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Tag Archives: $CLF

Too Smooth

This is your Capitan speaking, the time is 5:01pm and we have touched down on the gap and the weekend.  The skies are sunny and I hope you enjoyed your flight.  I want to thank you for flying with us and hope you enjoy your stay.

It’s scotch thirty…

I let the instruments bring us in the weekend, flying IFR and letting the machines do most the work.  Speaking of machines, my jackass helper robot Elroi took one trade this week and it lost money.  I suspect he has been too busy courting the modified Siri to trade.  I intend to cut his binary unit off should this insolence continue.

We went on and on ad nauseum about the value area developing these last 36 hours and we formed the hypothesis that a move lower was in the cards but not to read too far into it beyond forming the proper boundaries of a quality auction.  Check out the final product, I call it Da Vinci’s brush:

smoothlanding

I catapulted my book 7% higher this week and still managed to end the week with 18% cash in the hopper.  I made all of this alpha while the market dicked around and formed Da Vinci’s brush.  I dicked around inside that auction too—trading futures for better or for worse.  This week it was for worse. 

I struggle to follow rules because rules are structure and I enjoy living a fringe lifestyle.  But I am telling you as sure as I am sitting in this Herman Miller that rules form the foundation to good decision making.  I have good rules backed by 100s of computer hours and old school back testing—gifts bestowed upon my person by the gods of large numbers.  I need to stick by them and stop dicking around.  In short, I am spinning my wheels in the mud, again, trading futures.

In the meantime the in between time I go out and earn 3x my losses trading MHR.  I told you pimps there were pumps ahead for the explorers.  END is next, watch it rip next week.  As for YGE, in one way shape or form the fine scholars here at iBankCoin have rammed this ticker into your frontal lobe.  Hot damn I spanked it out of the park this week again, nailing a perfect entry, scaling off a third, and now letting the rest ride.  Target?  You should be asking about my target because entry is only half the battle.

Ten twenty five.

Today’s moves were to cut CLF early, cash in some MHR later, and buy more LO FTW. 

Is the government shutting down or something?  I just trade these charts.

**IT’S ALL FAKE**

Be well,

Raul

http://youtu.be/Z4bVgEVnvyI

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Stock Pickers Market and Deviating from The Trading Plan

For most of my tenure as a trader stocks have been treated like a singular asset class and thus tightly correlated to other macro instruments like bonds, the US dollar, gold, and oil.  The binary nature drove me to studying futures because if all stocks were hell-bent on moving as one, I might as well trade them all simultaneously with an ass load of leverage.

I love the futures markets.  They are pure order flow with no dependence on a company and their decisions.  But seeing good companies and more importantly good charts succeed even while the market chops around is exciting.

It makes me want to concentrate more funds into stock trading.

I got caught on the wrong side (the long side) of the quick drop this morning.  Even though I preach plan adherence, I deviated and had to take a ton of heat on my trade.  The poor entry, paired with a non-market related event which shall not be mentioned but which has officially created a rule, caused me to shake out of my long—I shit you not—one tick off the morning swing low (about 11am).  No less than five minutes later, what I had expected—a bit of a bounce to cut my loss into—occurred.

This was a huge setback to my futures trading, huge.  I am so sick of setbacks incurred from plan deviation.  They are huge drains on emotional capital.

I went and had some tacos with a friend.  We talked about hunting mushrooms and it was quite the stimulating conversation and helped clear my mind to assess everything.  Trading structure will be restored for tomorrow’s action and it is good to make these mistakes while trading small, believe me.

Focusing so much energy on work and trading futures allows me to think much more slowly about stocks.  The more I learn from the excellent traders and stock pickers here at iBankCoin the better this approach feels.  My book is up 2.5% today while the Big Board chops the UNCH.

RVLT is a big part of the green portfolio, but it is getting plenty of help from IMMR, MHR, YGE, BALT, and FB.  My account is straight crack rock and ripping.

I see a huge consolidation occurring, as if we are waiting for news flow to get this party started.  Bull or bear, a party is near—I can hear the bass rumbles in the distance.  Until this decision is clearly made, I will hold the line, 90% long.

My slow money is in AIXG, LO, RVLT, MJNA, FB, O, F, and CREE

My fast money is in AMBA, IMMR, MHR, YGE, BALT, RBCN, and CLF

I still hold a sharp edge in the futures market and my win/loss ratio shows it.  The p/l however does not yet because of setbacks.  This isn’t over until I win which is simply a matter of time, not if.  This week however, my stock gains are casting a bright glow on my futures losses.

