My 2009 Wish List

In 2009, I hope I never have to hear or see any of these people when I turn on my TV or read in my paper:

Tyra Banks Not everything is about you!

Dr. Phil Not everything's about you either!

Kathy Griffin Only if she comes out w/ new material instead of just talking about her run-ins with ACTUAL celebrities

Paris Hilton The face of STD

Britney Spears I used to like her but one day I woke up and discovered good music is not engineered on a soundboard and what beautiful woman should look like

Chris Crocker I'll leave Britney alone if you go away and never post a video on YouTube.

P.Diddy What he lacks in artistic and musical talent he makes it up in marketing second class products like clothing, vodka, and reality TV shows.

J.Lo Please stop making movies even the Chinese don't want to bootleg: Monster-in-law, Anaconda, Maid in Manhattan, The Wedding Planner, Gigli and you ruined Jersey Girl for me! I will never forgive you for that. That movie was actually pretty good after the point you died in the script.

Donald Trump Seriously, enough w/ the hair and pink ties

Jessica Simpson The year you break up with Romo is the year Cowboys win the Super Bowl

Amy Winehouse Get out of the pub and get back in the recording studio

Jonas Brothers Disney puppets w/ purity rings. Are you guys even actual brothers? Because one of you is not even good looking at all

George W. Bush Wake me up if he chokes on a pretzel and actually dies this time

Rosie O'Donnell The fat, obnoxious and not funny version of Ellen

The Hills and anyone associated with it Especially Heidi and Spencer, unless it's about their tragic death

Kardashian Sisters It's not like we've never seen a sex tape before...

And pretty much all the reality TV shows out there. Oh, and if your sister is famous and for whatever the reason your parents decided to capitalize on it even more by putting you on TV or in front of the press, do us a favor and just disappear already. We're not interested in you even if you do remotely look like your sibling in bad lighting. You hear that? Ashlee, Haylie, Ali

My Long Term Trades

I've been wanting to make more long term plays for a while except I can never quite lose the fear and I constantly look to see where the stock is trading at and that interfers with my short term trading. Personally I feel the general market is still in a down trend so I've been looking for things to short. Although, I do have to say that it does feel a lot more positive than before and it could be the potential of gov't stepping to help out the auto industry. There are a lot more political factors driving the market instead of just fundamental earnings. It's in a bit of a no mans land right now. I don't feel comfortable getting long when I can see some clear resistance meanwhile there's no point getting in front of the train trying to short. Because of this I've only taken some very small positions in my long term trading account.

I shorted ITRI on Monday after it shot up. It looked through out the day but it got pretty painful in the afternoon when it made another up move for couple of points. It did look like the sellers came back into control on this stock and the general market so I figured that I'd hold on to this and if it doesn't gap down the next day I'll cover it. Fortunately it did gap down the next day, except I was late to the office so after things turn sour again I covered it for a much smaller loss.

On top of that equity short, I actually sold some naked call options as well for the 60 strike price. When it looked like it wasn't going to work out I covered those and lost about $75 total, which isn't all that bad for my first option trade. The reason I said it's not bad b/c it could've been totally disastrous. I sold naked calls which means my risk could be unlimited. Also on top of that I didn't quite consider the time to expiration and how much this ITRI could move. I was only looking at the short term chart, which I do believe is going to consolidate here but surely a 10 point in a day is nothing surprising for this guy.

I actually got a call from the Pit on Friday asking about this trade and what my rationale was. I was really looking at this as three separate trades, the two options contracts I sold and equities short and I've calculated the amount that I was willing to lose. Obviously somebody in the backroom thought I was taking on too much risk and I don't blame them for thinking that; I thought so a little bit myself, which is why I covered my positions. Anyway, I need to be more careful with time to expiration and a stock's delta if I'm trading options from now on.

MELI was another short I had and like ITRI I looked for reasons to stay in the trade but I eventually covered it for a small profit after it hit my pullback. I got into CX short and it looked really good until the next day that I covered before it went to a new high. Sadly Wednesday, CX came out with negative news and drove the stock down. I got into HURN and it's the same story... hold on as long as I can but eventually cover for a small profit after a pullback.

