June, Q2, and all of its awesomeness are in the books.  Now we must press into everyone’s favorite quarter, the third, infamous for blowing up accounts.

We had a little scare there for a minute, with bonds going tits up, but so far these fears have been swept under the rug with all the other market villains.  Will the V-shaped bounce stick in PCK?  It seems unlikely.  Volume has tapered off on the bounce up, making the move appear to be of the dead cat varietal.

So I don’t think we’re out of the woods, whistling and skipping across the prairie…blue skies and Teletubbies, yet.  If you are carrying yourself in such manner, have a plan.  Otherwise a surprise cyclone could drop a garbage truck on your person, like the finger of God removing your sperm from the gene pool, benefitting humanity as a whole.

I say all this to you while I stand atop 80 percent long equities, most of which are consumer discretionary.  Why would I carry such funk stocks in this uncertain climate?  It’s simple really, like always.  The wealthy, like always, they’re confident.  They’re always confident, but lately their confidence is at all-time highs, as measured by the Consumer Sentiment Index.  One of the best ways to improve the overall quality of your life is to upgrade your bed.  Don’t sleep on some piker mattress from a garage sale, covered in sweat stains and bed bugs—filth, I spit on your bed.  Most people (not most iBC loyalists) spend close to 40% of their lives in bed, why be ghetto about it?  The answer is they aren’t, they’re buying TPX mattresses by the factory load.  Good lord these babies have a sweet margin, too.

iBC Loyalists:

Also, there’s a big consumer push into adjustable beds.  They promise ergonomics, improved circulation, and an ace reading position.  Traditionally only the elderly and hospitalized enjoyed such decadence. Now they come with 52-inch retractable plasma screens at your feet.  UUUuughghgu!  Guess whose mattresses work best in such conditions?  Yep, TPX.

Now I won’t chop my dick off if TPX isn’t trading to $50 in July, but I have a ton of conviction in the name.  I crushed this trade late last year based on the same conviction.  Are you going to tell me I’m wrong?

I have 11 other longs aka peak position count.  I present them to you, largest-to-smallest, headed into July:

AAPL (lol), TPX, F, FB, ANGI, YGE, IMMR, Z, CREE, GS, AIXG, ENPH

May Julius Caesar and his month bring gifts to my person and yours.

Comments »

Yet the sellers can’t gain traction.  Every attempt at sending price lower to fill the gap below stalls out.  The sell orders are pressuring the bid this afternoon in the S&P minis but not achieving any progress.  All of this pressure building up has to go somewhere.

Meanwhile, with the help of The PPT I found some shorts in ENPH and squeezed’em pretty well today.  I scaled some profits, but left ½ the position on in case the pain trade continues.  The weekly chart suggests it could.

I hopped on board Zillow today after the impressive Pending Home Sales Index, which crushed expectations.  I hate when a house goes pending, BTW.  When I was about 9 months into my hunt and houses would go pending in less than 3 days listed, I would chastise my real estate agent and damn the illiquidity of homes.  This chart looks mint and I want it to keep looking mint so I can size it up.  For now, I’m ½ size.

These F shares are working out, up around 4 percent since my entry.  So far, we’re looking at a v-shape bounce in a big consumer discretionary.  The same goes for TPX.  This is like the housing trifecta: Z, F, TPX.  You find the house, you buy the car, you buy the bed.

We’ve been trend up all week, which SHOMP-wise makes sense, but for all other intents and purposes seems odd.  Now the questions becomes, do we run into the 4^th of July?  If we do, I want to be in patriotic names, like F.

I’m still in FB, did you know that?  I’ve ridden through the trough, and now things are looking really good.  This also fits the suburban lifestyle, shack up and talk politics with your delusional relatives.  Note: I don’t do FB.

Anyhow, I’m 35 percent cash and long the following names.  I’ve bolded my favorites and they’re listed by size, largest to smallest:

AAPL (fml), F, FB, SODA, YGE, Z, IMMR, CREE, TPX, ENPH, and ZION

Comments »

The tape we’re navigating continues to be tough on me, hesitating to grant me generous sums of money.  I came into the day a little over 60 percent long, as where I was more like 80 percent long on the way down, so I’m not recapturing my losses.

Plus I own some overpriced AAPL.  I’m afraid this stock lost its momentum a few weeks ago and is now destined to drift lower until a catalyst presents itself.  And here I am, -6% on the name.  I suspect we’re seeing profit taking by the huge funds who have called AAPL home for many years.  After a lousy quarter, who wants this name on their books?