Pro Tip:  Like any business, be sure you are sufficiently capitalized.  Better yet, have other revenue streams so this learning process doesn’t come with the added stress of keeping a roof over your head.

http://youtu.be/cJT1xvDOMB0

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Turnaround Tuesday

There was an interesting occurrence this morning right before we printed the low of the day.  Price traded down to the overnight lows and then completely stalled.  This was right about when the POTUS took to the podium.  Then, as I had suggested may occur, we breached the overnight (yesterday) low briefly, the flow of stop losses created a temporary oversold condition, buyers reacted to seeing the weak sellers and a sharp buying tail printed on the /ES market profile. We also snapped the following trend line lower, finally:

trendlinesnap

I bought the YGE full sized amidst all this.  It was very lovely execution that brings a little sparkle to Raul’s eye.

The velocity of the move was enough to put plenty of shorts in the hole.  It should make for an interesting afternoon as value is being set higher then I expected in my scenario 1 balance hypothesis.

With today’s YGE purchase, I am about 85% long, mostly crack rock stocks—stocks like CREE, RVLT, YGE, AMBA, MHR, FB, RBCN, and CLF.

Can you believe I am nearly up 100% on my FB common?  I’m holding steady until at least $100.

The weak-to-strong closing type would be a change of character in the recent market activity and we may be looking at an inflection point.  It is a bit early to tell, but I like my aggressive positioning here.

I intend to use my winnings to finance the purchase of a Tesla Model S, the greatest automobile currently in production.

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Stay Focused on the Outcome

We could get together around a campfire and complain about the stock assassins and their research.  We could heat up a pot of baked beans while we jeer about the move in precious metals in the fifteen minutes leading up to the #NoTaper Fed announcement Wednesday.  Then we could sleep next to each other on the dirt staring up at the cosmos and cursing algorithms.

But that’s all loser talk, and I only like small doses of nature.

Instead, let us focus directly on what we can do.  Solutions if you will.

We can manage risk.  MHR is a different approach to entering stocks, I bought weakness.  Normally I enter alongside strength.  Traditionally I would have MHR on my watch list like it was, but I would wait for pricing greater than the last two days to show strength and momentum.  Then it would stall out like it did today and I would sit through a drawdown.  That method still works for me, but I’m working on anticipating the move a step earlier.  I could have already taken a profit in the name, but I am moving purposely slower on these stocks.

Zillow caught me off guard.  I saw it break my range, but I prefer to give stocks the benefit of the doubt meaning let’s see where it closes.  The volume profile below was very thin, we cut right through it.  I did not cut my loss.   Perhaps I will regret this but the stock behaved constructively after the panic abated.  I have managed myself out of uglier head fakes, and I have fumbled losing trades.  That experience helps.  As it stands, I am -6.43 % on a 10% position size.  Oh the humanity.

Zillow and CLF did however knock me off my high water mark.  CLF has not done me wrong yet.  Is the trade wrong?  No, it is only taking heat.  I will take my loss when it is wrong.  I lost my vision on this trade for a bit, but RaginCajun reaffirmed my vision.

There is gap supply coming into CREE.  You have to imagine all of those underwater folks are eager to cash in now that they are being made (partially) whole.  I put some trading capital into this name that needs to be separately managed from my investment.

A trade like RBCN makes up for 3 or 4 losers, this has been a forgiving market for longs.

I was green trading the ES this week, holding my own through some big waves.  This is the most exciting part of my week.  I cannot wait to build upon it next week and also to review my trades over the weekend.

I shut El Roi off before the Fed and have not turned him back on since.  I would imagine he is chomping at the bit to get his grubby algo hands back on the tape but first I must go through the ceremonial revamp of optimizing and chanting and such.

Overall I am just happy to be here, banking coin alongside some of the most insightful minds in trading.  If you have any tickers of interest or general trading/algo questions ga’head, ask me…I will answer them as best I can.

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Finishing My Coffee

The market has been unable to compel me into action today.  Instead I have sat here drinking coffee and watching my peers rip the faces off of shorts with supreme ultra-violence.  My goodness, RaginCajun extracts a solid win off of EGLE, passes the baton to Le Fly and here we are, winning the relay.

One of my twitter buds was all over the shippers move too, well done @Apoms24 on the DRYS.