I'm glad I took these trades b/c I'm applying the discipline of defining my risk reward prior to getting into the trade and adjusting my pullback as the trade goes in my favor. I got into small positions just because I don't want the P&L to affect my other trading and the market isn't quite setting up like I'd like. I don't know if there's a particular reason that I've traded almost all Nasdaq stocks in these long term, it's probably just b/c they're what came across my tickers at the time.

On a slight side note, I've been somewhat whining about the fact that I paid for a new monitor right before the new policy go into effect that if you yahtzee you get a second monitor for free. Well, another way to get a monitor for free is if you hit certain profit level. I was almost there so I sent in a request anyway and I was very happy to see that it got approved. Starting sometime next week I hope, I'll be trading with three monitors. I know the Pit is trying to get me set up so that I could at least see options quotes, which will be important come expiration date on this coming Friday. I plan to use my third monitor for options but other than that I'm not sure...

A friend of mine that's been trading part time contacted me about Kershner and we went out to lunch on Tuesday and I showed him the floor a bit afterwards. Funny enough another guy just messaged me on Facebook. I'm getting close to the HP status and I hope to earn the trust of the company soon to allow me take on students but that's probably still a good 6 months away. However, if I do have friends applying to Kershner at that time I sure would love to have them on my team. It's a bit of a wistful thinking at this time but I'm definitely making it a goal to improve my trading, make more money, and become a coach.

It's only December 12th and I've already met my profit goal for the month. Let's kick some ass the rest of this month, finish out the year strong, and build momentum heading into 2009. There's a Fed meeting next week. Happy trading!

My Saturday

I think I spent just about the entire day shopping... I don't remember exactly when I left the house, somewhere around 11am or noon and I didn't get back until 7pm.

Stop #1: Home Depot. I went to see if they have the washer and dryer I want on sale, looked at different materials and colors for the blinds, and compared a few different light fixtures for outside of the house.

Stop #2: Ethan Allen. Looking for office desk and bar stools.

Stop #3: The Domain. I think I'm going to get a PS3 for the Blu Ray, can't quite decide what TV to put in my room. I don't need a big one since I plan on mounting it to the wall; 30" at most. Looked around some stores for wine glasses and stuff for the kitchen.

Stop #4: Z Gallerie. Technically still in The Domain but I spent a lot more time here. Looking for bar stools, bed covers, shams, and other accessories. Picked up two photograph prints by Alan Blaustine. Couldn't find the other two that I was looking for so I might go back and see if they have them back in stock or ask the store to try to ship it.

Stop #5: Sam's Club. Looking for a TV.

Stop #6: Costco. TV again and other furniture stuff. They also have the charging valet station I like for a lot cheaper.

Stop #7: Pier 1. I think I found the bar stools and office desk I like here, plus a few other decorative items.

Stop #8: Crate & Barrel. Finally decided on the wine glasses, looked at some shams and coverlets

I was planning on staying at Crate & Barrel longer but I bought some pork products that need to be refrigriated at Costco so I cut it short. Otherwise I was gonna go to Target and Restoration Hardware as well. There's also Pottery Barn still.

Maybe all this wasn't necessary but I wanted to see all what's out there and what might work well together and fit into my budget. I'm not quite sure why but a lot of stuff are more expensive than I thought it would be. It's probably best that I don't go on The Price is Right any time. For example, I thought I could get a pretty good office desk for under $400, $500 at most but Ethan Allen had one for like almot $1500. Bar stools I was hoping I can get some real steals at below $100 but I saw some for $300, $500+... I don't know if anybody felt this way but since I'm making my own money instead of relying on my allowance I've definitely been more concerned and aware of my budget.

Speaking of budget... Costco was ridiculous. There were almost no parking at all available. Some other stores and shopping malls were all pretty full, too. People are definitely out looking at stuff but I'm curious to see how many people actually bought. The retail industry has gone all-in betting on the holiday shopping season. Just looking at Austin is an isolated, blip of the big picture, but if you ask me I probably wouldn't mind longing some Costco stocks at the right price. Ethan Allen I'd have to go short. I should've gone to Best Buy. I'm going to try to find time for that.

My dad seems to think some of my photos are good enough to be framed and put up in our house. I do want to get photoshop and process some of them. It would be nice to have more of a personal touch in the house.

