Friday, May 7, 2010

The contrarian idiot trader

I have a gambling problem. I cannot leave the market. I cannot forget about losses. I will quit this game.

For one year I have been waiting for this market to crash. Since June last year I have mostly been short this market. Yes, I am an idiot. Yesterday I covered my shorts and went long just for a little scalp. Today I had classes and could not attend the market opening. The stops were in and all. I SHOULD HAVE SOLD AT OPEN. I WAS GAMBLING ON GETTING A FEW POINTS AT THE OPEN. When I can home the market was down 1%. I cancelled my stops to give some room. The other day I got thrown out of a trade by stops, when the trade was actually a good one. This is a road to disaster. The market tanked. With me  ON THE WRONG SIDE. I WAS LONG FOR THE FUCKING FIRST TIME THIS YEAR, AND THE MARKET TANKS 9%. MOTHERFUCKER. I sold my position at about 8% loss. I thought it was over, but my motherfucking internet provider cut me off. When i got back online the price had dropped 10% more (on my papers). I was stuck. Later in the day it rallied back up to where I initially had gotten out. A good place to get out? Yes. Did I? No. “The rally was quite strong, we might see rallying tomorrow”. FUCK YOU YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER. WHO THE FUCK IS BUYING INTO THIS MARKET NOW!

I am sick. I am demotivated with my school, I am exhausted in general and I have a gambling problem. I will have to recover the little that is left, and get on with my life. Maybe one day I will go back to trying trading again.

Monday, April 12, 2010

I am the creator of my own misfortunes

I have recently come to the conclusion that most of unfortunate happenings in my life are due to one thing: inaction. For whatever reason - laziness, fear or forgetfulness – inaction is a killer of so many things.

“it’s better to regret than it is to wonder “what-if””!

I will not hesitate from doing things I need to, should and want to do (in that order) anymore. There is too much to lose – and too little to gain, as we traders say; the risk/reward is not satisfactory…

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Commodities

A recent encounter has made me realize that I am fishing in the wrong pond. When I have studied it enough, I will start trading commodities instead. Metaphorically speaking I am more the size of plankton, whilst the big banks would be whales. They eat a million like me as a snack. Taking this further, I am learning that I actually need to be more like plankton, never doing my own movements - as plankton cannot affect the tides. I will rather “go with the flow” as the cliche says.

I miss the trading game.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Jeg er utbrent.

Jeg hater medisin. Jeg får ingen glede av å lære, har minimalt med nysgjerrighet for faget. Burde man ikke ha det etter et par års lesing? Jeg liker mennesker, og jeg liker menneskene jeg studerer med, jeg liker legene jeg jobber med og jeg liker lærerne vi har. Hva er det jeg jobber for? Hadde jeg gitt samme innsats dette drittstudiet krever av meg hver dag for at jeg skal stå opp til hva som helst annet hadde jeg kommet langt. Hadde jeg jobbet på McDonalds eller på Kiwi og gjort like mye for dem som jeg jeg har gjort “for meg selv” her skulle jeg eid restauranten/butikken etter kort tid. Det går mer og mer opp for meg at hva jeg jobber mot er bortkastet. Hva skal verden med en annen lege – hva gjør en lege som er viktigere enn en rørlegger? De trenger rørleggere på Gaza og. Ok, i emergency medicine kan du kanskje hjelpe noen som er syke, og det er kanskje mer “belønnende” når du kommer til himmelen – vent litt; noe som ikke rimer her… HIMMELEN!? Poenget mitt er at det er en jobb som alle andre, og skal man velge en jobb må man velge noe man liker å gjøre. Jeg streber ikke etter å være best i medisin, ikke engang best i klassen. For dette er et studie alle kan gjøre, i likhet med at alle kan rydde i hyllene på Kiwi kan og alle sitte i 8 timer og pugge neuroleptiske droger. Jeg vil gjøre noe jeg liker som ikke alle klarer. Jeg liker penger, jeg liker prestisje og jeg liker musikk. Vel, jeg trader aksjer, har flere businessideer og jobber som musiker. Kanskje kan livene kombineres, men jo mer jeg klarer å prestere på de feltene jeg interesserer meg for, jo mindre interesserer jeg meg i å drive på med det jeg gjør. Medisinen er den slemme forelderen som får skylden, som ikke gleder meg. Det vil si; medisin bringer meg glede i den grad glede kan defineres som fraværet av misére og stress rett etter eksamen. Som de sier; alt er relativt.