My only action today in the portfolio was taking a ½ scale on my ZION shares.  Regional banks continued their strength today and we reached my initial destination.

I’m sick of solar stocks and I own YGE and ENPH.  I thought about selling both no less than three times today but I wanted to give them a chance to regain their mojo.  Perhaps they would think about how cool it used to be when they would run hard.  I don’t know.  Put yourself in a business owners shoes for a moment.  Would you rather build gigantic solar panels on your roof to generate a fraction of the energy you need, or cut your lighting expense by 75 percent?  Lighting which in most business settings accounts for 25 percent of the electric usage.  If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, “The easiest was for a business owner to place themselves in the graces of Premier Obama is to upgrade their lighting to CREE bulbs.”  CREE should have been accumulated on the dip…that’s your hindsight trading tip of the week.

I wanted to add to SODA all day and then I didn’t.  It just never convinced me.

Today was one of those sessions in the futures where I grind out all day long to compensate for two mistakes I made.  Then, sitting on a beige-green day, fairly confident the HOD was in, I got cocky and went long again and gave back my daily gains.  I made 1500 in profitable trades and 1650 in losing trades.  The lessons keep coming.

I’m off to tend to other business then swim no less than a mile.

Comments »

Whether you trade weekly, daily, tic, range, or minute charts you MUST recognize a lack of trend and behave accordingly.  To trade momentum there must be momentum.  I know V.King would enjoy that sentence.  Once you recognize conditions where momentum is gone, you must adjust to fading extremes or sideline yourself.  That’s it.

I like to use EMAs to give a trend some visual clarity.  When EMAs of different speeds (i.e. the 9 and 33 period) converge and then flatten out, that’s a strong indication the market is on pause.  Such was the case all morning.  Today it was easy for me to avoid because we were working inside a tight market profile and we had the Fed in the afternoon which I knew would give the market a pause.  More times than I would like to admit, I haven’t been so astute.  And every time I fail to recognize these conditions the alogs pick me to pieces.

I’ve been a doubter of any such trendless action most of June, but as the month drags on it’s becoming a distinct possibility that we’re entering a flat consolidation phase.  My 9 and 33 are flattening out and going sideways.  It would make sense too given that my momentum plays are all fizzling out.  Take a look:

 

I’ve spent the last few weeks churning my portfolio with small wins and medium losses.  All-in-all I’ve given back hard fought gains.  Anyone who tells you the gains came easy is wrong and unwashed.

Today I cut most of my China junket.  I sold off BIDU, YY, and MY.  I sold WETF along with the Fly and I took some profits in CREE, keeping the position about ½ size.

You may notice a much less manic tone in my writing.

I’m up over 50 percent cash now and lost around 1 percent today.  Current longs listed largest to smallest are as follows:

YGE, HMIN, IMMR, RVBD, CREE, SCTY, RGLD, TPX, and FB

I want to keep my speculative swing positions down.  I’m getting confused, tracking so many positions.  Plus liquidation becomes more taxing by my broker.

I’ll ride most of these through the trendless chop of the index.  But I swear little allegiance to any and will cut to make room for others.

I don’t love the idea of shorting up here, but both T and JBLU look like great swing shorts to my eye.

Bottom Line: It’s summer now.  We may still push higher but we’re showing signs of stalling momentum.  This is the third major pullback too, it has a much lower win rate then the first two.  HOWEVER, we’re on the proper side of the 33 EMA, my primary demarcation.

Comments »

Apropos that I would get all excited about the LED industry last night and not over the weekend putting me one day behind the move.  The kicker of it all was stalking GTAT yesterday but not pulling the trigger.  I wanted to see a capitulation move lower.  This is an example of an opportunity where getting half my position on would have worked.  And given the gaptastic nature of AIXG, I don’t want to chase it higher.  I’m shaking my fist at the entire industry.  At least I have my CREE.

All last night I thought about how much I wished I had bought BIDU and SCTY into the bell.  They both looked great on a closing basis.  So I came to market and bought them both today.  Now I don’t really want SCTY.  I can be so fickle at these choppy junctures.  No less than three times I’ve considered rolling all the SCTY funds into BIDU.

I’m getting really excited about this TPX trade, it’s working out well.  Look at that weekly chart.  Another strong weekly candle has to have you seriously considering this name for an intermediate term swing long.  Yes, I’m talking my book.