My Barcelona

We got to spend a few extra days in Barcelona prior to the cruise. Here are a few pictures from around the city.

My Nerdiness

I'll admit I'm kind of a nerd sometimes. There are things that have deep scientific or mathematical theory behind them I find them deeply interesting. So while going through my RSS feed today I came across this article about Neflix offering $1 million to whoever can improve their recommendation system by 10%. Make sure to read the New York Times article if you find this interesting... I know I certainly did. I thought this was a really cool example about Bayesian theorem on conditional probability application but after reading some other nerdy blogs it might not be... I'm kind of confused now; need to do more reading. **Sarah, if you guys learn about Bayesian in your statistics class you can show this to your prof for some brownie points.

All I remember about Bayesian from statistics class is that it uses past data and application of regression analysis to determine future probability. In the case of Netflix, it's using past ratings to determine what movies the viewer might also find interesting. Other companies like Amazon uses this application as well to see what else you might want to buy. What's funny about the article is that the movie Napoleon Dynamite is throwing off the result by quite a bit... same applies to a few other polarizing films that people either love it or hate it.

While I was asking around the office to see if anybody would know Bayesian off the top of their head since it was close to the opening bell and I didn't have the time to try different searches in Google (at first I thought it was Keynesian but he's an economist so I knew I was wrong), Eric mentioned something about using that for trading... interesting; more in-depth thoughts later.

I also came across this item on a list of recommended gift for music lovers this Christmas. It's a shirt with a playable drum set on it and the sound comes through its built-in speakers. It's only $29.99... I'm really tempted to get it but I could also foresee some problems this causes, such as people coming up to touch or punch me to play w/ the drum set themselves. Nonetheless, I think it's really cool.

My Return

Back in Austin now... We got back to Houston around 9pm last night and hung out at my sister's place for a while after she picked us up at the airport. I got sick I think the second to last day of the cruise and I spent the entire trip back sneezing, coughing, and sipping on water b/c the air in the airplane cabin is really dry and it hurts my respiratory system. That's what I get for sleeping without a blanket for a few days and not dressed warm enough for those city tour buses with the exposed top deck. After being in transit for about 21 hrs I took a little nap and drove back to Austin at about 3:30 in the morning to go to work.

I'm not sure if it's b/c of the fact that I'm sick or that I'm still adjusting to being on land but I felt as if equilibrium is off. It wasn't a dizzy feeling; it was more like as if I'm still rocking back and forth with the motion of the ocean. Regardless, I didn't feel well at all trading today. My first trade I accidentally took about 1/3 more than the max size that I'm comfortable with and when I went to cover the position I over-covered as well. I pushed the position against myself and triggered my own stop. It's pretty stupid if you ask me. Sadly I spent the rest of the day trying to get back to even instead of catching up on my RSS feed like I intended. Pretty light volume but we still dropped 600+ point... craziness. I think I looked at a lot these index ETFs and they were only about 70% its relative volume.

Lots of stuff to do right now, not to mention the 800+ pictures from the trip I want to go through. Still a lot of stuff to do around the new house as well. Once I got the pictures ready I'll have them up in a separate post. I think I've gotten better... I dunno, I might just be spotting interesting things more readily compared to before. My dad messed with the camera and from time to time I would have problems with exposure and focusing... nothing too major though.

I got to thinking about the next step during the trip when I could get some peace and quiet. I'm going to start working on options trading strategies. I put in a request for an options account and it could take anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks I think is what the pit told me. I'm inclined to believe the later which is perfectly fine with me. Options is still pretty foreign to me but this gives me time to read more and refine my strategy.

I also spent some time talking to my dad about our business. We're probably going to try to make a run for it in Europe although consumer behavior or habit for our specific products might be a little different compared to the US and the market might be very fragmented. We got to talking a little bit about me starting to do more as well, on the financial and sales front with the family business. I don't think I would mind picking up some Spanish or German and try to enter the European market but there's a part of me that that doesn't want to family business. Growing up I always know people murmur that I'll probably turn out to be a bum and just rely on my parents' money and that's in fact been a motivator at times. Good part of me wants to blaze my own trails and do my own thing. At the same time, I know how much my parents put into this business and how hard they've worked to get to where they are. In a way it's their legacy and it's not something you just discard easily. If I can do that and trading while maintaining the necessary focus I certainly won't mind. We'll have to see how we can phase it over to me and if we do I'd have to concentrate on a different subject when I go back for my MBA.

