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
Thu Sep 19, 2013 1:52pm ESTComments Off on Keep an Eye on Oil Exploration
Once an oil man, always an oil man, until I am told otherwise by our Chief Market Strategist. With shippers ripping the cover off the ball today, I see no sector pairing better with the action than oil exploration.
I’m currently long MHR but END is the biggest winner thus far today. It is also the stock with the highest combustible energy (short float). Shorts will point to management incompetency and fallacious oil discoveries. I’ll point to the price chart—it is going higher in the face of these intelligent misfits whose knowledge base may be better suited for building doomsday shelters.
That being said, END is coming into resistance at six bucks. Watch it. Keep it on a wish list and see how it behaves at these levels. Supply (sell flow) should stall price out. Should it not, should short covering instead ignite a rally, END could become an eight dollar stock in short order. That leaves room for over 30% in gains for the mathematically challenged.
I cashed out my END shares a few weeks back. I threw in the towel a tad too soon, booked five percent and went on my way. Therefore my own pride pushed my buy trigger over to MHR.
Keep the space on watch, especially if oil firms up.
Other tickers of interest include: BBG, BCEI, BRY, CAK, CEO, CXO, EGY, FANG, GST, KWK, KOG, NBL, PBR, and FST
Pull up daily and 30 minute charts of EGLE, GMCR, ACTV, and END and you will see beautiful charts, tightly coiled and ready to make explosive moves. I want you to note I bought none of them.
I did however buy CREE and MHR taking my long exposure up to 75 percent. I have another 10 percent in SKF, leaving me 15 percent cash to navigate tomorrows FED day. That’s essentially why I did not buy anything else today. I like the stocks I mentioned in paragraph one. Any one of those could produce a big gainer.
Interestingly enough, after today’s CREE buy and pooling in RBCN, 40 percent of my book is committed to LED technology. RBCN has some action off the new iPhone home button too, but their sapphire is an important material in LED production. This is my very concentrated bet. Parts of it aren’t doing too well. Take RVLT for instance—the chart looks hellish, yep…technical term. And I’m -30% on the name. Don’t care. I mean, I care very much, but the stock is a long term speculative hold. AIXG cannot and will not break out of its consolidation range. My cost basis is the only thing keeping me in this play because if it wasn’t near the bottom of this range I would have a harder time stomaching these waves.
I took one trade in the /6E today. After /6e pushed lower, it pulled back to a place I could enter. The trade went in my favor, all the way to my target, but did not fill. This happens often, and it used to cause a great deal of anguish and regret. I would be like, “I put my target out too far, now I will be getting the fuck.” Now I don’t sweat the action, but instead manage that which I can control at this point. The /6E very well could have put in another thrust lower, and it still may, but it didn’t. Instead it put my position below water and then just held it there. Around noon I took a step back, had a stretch, and asked the following questions:
What has the /6E done?
What is the /6E trying to do?
How good of a job is the /6E doing on the try?
It’s helpful. I pulled my chart out a bit, noticed the /6e has gone very quiet, something I noted this morning. The market open introduced a strong thrust lower, but not to fresh swing lows. We’re making lower highs, but also higher lows: it’s coiling! That’s what it has done.
To my eye, the Euro is trying to do two things: the bulls are trying to work out of a range bound trade that lasted an entire year. They are not doing a great job so far. The bears are trying to reject range highs. They’re doing a decent job, but have been smacked about quite a bit these last 8-10 trading days. As a result, the /6E is marking time until an unknown factor causes order flow out of this consolidation.
It’s doing a pretty damn good job consolidating as the EMAs I track had gone completely flat on top of the VPOC.
So then, what’s it likely to do? It was likely to chop the consolidation range, the short trade was dead. Instead of just clicking the buy to cover and taking a 0.00012 loss, I was lucky to catch a bit of movement in my favor and only lose 0.0006. I didn’t want to be in a coin toss situation any more. I covered. My entry was good so I really have no complaints with the trade. It just as easily could have continued rotating lower.
