Why are there any Jewish Democrats left? (or *FLASH* FDR is dead).

DEMOCRATS……. 

REPUBLICANS…….

What a snoozefest………..!!!

This market is just waiting for something to happen, but for the last two days it has just been laying there.  Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) continues with extremely low volume, and is sitting at the bottom of its range.  It keeps poking it’s head though, but no volume comes in, and it just goes back into it.  Remember, I theorize that which ever way ICE breaks first, will be the “false” one. 

Internationl Exchane (ICE) is going somewhere…..!

As you can see from the chart below, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), broke out recently, and has formed a very narrow range on a closing basis.  This is one of the most volatile stocks out there, due to it’s low float (and I suspect the fact that many true “traders”, trade this stock).  It has no history of staying in tight ranges like this for very long, and as you all know, range consolidation, as well as volume dry up, usually leads to an explosive move one way or the other.  My gut says “up”.  I think if not for the huge down day in the overall market on Friday, it might have moved out, as it look like it was doing that at one point.  It finished the day with a bearish doji, so I am a little less sure now.  The key with ICE usually is, that it will make what looks like a strong move out of the range, one way or another, but then fail that move.  When it then breaks out the opposite way, that is usually the true move.  We will see.

Only question is if OEX holds it in place for a little bit longer.

Potash Corp Sask Inc. (POT).

Despite the large market move, courtesy of General Electric (GE), a lot of the stocks I watch did not move much.  Potash (POT) has a nice little island top that I am really looking at for a downside breakout.

But it has been very resisiant in the last few day.  Popping it’s head up to new highs, and then coming right back down.  When it recovered from its opening gap down, I figured it would try again, and I would try to capitalize on it.  On a 5-in chart, the 23rd bar finished at its high right at resistance.  I took and entry on the next bar, and actually got a few cents from being stopped out.  Fortunatlely, it reversed and did break out.  I wasn’t looking for the break to hold, as was the norm for the last few days, and when it printed an indecisive bar on moderate volume, I tightened my stop and was taken out.

 

Race and Clarence Thomas!

I am having a very interesting discussion on race, and specifically Clarence Thomas, over on another blog called Promethius 6.  I found it via a link on Trader Mike’s site regarding increasing blog traffic.

It is obvious that there are some extremely intelligent memebers over there, including the blog’s author.  However, I am afraid that I am viewed as the dorky white guy (which I am), who is naive to the plight of the black community. 

Event thought the intelligence quotient over there is high, I fear the anger quotient is higher. 

Let’s see where it goes, this is the link to my comments…

http://www.prometheus6.org/node/20503#comments

By the way….I am currently catching a nice breakout in Potash Corp (POT).

Goldman Sachs (GS) and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE)

First trade was in Goldman Sachs (GS) right at the open.  GS had popped out of an ascending triangle yesterday, and I felt it would continue that drop at the open.  I was anticipating a very quick trade, and that was what I got.

 

Next was Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).  ICE completed a three bar reversal pattern, that ended just below the ORH.  Because of that, I wanted to see a tight consolodation candle before I entered.  I got one, but it was not optimal, as it drifted upwards, and did not completely stay within the range of the previous bar.  However it was good enough to give a shot.  ICE rose on weak volume, continuing to close above the 5MA.  On the tenth bar, it formed somewhat of a hangman candle, which gave me a stop loss point.  When price went below that on the next candle, I took my exit.

Che is not cool, or how I crushed a 19-year old rebel!

As I was browsing through all the high quality, moderately priced items at my local Target the other day, I happened to walk by one of the store’s “associates.”  Actually, a 19 year old kid, wearing the pre-requisite red shirt that Target employee’s are required to wear as a de facto uniform.  The problem was, this one had a large photo of Che Guevara on it.  You know the one……

  

Now I was annoyed.  And it wasn’t just the fact that this look has become so hip, that it is not hip.  I mean if he just had the run of the mill psycho like Ted Bundy or Charles Manson on his shirt, I would have just written it off to shock value.   But I knew this kid was wearing it, like most out there do, as some sort of bold statement of rebellion and revolution.  Missing of course the point that Che was a murder, both literally and figuratively.  He oversaw the execution of thousands of Cubans, and personally took part in some of them himself.

 

In addition, he was a hypocrite and a failure.  He claimed to despise money, yet lived in one of the richest and most private areas of Havana.  He served as minister of the economy and promptly ruined the Central Bank.  Then once his usefulness to Castro was extinguished, he tried and failed in creating revolutions in Algiers, the Congo, Tanzania, and Bolivia.  It was there that he was finally captured, shouting, “Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead.”