My Test

Look, I’m a patient man. In fact, I consider myself to be very patient. You’d have to be in this household w/ a constant hormonal mother, and by hormonal I meant that as a euphemism for psycho. If my mother had been an alcoholic or has Alzheimer it would’ve been easier. It would at least help us explain the crazy mood swings she has. Sad thing is, whenever things aren’t going perfectly her way or she sense a little bit of stress she takes it out on the rest of us. So in fact, you’d either have to be very patient in order to survive in this family or you’d have to be insane just like her…

The thing is that I don’t get angry hardly ever at all, but when I do you’d better watch out. I don’t like it when I’m angry, and you sure as hell won’t like it when I’m angry. No, it’s not like I turn green with raging muscle from my head down to my purple shorts but every man has his limits. My boiling point is a lot higher than most but that also means that when I reach that point it’s going to be hotter and burn much more. Right now, I’m being tested. Ever since I’ve been on board this stupid ship I’ve been tested. First they tell us the excursion to Granada and Alhambra is full and we can’t go, now they’re telling us that we can’t go on shore to Morocco b/c of visa problems while the agents back in the States told us that we’d be able to if we go w/ an excursion group. I don’t know if it’s b/c of the international staff they have on board here but the way they say no is very hard to take or maybe I just have my heart set on going to Alhambra and Marakech and the rest of Morocco. They don’t just tell you “I’m sorry, no.” They like rip your heart out and directly shoot you down. It feels ten times worse than a girl breaking up with you I swear.

I really don’t like to complain. I don’t. But sometimes you really just gotta puke and let it all out. Unfortunately the blog-sphere becomes an easy outlet for puking.

Anyway, the Alhambra situation was eventually resolved since there were so many people on board wanted to go. I estimated about 7 tour buses with 40 people on each bus, or about 300 people. However, right now we’re docking at Casablanca and I can see the King Hassan II Mosque no more than a couple of miles from me but I’m stuck on this god awful ship filled w/ old people. It really makes me want to go berserk and burn this ship down.

I’ve been on a cruise couple of years back in the Caribbean’s but this ship just seems to be filled w/ old people. It’s as if the entire baby boomer generation from across the globe decided to book this cruise. This cruise is fully booked… makes me wonder if the global economy slowdown and credit crisis we hear in the news so routinely is just a joke. **memo to self: find companies that profit from baby boomers other than ISRG… something related to hip replacement or diabetes. I joked w/ Sarah the other day that the distribution curve for age on board if severely skewed to the right and if you run a t-test or z-test for my age I’d fall outside of even two standard deviations (if you are unfamiliar with statistics lingo, 2 standard deviations, at least in a normal distribution bell curve includes roughly 95% of the entire population)

I’m quite possibly the worst target customer for cruises. It’s like dying of a slow death for me. The only difference between prison and this is that there’s a poker table on this ship. Even the internet on board is slow. I don’t do slow. There are very few exceptions, like dancing and kissing. I should’ve been a New Yorker, really. I cannot stand the pace these people are moving and there’s no way to pass them in the hallways b/c other than the fact it’s narrower than usually, these old people travel in groups. Now I know what the scene you see in movies or commercials where a flock of sheep walk out onto the highway while you’re driving your jeep around in Ireland feels like. I am really considering running around the ship and put those slow moving vehicle signs on people’s ass, you know, the ones they have for like farming vehicles traveling on the highways. It’s not just mind-numbingly slow. I can feel a lot of other body parts going numb… no wonder there’s a demand for Viagra.

Dow cracked the 8,000 resistance and I really want to trade. My worst fear is that it's going to crack during the two weeks I'm gone. At first it looked like it was going to hold. I have no idea what's going to happen. It looks like Asia is up overnight so who knows.

My Vacation

So I'm going on vacation this weekend for the rest of November. I hope nothing too significant happens while I'm gone. We've already tested the October low yesterday. I was afraid that's going to happen next week and possibly break and I'm going to miss out on the action. There's a G20 meeting which I don't think in the short run it'll be that significant but will have a longer term impact. Since I'm a bit obsessive about schedules, I'm trying to plan out what to do each day while researching the cities we're going and you get an idea of my route.