And now you have read though my entire lunchtime /6E perspective and my subsequent introspective. Have a great one!
Last week I was trying my best to call out my futures trades in the 12631 chat room because I often get the value added benefit of hearing other members’ take on the position. However, it became increasingly stressful to provide timely updates on my positions and manage the trades. I thought I traded last week in 100 percent accordance with my plan. As a matter of fact, I did not. Upon reviewing the tapes of my trading, I found a costly mistake was made during the fast markets on Friday. It was my largest losing trade of the week. It was managed properly, once entered, but it was not in proper cycle sequence.
I decided at that point to keep my futures trades to myself. I do this for two reasons. First to benefit me by giving myself a more clear mind when trading. Second, I want to build my confidence in the trading cycle before I present it to the good people of iBankCoin. My colleagues all provided the finest value added commentary, and I want to provide the same.
Today was a quiet session after gapping higher in the indices, but I was able to extract 3 handles of profit from the /ES using Bossram. I extracted another 0.0012 in the /6e, so overall I had a pretty solid day in the futures.
Onto stocks, I built a pretty solid day in my swing portfolio. CLF showed solid follow through today, but I took a scale, reducing my long to ½ size.
I finally closed out END, toward the end of the day, when the momentum ended. This was a huge position of mine, one I wanted to parade down the warm streets of victory lane. Instead I chewed off the bits of meat left on the bones and tossed the carcass into an alley. I made five percent, at one point nearly nine percent, and expected to make twenty. But with international sweetheart Vladimir Putin putting a damper on the war, my thesis is eroding. I took money while it was still there for the taking. I like MHR better anyhow.
I was watching the live bloggers at CNET cover the AAPL WWDC and when they mentioned Apple would be using sapphire in their latest iPhone’s fingerprint sensor. I queued up GTAT and RBCN. I like both very much as part of my hedonistic desire to own all things LED, so the AAPL news was more an excuse then a pure catalyst to put sapphire back in my book. I took down shares of RBCN mainly because I like the chart better. GTAT is coming into longer term resistance here at seven as I mentioned yesterday. RBCN has a nice pocket of volume above and a simple-to-define risk.
My final move on the day was pure stock market vagrancy: I bought a stupid amount of MJNA shares. The ticker came to mind during a discussion with The Rhino. He was discussing Funyuns which reminded me of Half Baked and before I knew it I went down to the corner and bought MJNA. The chart looks interesting to say the least. To say the most I see really heavy volume coming in. Perhaps Doctor Phil is about to discuss the benefits of cannibals for bored housewives or something…
I’m down a smidge today, I kept my SKF on, and I’m still about 25 percent cashish.
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).
I really like the feel I had trading the /ES_F today. I’ve currently pigeonholed my discretionary trading to conform to the BOSSRAM ALPHA cycle. This prevents me rushing. It allows me to measure where we are in the cycle after some broad redundantly calls my phone so she can hear herself talk and position (or hand sit) accordingly.
You see, plates, I juggle so many.
One of my favorite trades in the market requires full attention because it can fly in your face quickly. I didn’t want to stop trading the chart picture simply because my day job doesn’t afford me focus so I automated it. This was the birth of ELROI.
Elroi doesn’t trade the picture as profitably as me. But what he lacks in profitability Elroi makes up in consistency. Elroi bagged 3.75 handles in profit today on trades that were too racy for me. I on the other hand, wielding Bossram, made $25 or 0.50 handles.
But it was fun to watch Elroi go to work while I waited for the market to come into the Bossram wheelhouse. This week I reset my account to $10k: five for me, five for Elroi, and I pulled the rest out to buy cat food.
You see, trading the /ES since April has been by and large a circle jerk and a dangerous one at that. It came down to losing focus. I’ve…courourrrected the problem and put several policies and procedures in place to ensure the new habits stick. My future’s trading operation is looking more like a Fortune 500 company every week. Goodness, companies like AMZN, GOOG, and SBUX aren’t on these lists by luck.