The day after a huge move, overnight or RTH, tends to be tricky intraday.  Therefore, I sat in the bleachers and enjoyed the view.

Book largest-to-smallest: CREE, RVLT, RBCN, AIXG, Z, MHR, FB, CLF, LO, F, IMMR, MJNA, and O

Cash: 20%

Tickers of interest: YGE, FSLR, ONVO, ZNGA, FRO, END, and GMCR

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Sipping From My Cup

I was not actively trading the /ES today, but my algo was able to take two trades.  One earned 1.75 handles and the other was breakeven.

My portfolio had a very strong day today, up nearly three percent and putting me back near my high watermark of the year.  I’ve been trading my butt off to finance these investments in RVLT and CREE.  As a result, when RVLT and CREE go up, I have big days.

Let’s discuss RVLT a bit.  If we consider the sentiment chart idea, we find ourselves within the panic bounce.  To me this means any rally we see over the next few days/weeks is likely to fail.  How do you like that?  I’m telling you right now that my largest position is involved in a failed rally.  And that’s okay because my timeframe on this position is multi-year.  Let’s hope I’m correct so we can have better opportunities to buy even more shares.  Another anecdotal piece of evidence calling this rally into question is one of its origins: a {cringe} Seeking Alpha report.  The bozos at SA (as the hipsters call them) were greased to help somebody get out of a seriously underwater position.  This is just a theory, but their track record is eroding though the diligent work of iBankCoin Chief Market Strategist “The Fly”.  It puts a foul stink on the whole move.  If it wasn’t a pleasant twenty percent pressure release valve I would be even more ornery.

However, CREE reported they have retrofitted the NASA headquarters and done so quite successfully.  Hmm, Cree really knows how to land the big fish, yes?  Wrong!  The biggest fish tend to be the wisest fish—having survived years of fishing and boat propellers.  If/when these gigantic fish encounter a situation where their lighting is called into question, the data will unequivocally point them in the direction of LEDs.  Any entity that weighs the financial impact of any business decision will see the cost benefit of retrofitting their existing light structure with LEDs.  And CREE, RVLT, OESX, AIXG, RBCN, and GTAT will benefit.  Look at GTAT…shorts better pray to their demon lords that sadistic seven holds as resistance.  Otherwise the light, the good, shall prevail.

Other big winners today were TRLA, CLF, and END.  Readers, I’ve been clear with my calls.  It’s up to you to wrap risk around them.  I scaled a small piece of TRLA off because I take profit when the markets giveth.

My SKF has gone red by about three percent.  Tomorrow it comes to an interesting fork in the road where I’ll either buy more, do nothing, or scratch the trade.  I was hesitant to add to the position today when the SPY absolutely refused to roll over.  Checking back in just now, it appears it did manage to roll, BARELY.  Until I see more confirmation, I’m not loving this trade.

END needs to rip, I mean, come’on now, we’ve been flirting with the idea of going all the way for weeks. Why not get past this game of just the tip as @chessNwine often references?  I think we do, hence why I haven’t scaled any off yet.

CLF is tricky.  It has been dead money for so long and now it shows signs of life.  Do we trust it?  Or do we take our six percent and dump this cheap trick?  TBD

In closing, I kicked my cash up to 25 percent and could like to see some market weakness to buy my favorite stocks sitting on my wish list—names like Z, SFM, GOGO, AMBA, ADHD, and VPCO.

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Full Position Synopsis

Into the weekend I would like to very briefly run down my portfolio holdings and the reasoning behind each.  This information is coming off the rip after a long week.  Thus any thing with a flimsy justification may need to go.

Here we go, from largest to smallest holding:

Cash – I have 20 percent of my book sitting cash.  I’m eager to deploy it on the long side

SKF – I’m using a three year volume profile chart to view BRK/B, WFC, GS, C, etc. and I see a great volume pocket below prices.  Plus they’ve broken down off their respective highs and are printing tight bear flags.  The overall market is on unstable footing and I want some levered short exposure.

RVLT – Yes, it’s my largest long holding and currently the bane of my stock existence.  It earned largest ranking when I blew out my YGE and YELP shares this week.  They were my prior biggies.  The stock is trading worse than a bag of dicks at a hot dog eating contest.  There are no buyers and presumably a few large sellers cashing in on the 600% plus move that took place up unto the day I bought the stock.  The business model is stronger than ever, the shift in focus from consumer products to large scale retrofits is brilliant, and the investor population is still very shortsighted on the opportunity in lighting.  I still love this name, and I plan to cost average in through several quarters.