Saturday, 11/15 - flight to Barcelona, arrive late close to midnight I think. Maybe roam around the hotel, scout out food places.

11/16 ~ 18 - ship leaves at 7pm on the 18th. From what Oliver told me, the Olympic Hill is cool and Picaso Museum, Sagrada Familia, La Rambla and Park Guell (and other Gaudi architectures) are all good places to go.

11/19 - At sea

11/20 - Granada/Malaga. We're here almost 11 hrs. I don't know if we have enough time for both places but I'm leaning more towards Granada if I have to choose. Malaga I heard is cool b/c it's right on the ocean and it's the birth place of Picasso. People have told me that La Alhambra is a can't miss... it's like part fortress, part garden, and part garden.

11/21 - Casablanca. 9 hrs in Casablanca and Rabat. I think we can taken an overnight excursion to Marrakech. If this means we can skip Agadir I'm totally for it. Casablanca has the King Hassan Mosque and Rabat has the Kasbah of the Oudaias, Chellah, and Old Medina to see. If we get to go into Marrakech I'm going to try to go to Djemma El Fna, The Souks Market and Koutoubia Mosque.

11/22 - Agadir. From my research this is just a tourist resort. Disappointing...

11/23 - Arrecife/Lanzarote. Timanfaya Park, volcanic mountains and supposedly we can ride camels along the mountain side. I'm all over riding camels, man. But I feel sorry for the one that's having to carry my fat ass around.

11/24 - Las Palmas. 9 hrs here... I don't really care about this place. Beach and hiking? who knows.

11/25 - At sea

11/26 - Lisbon. We're here for about 9 hrs. Oliver told me to go to Monasterio de San Gerronimo and Torre de Belem. I think they're close together in this monument area but I could be wrong.

11/27 - Sevilla/Cadiz. We have almost 12 hrs at Cadiz and Sevilla. My impression is that Cadiz is not that interesting. If it's possible I'd like to go see a bull fight (Plaza de Toros de la Real Maestranza). I think someone told me this was along the river. The Cathedral of Seville, Real Alcazar, and the Jewish Quarter have all been mentioned as places to go and see.

11/28 - Gibraltar. 6 hours here more or less. Dolphin watching, St. Michael's cave and the Europa Point are all good options here I guess.

11/29 - Palma. We only have about 6 hrs or less again at Palmas, I think we can go to Castell de Bellver (some Muslim fortress with a good view of the bay) or the Pueblo Espanol (I think this is built like a small village with classical Spanish architectural work).

11/30 - dock back in Barcelona at 5am. Don't remember what time the departing flight is at the moment...

I'm excited about the food. I'm done w/ my diet and I lost about 12 lbs. Obviously it'd be stupid to gain it all back but I'm comfortable w/ indulging a little bit. I want to get some paella, tapas, gazpacho, kabobs, schwarma, falafael, some Moroccan tea, and just good sea food in general. I love the fact that they ran an episode of Bourdain's No Reservation on Monday when he went to Spain.

My Weekend Review

So... I didn't beat my September. Disappointing... I actually got in a REIT and tried to hedge it with another except I got in a really bad price and too much size on the hedge. They ended up getting really out of wack and I lost a lotttt of money. Andy, our CEO, is back in Austin and he stopped by my desk to chat a little and see my progress.

I got my braces in on Monday. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would at first. Toward the end of my appointment I asked Jeff, my orthodontist, if this is the part that's going to hurt and he joked that "yeah, this is the part where we probably have to hold you down for" except I didn't know he was joking... Can't you see that I'm very nervous here!? The pain didn't quite kick in until Thursday and Friday. Along with my diet the only thing I could eat was beans and this chicken chili I found.

Speaking of the diet, I've lost about 8 or 9 lbs after 3 weeks. I haven't worked out as much as I'd like because sometimes it feels like I need a longer recovery period than normal. I do have to say though that I'm doing better in my weekly volleyball games as well. If nothing else I feel better. I'm not huffing and puffing as much and I'm more agile. I might deviate from my workout plans when it comes to leg exercises. You're suppose to have 5 second contraction and 5 second extension for each rep and for leg exercises that puts a lot of pressure on my knees. The first week was a pain to get through. I'd feel hungry all the time but as soon as I start eating I'd lose my appetite. Not able to have milk really sucks.