Learn from their cultures.
Now it’s exciting and I’m happy to fire up my futures every morning. It’s me verses Elroi. So far he’s winning.
ON TO STOCKS:
I sold AMBA entirely today. I told you very clearly I was taking this cheap trick for 10 percent and then taking my business elsewhere. AMBA fucked me once, I fucked AMBA once. Perhaps after earnings we can make love, or something. I earned about 8 percent on the trade. It was a 12 percent position.
I took profits in Ford(s) because I was watching the /ES_F weaken. It’s nothing personal. I still have a 5% position.
My top performers were END and YGE.
RVLT continues to ‘suck goat’ instead of retrofitting Manhattan with LEDs. Get to work you zoophiles.
I bumped my cash up above 25 percent and was up 1.75 percent on the day. I needed it. One thing is certain. When RVLT stops going down…I’m forecasting champagne showers.
I used some of that pesky cash on hand to reinitiate a position in END and start a new position in MHR. I have to tell you, the news cycle is an interesting creature, feeding us what we demand. Take Egypt for instance: they’ve been backwards freaks since the nose dropped off the Sphinx—troglodytes in sheep’s clothing. Yet here we are, with oil pulling back ever so gingerly after thrusting higher, and the news is aligning with another thrust.
Talk about harmonic orchestration!
I’m not here to debate the toxicity of news. I write to bring you the news, as filtered by my deranged microcosm. Oh, and I’m here for one other reason—to extract money from the stock exchange.
I’m up over one and a quarter percent today which has helped return air to my lungs. It was getting hard to breathe there for a minute. I had nine-one dialed on my rotary phone, entirely prepared to round out the final one only a moment before fainting.
Now I’m going into the weekend with confidence, unjustified as it may be, restored. I need weekends, you see, to allow me to gather my thoughts so I can survive five days of market flow.
I bought back into a long time favorite company and short term favorite stock of mine, American Apparel. They are the Cadillac of undershirts, which is great, I wear them almost every day. But buying their stock was simply a matter of financing more tee shirt purchases based on a chart I like. This thing has been dead money for-e-ver, and someone tossed in the towel these last two days, “fuck it” and I was there to claim their shares. I’ll AT THE LEAST, ride these babies back up to the dead money zone. At the most, we’ll finally get a pulse and I’ll ride a pumper. There’s a lot of good investors who believe in this name.
Heading into the bell, I’d like to open my book to your criticism. Here are my swing holdings, listed largest to smallest:
YGE, AIXG, RVLT, CREE, END, YELP, F, APP, MHR, LO, FB, IMMR, and O
I’ll be checking in this weekend with some data stuff I’ve been working on in the /ES.
Pardon my intraday absence, today was certainly one for the record books in tasks-completed terms. My head, it’s still spinning. At this point I’ve abandoned hope of completing today’s docket, stared out the window hopelessly, shot gunned my last Monster beverage (kidney stones in a can as I call it) and picked up my pen to debrief my internet people.
This was one hell of a trading session if you ask me. The SPY was dead tuna. I traded early on, via my /ES_F, putting in two really impressive trades, if I do say so myself. Aside very quickly: did you see scenario 1 on this morning’s market profile report? I wield a razor sharp fife before dawn and the market is my fiddle, dancing like I’m shooting bullets at its feet. I’m not caring so much about mangling that metaphor to bits. Anyhowdooski, I bought the LOD, so very nice, so very clean, grabbed two handles, then I bought again, grabbed another 1.5 handles and went on my merry way.
The volume was awful in the futures, it was like trading /6e_F back in my 3am polyphasic days. I used to run such a tight schedule I even timed my shits, times were odd to say the least.