AIXG – My German LED company.  I love LED technology and I see this company as a beneficiary in Europe due to their energy awareness.  The stock has been dead money for months and I continue to hold.  Nothing has changed here, but this consolidation has excellent potential energy.

END – Huge short interest, oil exploration, and a hot chart.

CREE – Same as RVLT and AIXG, I want these names until incandescent and HID bulbs die.  I’ve been in since January, why exit now?

TRLA – I love their app and use it constantly, the chart looks great, Zillow has been a beast, value added to realty pros, and Le Fly is in the name.

CLF – Tight consolidation, looks like it wants to rip and if it doesn’t the risk is really low.  OA went YOLO on it this week too, although it never moved so that may have been a small loss.

FB – Marky Mark and the poke crew are getting it done.  Holding

LO – Blu eCigs and menthol cigarrets won’t actually get banned.  Interest rates need to stop rising, it’s making the coupon less attractive.

F – Still a strong chart and a nice product line.  This is a patriot long still kicking around my port since the 4th of July

IMMR – haptics are way underutilized by porn.  I think the porn industry will drive growth here 😉 Also, a Le Fly favorite.

USO – I should still be large but I took a bunch of scales on the way up.  I almost sold it all.  Look, that would have been really dumb.

O – it too pays a large coupon which is losing allure with bond rates rising.  I traded my favorite reversal pattern really well in here with a large position.  The locked in gains dipped my cost basis way down here.  So I’m basically break even on the idea, waiting to collect some coupon.

That’s my holdings.  I’m interested in a few other names, like SFM and GOGO, but will wait until next week to act (obviously).

Have a great weekend everyone,

Raul

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A Complete Rundown of Today

I had a flat tire when I woke.

The markets took a pause for the most part today and although a calm, balanced day should be high on your expectations following a trend day today was borderline absurd.  The first hour of trade is referred to as the initial balance.  The probability of taking out neither the high nor the low during a day session is less than five percent over the last five years of data.

Today we witnessed a tape so benign it was special.  I took a long at 10:30 AM, missed my profitable exit around 3pm, and scratched the trade break even at 3:10pm.  You wouldn’t believe the frustration that trade produced.  I mean, I look at a stock trade like RVLT, slowly bleeding the lifeblood from my person, like a particularly pestering mosquito.  Eventually winter comes and it freezes and dies.  But each /ES position carries a marginal value over $30,000…which is why I like my gratification instant.  My algo, Elroi was dormant today.  I expected as much since Elroi thrives in high velocity conditions.  Bossram put me on the right side of the opening bell and I extracted 1.5 handles.

I beat my head against the urinal wall then ate several hummus treats.

I had quite the laugh when I saw my boss for the first time today and, I kid you not, he was wearing a full Canadian tuxedo.  It was so majestic.  The only wardrobe piece missing was a mystical wolf tee shirt.  He also wasn’t rocking the official Canadian belt buckle.  Needless to say, it was a clear omen from the stock gods and I sold the majority of my BBRY long.  I’ve kept a 1/3 runner in case Wayne Gretzky makes a surprise move onto the board of directors.

The wires are reporting AMBA in fact beat expectations, as was written in these halls for months by our fearless leader, Senor Tropicana.  As you know, I exited the position yesterday, but I’m still bullish on the name.  The GoPro is as cool as RedBull these days.

I slapped on a pretty sizable SKF position into the bell.  It seems in slight haste in hindsight, but I had just untethered myself from the /ES and found the action excessively befuddling.  Therefore I thought it prudent first to sell one of my longs.  But I looked at all of them, the little rug rats, and I couldn’t part ways with any.  So I tossed on the SKF hedge.

I sold a little bit of YGE but I’m keeping a small piece just in case it keeps going.

I took nearly a full size position in CLF early on, it looks hot.

Time to go home.

image

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Looking for Basic Rotation

There are several cross currents in the market this morning.  Refiners are crushing and other basic materials are holding on right where they need to.  The important matter for this sector is whether they can defend these levels.  Shares of ANR and CLF both were flashing alerts yesterday and today both are catching an early bounce.  How this is treated as the day progresses could be a critical component in eyeing the continued rotation of bulls from more extended sectors (like small caps) to these dicey looking charts.

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