the knowledge and labor of elder generations, then I stand to make a great sum of money in February.  I stand to make a great deal of money and it all starts with tomorrow’s sit.  I will sit here, sucking down chili dogs and guzzling flaggarts of ale while the little bitches get their quick fix and take profits.  Hell, I may even take out the lever and buy some MOAR.

IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE: LinkedIn is for old men with the poopy trousers to rub one another off.  That being said, I have tuned up my profile as part of my continued quest to infiltrate and dominate the business community.

I have already divulged too deeply into my plans.  Now I must go spoil my body with iron work designed to create perfect symmetry and posture.  Hide your wives and tell you kids about a brave man who roams the internet, in a loin cloth, trading these stocks.

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You knew it was bound to happen.  You knew CREE cannot spelunk after ever single earnings announcement, right?  To be honest (and we keep it honest in the humble world of Raul) my feet were chilly to the thought yesterday too.  I went into earnings only half sized.  Do you know where I was most certainly not reducing LED exposure?

In LEDS, in RVLT…the “party rock”

I floated some statistics about CREE stock behavior during and after their earning’s announcement on the pelican stream.  They were rather interesting, really.  They are free, too, in case you are wondering.  CREE only trades higher 44% of the time after an earnings announcement BUT the session after an earnings announcement closes higher than the open 77% of the time.  Hence, therefore, thus…one does not simply trust CREE through earnings.

Quite the contrary, you instead hunt an entry the next day.  I bought CREE after it gap filled down and was trading BELOW where it opened today.  The deck was stacked for your boy Raul.  I made it a full size position, market order like a glut, and the rest is history.  They I bought OESX at the low of the day.

Do you see what I did here?  I completely pwned the LED trade, live on the interwebs.  I am not exactly dancing the tapioca over here yet.  My book is 25% concentrated into the LED industry as of the bell.  A concentration some of you may perhaps deem mad.

Let me ‘splain something else to you.  SINZO ABE will not be instigating any wars in the Far East.  He took center stage at Davos proclaiming these words.  He instead intends to lead an industrious nation and keep his battles economic in variety.  This is very good news for the LEDs we love because most of their tiny components are assembled the laborious hands of China men and women.

Thus I am pressing the envelope with my LED exposure, and I intend do so until I see the whites of Thomas Edison’s eyes—live from the land of the dead.  That last sentence makes no sense whatsoever.  I possess the will of a madman is what I am trying to convey.  Just be aware.

I have lots of other risk, side bets if you will, companies whose goals are all centered upon intelligent humans making more intelligent decisions.   I could go on, but I have already said too much.

Take time to enjoy the traditional lighting around you if this is something you hold dear, for soon it will be only a small piece of your nostalgic pie.

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You can only keep a wolf caged up for so long. They build layers of fencing in place when you become an adult because they know how dangerous you can be if set free.

Every time I chew through a chain and whittle my exit hole larger they beat me like Charles Bronson. But every time I learn a little more, and I get a little closer to running wild along waterways, eating housecats.

You may find yourself commissioned to a small cube with carpet walls 50 hours per week. Maybe instead you live some kind of champagne lifestyle, jet setting and trading from your yacht. I am somewhere in the middle of these two, scarred up from these corporate shackles while my robot existence travels across the world extracting shekels.

My spirit is nearly free. And I assure you, once I break loose, the corporate machine will take orders from my helper robots.

Elroi is alive and well, today I fed him a few hundred thousand bits of tick data and the color quickly returned to his cheeks. I need to rewire some of his neuropaths to ensure he doesn’t do anything stupid, but he caught the move lower this afternoon effortlessly, cashing in before the entire fade was faded. Welcome back Elroi, you were missed.

My portfolio of stock lunacy started the day peak risk. I sold down some SINA. Early on I was up over three percent, I finished the day up over a percent. I have been running at a one percent plus return per day since ringing in the New Year. I want it to continue. Nothing satisfies, as my good comrade The Rhino would say. I want to beat up monks and take their trinkets so I can sell them on craigslist.