In the stocks, I sold GTAT and END, nearly top ticking both. I felt like such a boss. GTAT reported today after the bell and guess what? They’re crushing! Something about the current economy and their involvement in the LED and solar game has demand picking up on their end. Indeud.
END was a little spinner for me, a marvelous few nights gaining all over it, then I sold out, leaving it without notice. But I’ll tell you this, if it keeps acting right, I’ll be back before you know it, especially because my girl Sooz is all over it.
All of the sudden and without warning, my cash was over 60 percent! Puke, I don’t care if we’re printing high water marks on low volume, there are stocks setting up, I needed more exposure. So this little piggy went to the market:
I bought ONVO @ $4.82
I bought YGE @ $4.00
Then I bought more YGE @ $3.96
I had a little bit of YGE kicking around in the old port prior to these purchases. I’ve been in YGE for a while now, we have a thing sort of going on, YGE and me. So…we’re going to make it a little more serious. Why? Because FSLR reports tomorrow, it could be a catalyst for the whole industry if they report strong. And if Premier Obama wants to hang his fedora on anything during his administration, it god damned better be outperformance by the solar industry in AMERICA. Home of the free baby!
And the irony of course is how I’m looking to benefit from this via a CHINESE solar stock, MAU!
Say what you will, but the manufacturing goes down in China, not our backyards, Gus.
ONVO I can’t say much for except, if I keep drinking these Monsters, somebody better be around to print me a new kidney, the tube that runs from my kidney to my bladder, a new bladder, and a new penis, because it’s all on the line.
Everyone’s getting their panties in a bind over tomorrow morning’s premarket jobs data, thus I thought it my public service to broadcast my book into the bell.
Enjoy,
Raul
Here’s my book, by size, biggest listed first and cascading in size smaller and smaller as the list goes on:
AIXG, FXY, F, CREE, FB, I, END, IMMR, YGE, GTAT, OCZ, BPZ, and O
You can ‘get by’ being mediocre. You may even be so lucky as to afford the occasional weekend vacation from your modest suburban home. Your children can attend mediocre schools and earn mediocre grades in spelling and mathematics. You can buy a dog off craigslist and admire its scruffiness and lack of AKC certification.
You might even set up a horseshoe pit to occupy your red necked relatives while you barbeque hotdogs. Fun times will be had by all.
I’ve traded mediocre all day, when I should be trading like Chief Keef, if that makes sense. Sure, I’m long, with about 50 percent of my book. Yes, I took two planned trades today in the futures, that earned chicken and beer money. But where’s the tenacity? Where’s the gumption?
I’ll stop speaking to my own subconscious now and address you, good people of iBankCoin. I traded like a little baby today, hiding under my sheets from the risk reaper.
Buying END yesterday was so perfect. I sized the position perfect: 10 percent of my book. The light and sweet ripped overnight, so I woke up like, “now these shorts can’t leave.” Yet I SOLD 2/3 of my long below $4.50, for what? I don’t know! I wasn’t getting my fix fast enough. I should have been scaling off right here, at 4.67, earning me more meat before trimming down to a runner. The trade has tacked 50 basis points onto my YTD return already, but it could have easily tacked on 100. I’m keeping my runner and aggressively hunting out more oil opportunities.
My second $ES_F trade I played along inside The Pelican Room, it fruited early and I earned my first scale, 1.25 points. Already being a puss, I nudged my first scale in a tick. Don’t ask why? Because I don’t know except the market paused for like 30 seconds. Then I sat through the lunch hour baby sitting my final contract. I started thinking the upside progress would clunk out so I raised my stop a few ticks above the logical support. You can guess what happened next: the market stopped me out to the tick then went One Direction, up, for four handles. That was my pay day.
I feel really confident about my trading right now. I’m so close to making a breakthrough, closer than most of you will ever be. Perhaps you’re this close too or at least you have been, but just at this moment your willpower fails you and you give up. That must be what happens, why 90% of traders fail, because they give up when they’re so god damned close.