 

The ultimate irony is that he was in fact summarily murdered himself, in the same style as his victims.  No trial, and no mercy.   

Hmmm….not looking quite as cool…….!!!

So, back to the kid at Target.  I walked past him, without saying anything.  However, as I thought about it more, I realized that his shirt would be repulsive to someone of Cuban heritage, and should be to the rest of us as well.  I decided to see the store manager, and complain.  An hour later I came back by the store (obviously, I have a lot of time on my hands), and spied the offending associate, but with his shirt turned inside out. 

For a moment I felt triumphant, then old, knowing that I had stifled some youthful rebellion that I loved to exude myself when I was that age.  But as I thought about it more, I realized that I never would have done it with a Che T-shirt, nor a Mao or Ho Chi Minh one.  I felt that I did the right thing, and it inspired me to create my own T-shirt. 

Note: Originally this linked to my Zazzle gallery.  However I was informed by Zazzle, that this photo violated copyright laws.  It turns out that the family of Alberto Korda (the photographer) has asserted copyright protection for this photo, even though Korda himself was a lifelong supporter of the “Revolution”, and allowed it to be public domain, never asserting any claims for royalties.  It seems as if the Capitalist acorns have fallen far from the Communist tree.
 

I may be old(er), but I still have that rebellious streak in me…..just in a more intelligent way.

 

Demonstrators in Latin America, demanding their right to elect someone who will torture and murder them!

Find out more about the truth about Che here…

Blame Tim Ferris…..

I started this blog 16 months ago originally as a log for my trading, to see if I could bring some structure into the process.  Since then I have been offically diagnosed with ADD, and begun both medication and behavioral work which has made a huge difference in my life.  I have been able to build structure in both trading and the rest of my life.  Part of that process involve evaluating your life and eliminating things that are time wasters and don’t add to the overall quality of your life.  This blog is one of the things I have been evaluating.  My original goal, to keep it up for at least a year was already met, so I have had to decide if it is worth continuing.  And if so, in what format.  I have so much to say, both in trading as well as other parts of life, and I am not sure if this is the forum to do it.  Besides, it does have somewhat of a “mastibatory” feel to it.

Anyway, I have decided to procced with it, but only as long as I can do it in a worthwhile way, that doesn’t consume too much of my time.  The end result should be more concise, and hopefully interesting posts,  done in a move efficent way (for me).

And on that subject, one of the other motivators for this review, has been the best seller…

The 4-Hour Workweek

Now I will admit that much of the author’s book has a “snake oil salesman” feel about it.  I don’t fully buy everything he puts forth, but it does make you think about what it is you really are aiming for in your life, and give a lot of ideas on how to cut out those things that are not contribtuing to it.

I would say, worth the $19.95

 

Crazy Market!

I bought a small position in ICE (Intercontinental Exchange) right near the open, and sold it 13pts higher.  Pure momentum trade, and I would have held it and averaged down if the market kept falling.  Point is, ALL my powder was dry going into this morning “crash”.  That was a nice feeling, and gave me the opportunity to buy at a low risk point, with limited position risk, and a potential high upside.

Is this trading?

Today I figured would be a bad day to try and day trade.  I just thought too many elements were in place (especially OEX), to make it a very choppy day.  It turns out that I was right.  But…..

I did take a “tricky” type of trade.  And by tricky, I mean “I-usually-lose-money-on” type of trade.  However, today I got lucky and made a nice profit.

I thought that we would have a very volatile, wide range day.  So my plan was that if we broke hard either way in the morning, I would buy some cheap calls/puts away from price, with the concept that if we whipsawed back to the strike price, I could take a position, opposite my options, and one half the size.  Then, if volatility continued, either way, I would make a profit, with the only risk being the very small cost of my options.  This how it went.

As AAPL (Apple, Inc) ran up this morning, I bought 160 puts, at an average price of 39 cents, and 2x the size of my intended stock position.  I then set a limit order to buy AAPL stock at 160.00 with a 1x size order.  Then I went away from my computer, literally, into the other room, and set an alert in case the order got filled.  It did get filled late in the day.  Now at this point, all I needed was for AAPL to rally to 160.78 or drop to roughly 159.21 to break even.  Any price outside those numbers would be profit.  Given the movement of AAPL over the last week, you would think that having it stay out of that 1.60 range would be easy.  But this was OEX, and those options market makers are much smarter than me, and know how to price things.  It looked like my clever trade would be a bust, but AAPL began a small rally, literally in the last 10 minutes of the day, and I got out at 161.70, for almost a point profit, or about 2.25R.

Once again, probably not the best idea, but the max loss was fixed, the trade was on auto pilot, and it seemed worth a try, even if just to show me never to do it again in the future.