I need to finance my infinity pool and more. I am still very long. Stock picking is working well. I still like TSLA right here, and CMG is something I want to stalk for a snack.

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I want to get sappy very quickly to express my gratitude to you, kind people of the internet, and wish you wealth and happiness in the year to come.  It truly is a pleasure interacting with each and every one of you.

My market profiles are back up and running after my instruments went down Friday afternoon.  I write about market profile every morning because it is important to understand as a trader.  Many know it and they hide in the corner selling their ‘secrets’ in back alleys.  If you truly cared to learn this stuff it’s all out there.  There’s one good book on it and a full year of the logic applied live in the hallowed halls of iBankCoin. 

I’m going to teach the old people something very quickly—do you see the section on the right edge of our website that says Categories?  Bloggers use those to aggregate posts of a similar nature.

Click market profile and go nuts…tell you kids too.

It is of no threat to me to share my ideas freely because market profile follows the laws of nature.  Laws like force, resistance, vacuum, velocity and more that we as earthlings are bound to.  And as long as you do not bother me too often, I’ll talk it out with you because discussing it breeds insight and learning, you see?  We are learning together this is good.

Happy New Year!

RIP Madison Montana, may a short squeeze propel you into the heavens like they always have

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I have a tremendous gift of self-awareness but only most of the time.  Self-awareness may not be a virtue yet I can assure you it helps a trader.  Every time, and I MEAN EVERY time, I think I have this game all figured out I get a shovel to the face and teeth.  Whenever I find myself having these thoughts I throw on the caution lights and pull to the roadside.

These accounts I trade have swollen well this year.  I like to think it is all my hard work and dedication paying off.  And it’s likely that’s a part of it.  But the market has been bountiful.  This is my first time trading stocks in an environment where correlations have tanked.  I remember holding correlations sacred when I first started.

Treasuries up, equities down

Dollar up, metals down

Index up, stocks up

…and so on

Now I have a 90% long book, and it goes sideways/up while the market corrects.  Absurd I tell you!

I suppose I will keep on dancing until the music stops.  This is my first full year of blogging for you, the finest folks of the interwebs.   If you think my pen is dull today, you should read my archives for a cringe.  I am getting better.  I come to this site every business day and most weekends for the same reason as you—to learn from the outliers, the outlandish, and grow as a trader.

It is working because the team assembled here is incredible and helpful to boot.  I intend to be no less than 5x better a trader in 2014 then I am today.

Chess and I talked through why selling TWTR yesterday made sense.  These conversations are as valuable as an annual membership. Get inside the pay wall and check it out before they increase the rates!

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Today is the kind of day where I simply do not have much nice to say, so I opt to communicate very little.  The cordiality and couth I stockpiled for months was most entirely used up on distant relatives and my derelict friend set.  I applied many of The Fly’s etiquette tips to my festivities and things went swimmingly.

I spoke with an old and salty GM engineer for quite some time about the prospects of a certain Elon Musk and his stunning Model S.  He dismissed the brand repeatedly stating they will never go beyond niche manufacturer and that their cars are only a toy for the jet class.

He had his points.  He loves the Volt but could not justify the lofty insurance premium it carried.  The same goes for the Model S, except the niche factor ratches premiums up further.  One can service their combustion powered vehicle at 20 places inside a five mile radius.  The Tesla lacks 100 years of servicing infrastructure (mechanics).  He pointed to the $60,000 Corvette Stingray and boldly claimed it had more technology in place than the Model S.  Finally, he is convinced Toyota and their fuel cell technology will be rolled out, en masse, thus completely cementing the geniuses who mass produce automobies leaving TSLA to only service the upper scraps, the golden giblets if you will, forever.