I cut RENN and HSOL, but the rest of my China basket is in place, lined up in marching formation, ready for ramming speed.  Actually HSOL looks ready for ramming speed too.

At one point I was 92 percent long.  I had to adjust that down a bit.  I cut ODP, RENN, HSOL, and DDD.  All-in-all, I have too many longs if you ask me.  I’m bombarded with great setups and my ADD has gotten the best of me.  None of these trades looks bad at this point; they just don’t look as good as my other longs.

Now I’m sitting 75 percent long, awaiting The Fed.  I’m very slightly red on the day, and my broker loves me.

Comments »

Per the modus operandi, I started the day as I always do: panic when the alarm rings and direct my fuzzy eyes to the undersized iPhone for quotes on the futures.  “Oh they’re up wonderfully!” my internal dialogue rattled off.

I had my new breakfast, water with no ice.  It’s very American to ice your water, especially in the morning.  Next the morning commute was divine, showing signs of diminishing congestion. The blessing come summer of less women driving their bastard children to school. 

Upon arriving at my terminal, my minion greeted me with coffee.  I like my coffee just like my women: hot, black, and strong.  I immediately scalp two handles of upside out of the $ES_F.  Then I spot the trend change and capture 4 handles down during the gap fill.  Oh how lovely a morning it was.

Then the bozos kept selling the futures down.  Bozos really, for they’re fighting a losing battle with a structured system much more powerful then they fathom.  So I bought more YGE.  My foray into trading solar stocks isn’t dead, yet.

As we’re all held victim to the caprices of the Yen and its stupid ETF, FXY, I said forget this and had a walk and enjoyed some fancy tacos.  This is nonsensical noise.  Eventually this mess will all be sorted, lines will be snorted, and ladies will be courted.

Moving on to more pressing matters:

The very important matter of my birth is just around the corner, and I refuse to let a stupid little currency and the jackass carry traders sully my good time.  I’m eating many cakes.  I’m eating many cakes with both hands and getting frosting all over my mouse and keyboard.  I don’t care.

Do you see how much I’m not caring right now?

Until the market starts bleeding me out via my swing longs, I’m looking at a very green day of future trading pared with some resilient longs, names like CREE, TPX, and IMMR.  Hat tip on the haptics good Fly sir.

We know how it ends, but can you stomach the intermediate roller coaster?  Find a way how.

Comments »

I was caught out of position today in FSLR and as a result was stopped out for a single day 6 percent loss.  Listen closely, it happens.  The way I chase momentum, about 1 in 10 trades does this to me.

If you recall, I bought two solar names yesterday, YGE being the other name.  Interestingly enough, this position is sized the same as FSLR.  But pull up the two charts and you might be able to see why one stopped out and the other didn’t.   I’m not saying YGE is a sure winner here, the trade is still in question, but it is/was a better bet than FSLR yesterday at 3 pm.

CREE burned me too when it melted its heat sinks and lit the ceilings on fire here in la casa de Raul.  I will go to hell and back with this name though, extra devil.

Every other part of my book sucked less, which is good.  YY is at an important junction.  This junket may have already reached its destination as they say, but I would be remiss if I cut it after one day of selling.

My largest position performed admirably.  Well done HMIN, may your holding out for better days be met with strong accumulation.  I’m talking to stocks again…I need to bring this up next time I see my therapist.

I closed out the day with cash elevated back to 35 percent.

Comments »

The first time I went on a sea voyage was aboard a CCL vomit comet.  I remember a storm tossing the boat about and enjoying running down the long hallways, maniacally, whist others hugged a wall and resisted the urge to purge.

I’m not quite to that level of confidence yet in the futures, but I was happy to hold my own today and earn a meager bit of coin.  Keep in mind, this could have been a very swell day, but I shorted into the hole and it took 4 handles to find out.  Big seas.

I traded a lot, 27 round turns, 16 winners and a sore neck.  I closed the day a slight hue of green both in the face and in the books.

I would imagine most people seeing all this work return so little and throwing in the towel.  However, I continue to make mistakes, and they continue to cost me money.  Once I iron out a few small issues this entire process becomes another income stream.

The market rejected the SPX gap aggressively, impressing upon many the feeling that we may be gearing for a bounce higher.  Several of the more studied traders resisted the urge to participate this afternoon, opting instead to save their cabbage until after we see the data tomorrow.

My swing portfolio was up today, lead forward by HMIN, IMMR, and CREE.

