Today was just equally crazy. VIX went up above 40 and actually went past 42. For those of you not familiar w/ the VIX it's kind of a measurement of volatility. SEC has put in another rule on short selling so I think there were a lot of stocks getting short squeezed at the close. I should've long a whole bunch of EWZ but one of my trailing stops was just a little too tight and I got stopped out and never found a good entry to get back in.
I got some crazy ridiculous print for some crazy amount of shares and in my panic I covered and I just kept getting some really favorable prints all the way to the close and by the time dust settled I have set yet another personal best about SIX times the amount on Tuesday. I don't really like to talk about P&L here, in fact, I don't like to talk about P&L period. It just makes me negative. My parents don't even know how much money I make (or lose sometimes). They would try to coax it out of me sometimes and I simply refuse to tell them. Some of you are probably thinking... well, yeah, it's easy to make six times of $10. Let me assure you, it's not like that. I still don't feel very comfortable talking about the amount, but let's just say it definitely involves more than 5 figures.
This is usually how it is for me though. I'll set a personal best and I'll trade right around it before going back to my regular P&L days. I'm just trying to maximize this momentum right now and kick some major ass before this craziness go away.
I was at a Texas Exes Young Alumni happy hour event at a wine place and I tried to find this wine that I had on the flight back to Taiwan on EVA Air. I knew it was a German Riesling but b/c it was German I didn't really remember the name. Well, I managed to track it down and the wine place had just one last bottle left so I asked them to hold it for me. I picked it up to celebrate and treat myself a little for good trading and sticking to my rules lately. My sister was also in town since they still have no power in Houston after Hurricane Ike and she's been obsessing about the wine as well. I might try to find out where the vineyard is. I really love this wine even though it's borderlining the too sweet side(Sarah, I know you read this... help a brother out)
3 comments:
Hi Jason,
Sounds like, well, typical trading these days what bwit the high vol and all. Watching C today, especially toward the close was like watching GS when they were trading around $180! Would've loved ot have ridden GS down over the last couple of day!
How you dealing with the lastest round of SEC Bullshit on the no nake shrts thing? I'm thinking trade SPY or QQQQ for awhile or else learn to trade long-only. Problem with the long-only is that when the bids dissappear, it's air on the way down!
Would love to hear your thoughts,
Best,
Dave
yeah, GS is crazy. I was watching STT more closely and couple of other insurers. It's really not surprising anymore to have a stock drop 30, 40% anymore. CEG had some crazy moves the past two days. I have to say I'm def more short biased... I just don't get the same satisfaction watching a stock shoot up then watching it tumble; maybe I'm sick like that.
Our firm replenish the short stock borrow pool and sometimes we can't locate stock to borrow or we don't have enough and it is frustrating in those situations. We ran into that w/ quite a few actively traded ETFs today. I trade a lot of EWZ, XLE, XLF, and sometimes the banking ETFs like KRE, KBE and RKH, and we had either limiited shares today or none.
There were some quite interesting action in the banking sector today. I've managed to put together a list of regional banks with high short interest percentage and trading with high volume after the close today w/ the help of one of our support group. That list is about 120 stocks but I've always got a subset of that list which looks like short squeezes judging by the price action at the close and that's narrowed down to about 30. Chances are I'll get long some of them, depending on the price action. I'll expand more to other stocks w/ high short interest, maybe like UA or CROX but banking look a lot more interesting right now. And REITs, I'm looking at a lot of REITs lately.
The last time around when SEC implemented the limited short selling there were definitely some stocks that got a boost from it either b/c of less selling pressure or other people trying to game it by going long. I think you'll see that again. Find some good candidates, good entries, identify your risk and your plan, and happy trading!
Hi Jason,
I think I might go back to the old thing with our firm using conversions. You are long the stock, but hedged in the options.
So, you have the stock to sell and the firm is hedged. They charge like 8% or something annually based on the price of the stock, so it's pretty reasonable on a monthly basis.
Got to admit I'm a perenial bear - I just love selling stuff and watching it break! This is one of the only "breakout" type plays I do - longs just don't run the same way. Longs, I try to buy pullbacks on low volume in established uptrends.
Just watching things drift today what with quadriple witching and the idiot politicians all waiting to speak and demonize us eveil short sellers. Somebody on Bloomberg this morning said, "...capitalism on the upside, and soacialism on the downside." LOL! How true lately!
Hope all's well, and have a good weekend!
Best,
Dave
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