En annen ting er at jeg føler meg som en total idiot når jeg hver dag begynner med å lure på om jeg skal orke å gå på skolen. Er ikke dette noe man (etter grunnskole og videregående) skal glede seg til å gjøre for å lære mer om det man brenner for? 18-åringer er for unge til å velge hva de skal jobbe med resten av livet. En løsning kunne vært å ha, i stedet for i niende-klasse, å ha arbeidsuken i tredje på videregående, så kan man se om man virkelig vil gjøre det man ønsker å søke seg til.

Man jobber for seg selv, man burde skjønne det og aldri jobbe for noen andre. “Gjøre samfunnet en tjeneste” ved å bli lege? Spar meg for troen din på verdien av egne evner. Evnene dine er ikke verd mer enn 6-700.000 kr i året toppen. Men de er heller ikke mindre verdt enn 4-500.000kr i året, så noen av disse samfunnets tjenestemenn gjør kanskje samfunnet en tjeneste ved å selge sitt intellekt og sin tid på billigsalg til staten. Om leger virkelig er så smarte, så kunne de vel gjort noe annet. De færreste velger medisin og vet hva de går til. Det tar mange år å forstå dynamikken mellom sykehuset og privatlivet, og det har kostet tusenvis av ekteskap.

Har bablet fra meg for nå. Jeg er trøtt, sliten og føler meg utbrent. Er lei av å stresse fra eksamen til eksamen - er lei. Så veldig lei.

Index comparison

Just playing around with some index comparison. As you see from the merge of SPX, IWM, TRAN and COMP, we are at a crucial 78,6% retracement. Whether it means something or not – we will see.

 

2010-03-23_1535

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Busy times

Lately I have been busy with a lot of things, most notably by letting my losses run (haha, will I never learn) and reading for the next exam. In between, however, I have started experimenting with creating own indicators and doing my own research. Here I have a comparison between nasdaq, sml, sp500 and tran.

2010-03-10_0056

Of course the red arrows are nothing but wishing twigs – but it is logical if the market will correct within itself – big money circulating from sector to sector, letting small guys sell off, but not letting them sell the stocks down. For longs it is a good time to take profit – this last run has been excellent for them, and devastating for me (due to my own insufficiencies as a trader and human (inability to second guess myself).

Trading lesson learnt for this time?

  • Trade only short timeframe – Mats for you that means max 2 days. WITH STOP.
  • Trade intraday tickvix chart divergences (thanks Inna!)

The tickvix is a cool little indicator showing big market player participation. Lately however it is more like market constipation – with a small buildup (compounding) of crap every day… 0,4% here 0,5% there – oops 1,2% etc. In the end the only cure is a good and wet enema – or E.Coli infection with bloody diarrhea (/ PEE 3).

Friday, February 26, 2010

There will always be a better price

What have I learned from these last days? As usual my TZA position at 9.31 was early. I anticipate, but cannot wait. On the last down days I thought to myself; take the profit while you have it, it’s a good 3% of your account. Still I couldn’t quite do it, as I remembered how I would take profit and just see prices fly past the point where I took profit. This last week I instead remained passive – losing time (potential profits) and money. I have one OK entry price now; 20% at 9.10. Still, I really want to let it ride, as, logically, the money is to be made on the downside. This of course does not mean that I couldn’t have traded on my position. had I done that I would probably have been in a zero risk position right now.

I am expecting the downside to go past 1084,5 ES like yesterday. The run up was just amazing. Blatantly executed by MMs.

What have I learned?

1. There will always be a better price, therefore I buy positions and set good stops so that either price goes in my direction right away, or I limit the loss and can pick the stock up later for a better price.

2. Take the profit (partial) when feeling uneasy. If there is lack of strength in the direction you are trading and divergences in the oscillators – EXECUTE, DO IT NOW!

3. I am not biased, I trade in the direction of the market.

About number 3. I see now that there is a divergence between SML and SPX in buying/selling, the SML is clearly weaker – sell offs stronger and rallies weaker. This is a safe sign of trader sentiment – it has turned. Therefore I am keeping my position.