Comments »

On losing days, my old routine used to be calling up some buddies and having a few beers, chalking it up as another hard lesson from the market.  I can always have this mentality because the money, I don’t depend on it.  I’ve always been told consistent profitability in the markets requires a low stress money situation.  I agree.  I absolutely can’t imagine being in a financial pinch and trading.  As for the jumpers, they’re simply cowards who can’t swing the poor life, thrift shopping and such.

Today really wasn’t as bad as I’m making it out to be, but frustrations were quickly compounded and before I knew it I was going ‘Full Gibson’ beating people over the head with rocks and such.  I played back the tape of my futures trading just now and the mistakes didn’t start until I made it about me.

I made it about me.  Not the markets, because some crazy shit went down that rattled me.  Let me explain:

I took planned trades, trades with statistical advantages.  The first two win.  Good start.

The second trade takes off as soon as I get it in, looking great, gets to my exit, prints my target a few times, I don’t get filled and it slams down and takes me out break even.

At this point things are looking REALLY choppy and moving REALLY fast.  For the next 30 minutes all hell breaks loose, Raul taking funky ass unplanned trades.  Good God, it looks like I fired a machine gun at the screen.

Funny thing is, my last trade, a long…something was still firing in the old noggin…my exit looks like the most beautiful short entry you’ve ever seen.  The floor fell out seconds later for five handles, then many many more.

This all happens very fast you see.  I lost sight of the market.  I started having a very real and very strong feeling that the algorithms knew exactly where my stops and targets were, and they were fucking me. That’s paranoia…fear based nonetheless. Me, me, me, that’s what my internal dialogue sounded like.

Recognizing this, I cut almost all my risk out and pressed my cash to 65 percent.

Some names I just couldn’t let go of.  Here they are, presented by size (biggest-to-smallest):

AAPL, CREE, IMMR, RGLD, HMIN, DANG, and FB

I also hold some cheap lotto tickets in HPQ weekly calls and NFLX.

My fate as a trader lies entirely on backing off when conditions don’t favor my style of trading.  It’s something everyone has wrestled with I’m sure.  It’s never hit me this hard in my life, even though I’ve taken much larger financial blows.  I was furious.

It’s a learning experience as always, but this one left a lasting impression.

BOTTOM LINE: ALWAYS LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY

Comments »

Yes, there was a selloff this afternoon.  Indeed, the NIKKEI is doing scary things.  Sure, there’s lots of uncertainty in the bond markets.  And certainly, we’re knee deep in month end foolishness.  But why not have fun with it?

I know everyone’s different in their approach and I respect that.  The buy and hold investor who got involved any time in the last 5 years is probably crushing, if he picked good companies.  The swinger who is patiently waiting for cleaner conditions is probably preserving a nice chunk of earned capital, waiting for her next opportunity.

I’m trying a little bit of everyone’s soup.

So far, my first two attempts at this option game have appeared well timed, SNDK and NFLX.  I’ve taken scales in both.  Aside from the paper gains I’m sitting on, which are very real money, I have a free ride on my lottery tickets, silly contracts set to expire tommorow.  There’s something to be said about this approach.  If either one of these continue higher tomorrow, we’re talking about 30-40 percent gains.  I never considered such speculation until “The Fly” brought OptionAddict into the mix.

I traded the spooz so poorly this morning, I can’t wait to review the trades while slamming my thumb in a door jam.  I need my pointer finger for clicking.

I HAVE MY CHINA FIX: Long shares of HMIN and DANG

Let me talk about DANG a bit.  My good friend @stockcats suggested the name via fortune cookie.  One thing stood out to me, the near geometric perfection of the triangle up here.  The Chinese, they love structure, symmetry.  Their leaders will point to this chart whilst we sleep and demand it resolve higher, as a show of power and formation.

I nibbled on the little bank that could, NBG.  I can’t pass up a good joke, even if it’s on me.

See my Dee’s?  DDD looks fantastic up here.  So do AAPL SNDK CREE and NFLX.  FB doesn’t look too shabby down there, either.

I’m feeling lucky, so I’m pressing my bets all over the place.  I can assure you some of them are wrong.  Until we decidedly trade lower, I’ll keep dwelling in the speculative components of the market.  But hell I’m young, I can afford to lose it ALL.  Fuck it.

Should I fall square on my face tomorrow, this post will serve as a jagged reminder of my insolence to the cautionary winds.

Comments »