This dilemma rings right through to LED, where an old industry is being disrupted by new technology and young leaders firing sniper bullets at strategic targets from their bird nests.  How I see it, eating an elephant is a large task, but if you focus on taking one bite at a time you get it done.  A strange man named Michel Lotito once ate an entire airplane.  I suppose I side with the strange and against all odds crowd.  I am sure Steve Job’s silly iPod was destined to fail too.  1000 songs in your pocket does not stand a chance against the brilliant minds at Sony, right?

Will the masters of industry in lighting and auto making be disrupted by TSLA and CREE?  Or will TM mass produce a car you fill up with gasoline which it uses to power a fuel cell that powers your transportation and your home filled with PHG bulbs?

I supposed that’s the thought I will be pondering over the weekend.  I would love to hear your thoughts.

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You may be expecting a delicious and powerful blog post from Raul today, a post loaded with grammatical errors and such demanding the prestige of my fellow internet trader.  After all, I am up 12 percent on yesterday’s GOGO purchase, with another block of shares deep in the green from pre-earnings.  Or maybe I could take a victory lap for cashing out some ONVO over ten and taking my position down to a runner which can now increase my trading account ad infinitum while I seek out other opportunities to extract funds from these markets.

On the contrary, I could gnash out a post going over the heat I am taking in my TSLA long or how I cut a small loss in NBG only to get a firm decock afterhours by a Baltic secondary.  This type of post would lambast short sellers and foretell stories of future victories over my villainous rivals.

But I cannot shake this cold chip resting snug on my shoulder which makes me want nothing to do with anybody.  I don’t even want to leave my office to head home and enjoy a warm fire.  I just want to sit here, staring out my dark window, sucking down saturated chia seeds.  Perhaps said seeds are the culprit.  Have you gotten on board this latest health tip?  You soak chia seeds, yes the exact same ones used on your Barack Obama pet, and then you suck down the gelatinous mix via water bottle.  It feels like you are slurping ground giblets but apparently you will have the strength of five Aztec warriors in a week or so.  So I added giblet juice to my regimen alongside heavy spinach consumption, moderate vitamin C, piss loads of beets, and the flax, and the god damned egregious water consumption.

Yet I still feel aloof.

I bought some WLT and AAPL.  I contemplated either WLT or SOL for so long I almost missed my entry.  The word of the day is slow.  The futures are not rotating how I know and love, yet I would have had a green day but I flip flopped on a long.  The level of focus required to trade futures is intense.  Stock trading feels like slow motion in comparison.  Today could have been a humble wage but was instead a mild shade of red.  I am 0-2 on the week, playing from behind.

I was a haught shade of green on the old port woo hoo

Have a good one

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http://youtu.be/icIv7nJqjuQ?t=37m26s

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My book was up over two percent today.  The sheep were shepherded higher by the benevolent RVLT which rolled out the Power Point slides they will be using in their upcoming dog and pony show.  The pocket of momentum present in solar fizzled into the bell but still provided impressive gains this week.  I hardly see the run up in YGE being over, and given the ace entry earlier this week and the scaled piece, the best play seems to let my money work here instead of constantly fiddling with the knobs.

The afternoon was all about MHR.  This is another stock I nailed my entry on.  Patiently waiting for quality entries at well-researched levels, even when the battle is at its hottest, gives me a huge edge when it comes time to manage the position.  I don’t get that pinch on my shoulder blades telling me I am losing my cool.  Being up over 10 percent on the name in a scant three trading days and feeling the urge to scale, I decided to do the opposite and buy more.  It brings my average up but still keeps my cost basis within the consolidation range.  It was a good move according to risk.

October is fast approaching and I get the feeling the headless horseman is dusting off the cobwebs and making preparations to thrust his axe into my spine.  Thus, even though I am 95% long, I have a clear sight on the exits.  I feel like a squirrel foraging through a bountiful prairie while hiding from the hawks under a squirrel sized umbrella.  Stocks like AMBA, BALT, MHR, and YGE are giving this small rodent the courage of a lion.  I will eat the poachers faces and then go lay in some mud with the Rhinos.

Such is the life of a squirrel in a tuxedo.

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