The house is a done deal. Closed the house and got the keys on Tuesday. Unfortunately a lot of my energy is spend on the new place right now, more specifically deciding about what to keep from the old place and what to move and what I need to buy. There is a set of living room furniture that's been in the family for I'd say 20 years and my parents and I just can't really find a good spot for it in the new place at the same time we definitely don't want to throw it away. I just spent a good part of today debating with my parents whether I should keep my old bed or get a Tempur-Pedic one, if I should stay with full or queen size, how to position my bed, where to put the rest of the furniture. If it's my room I should get to make the decisions and if I'm willing to pay for a better mattress what's wrong with that?

This is my standpoint: there are things in a house that you SHOULD spend more money on and there are other parts that you can get by a lot cheaper. A good bed is a good investment. Meanwhile my parents want to spend about 10 times the amount of a Tempur-Pedic bed on just a marble breakfast table. I think that's ridiculous. To me that's like buying a piece of crap car and you end up spending a whole lot more on rims and speakers to pimp out your ride. I'm all about simple, elegance, comfort, and affordable. Of course, if you want all four you are going to do a bit of leg work. Judging by all the just butt fugly couches my dad has purchased over the years I am really hesitant on having my parents buy the furniture. Being a Libra, I'm bless with style. Us Libras we appreciate beauty and we know it when we see it. I firmly believe it's also a big reason why I'm so good at these Project Runway, Top Design, Top Chef betting games or whatever reality TV show Bravo has on b/c we know what is beautiful and fierce and what is fugly.

My End of Month Rally

Tomorrow is Halloween, it's also the end of the month, which I'm hoping lots of action happen because I'm trying to beat my September record.

Anyway, I noticed sometime around the middle of this month while I was trying to make some adjustments that it was within the realm of possibilities. I've been consistently having these smaller big up days compared to the few huge up days I had in September and I'm at a good pace to beat it. I had a pretty good day yesterday with the FOMC rate cut, which actually I have to say that for some reason I heard a 25 basis point cut so I went heavily short when it was in fact the expected 50 basis point. Whatever, I made quite a bit on that big dip after the announcement came out. After Wednesday it started to feel real that I actually beat my September record.

I had to make a decision earlier this week whether to miss Thursday or Friday to go to the Spanish Consulate in Houston to get my tourist visa for the cruise I'm not going on around Thanksgiving time. Thursday being the day after Fed announcement, could have lots of action. Friday is the end of the month... tough choice. Because of the fact that I'm only permanent resident status (my family's paper has been filed since 1997... seriously, don't ever try to tell me that gov't is efficient) it makes it a little difficult when traveling abroad. We have to obtain a visa, which is usually not a problem, it's just annoying that they make you jump through a lot of hoops. It's also almost comical when we return to the country they question us at customs why has it been taking so long. Gee, I was wondering if you could shed some light on that.

I drove all the way back from Houston this morning after I got done at the Spanish Consulate to try to make some money at the close. Unfortunately, I got into this UNT that came out with a huge sell imbalance, I'm talking about over 100% and I got some decent size. It started working but then it reversed on me. There was news about it being removed from one S&P index into the other (out of the 600 but into the 400 I think) but I felt comfortable with the huge imbalance. I gave it quite a bit of wiggle room and actually even added into it. Let's just say that I eventually covered it for a loss. I put some orders out up top at the close because of its ridiculous strong up move and he in fact did print up. I got out of about a third of my position but I ended up having to hold the rest over night. Let's hope that I get some help tomorrow. By my rough calculation I need a little over couple thousand dollars to beat my September. I think it's totally possible. Wish me luck!

I'm glad I didn't get too upset over the UNT trade. I mean, yeah, it sucks that I drove all the way back from Houston to lose money. But hey, we play the probabilities and it just didn't work out this time and I think I did let it work against a little too much.

On a side note, there was a little scare in our office risk management wise about a week ago so everybody has been more cautious. Unfortunately I've also been wanting to get my capital raised so I can send out more and bigger orders. Thankfully it's been approved and my buying power is being doubled tomorrow.